You mean we should have no free speech or elections to ensure democracy?

That would be the safest way if we don't want Trump or Putin propaganda to win.

I see what you did there.

Sure — as my friend likes to say, "Democracy is the rule of the democrats". Recent developments have proven him right.

It's the paradox of tolerance or whatever, we're seeing that free speech and open elections have allowed the intolerant / autocrats to take over and take away those liberties, which implies that in order to have stopped them, they shouldn't have had those rights.

One point of concern is that the idea of free speech has been used by foreign influences to change the opinions of people over the years.

Anyway, counterpoint, unless there was voter fraud etc, democracy allows people to vote against democracy, so if that is the will of the majority, so it goes. Of course, one could argue it wasn't the will of the majority but of a vocal minority, which is the other problem with democracy.

Many people in the "Western Civilization" seem to agree with that stance. Sad but true.

Free speech? Or free lying?

Democracy rely on people being able to vote for those who best represent their interest.

when company sell people's profile and allow political parties to target them with personalized advertisement,

When journalists are allowed to be completely biased that no one trust them anymore,

When fake news are allowed to be spread across social networks without any obstacle,

You remove people's right to make an educated vote on who is best going to represent their interest.

So yeah chrome, Google and other data harvester are part of the problem with some social network and the unregulation of such an important democracy tool that is journalism.

Rampant misinformation certainly makes it harder to figure things out, but I disagree that it somehow removes people's right to vote for what's best for them or making an educated vote. I don't find that kind of rhetoric helpful.

Politics is complicated, and most people are neither interested nor qualified to determine what's "best." Even the experts often do not know or agree on how to "fix" things that are broken, so how should the voters? Most just want to be able to afford the groceries.

I agree, in the current climate a normal person could never be expected to make the correct choice on what their best interests are. To safeguard democracy we really need to protect the less advantaged here.

> To safeguard democracy we really need to protect the less advantaged here.

By providing them better information.

Free speech does not mean you should be able to spread lies without consequence

Er, actually it does mean that.

No, free speech means you can spread lies, it implies nothing about being immune to consequences.

The first amendment makes you immune to government consequences, but free speech in general makes you immune to consequences in general.

If a really bad thing is imposed on me when I do X, then I'm not free to do X. Otherwise we'd all have the right of free bank robbing (despite going to jail).

Free speech does not make you immune to consequences. Of course you're free to do X, you just have to decide whether or not to pay the price of the consequence.

We can rob banks, we just have to decide whether or not it's worth paying the price of being caught and going to prison.

I literally have no idea how you've come up with such a crazy take on things.

So I'm free to rob banks, I just have to decide whether or not to pay the price of the consequence. This country has freedom of bank robbing.