Focus your energy on the clear abuses of power by the current regime, instead of hypotheticals and edge cases in the system you once had.

The US had a great (not perfect!) system. Free speech with reasonable limits, set by laws and regulations. And helped by a certain amount trust in the system.

When power hungry people, who started abusing the system with misinformation campaigns, ran into those laws and regulations, they claimed the system was treating them unfairly. Those people are now in power.

And trust is now at a minimum.

You could blame the past system for not being able to prevent this regime, but that wouldn’t fit your beliefs. I for one, am happy that we have more stringent rules in the EU.

That current regime is using the exact same machinery that you're advocating for to suppress freedoms, and it seems to me that your solution is to make it more ripe for abuse. This doesn't make any sense. And no, we're not talking about "hypotheticals" here when the abuse is happening right before our eyes.

Laws and regulations aren't a magical solution. You have to think about how they can be abused, or they'll be weaponized to achieve the exact opposite of what you intended. This has been abundantly clear for those who have been paying attention. See for example how lawmakers have been repeatedly pushing laws claiming to "protect children" that does nothing of the sort but does everything to erode civil liberties.

Even the laws claiming to protect children had all sorts of due processes.

But laws or no laws, the biggest problem is that laws and regulations don't count for the current regime. There's nothing to protect the layman from your government with this conman in charge. Consumer protections have eroded, criminals have been set free and people have been abducted.

Rules don't matter anymore. Nobody trusts your government. It's a jungle now.

That is not true, people championed others to be removed from all kinds of platforms.

I am not inclined to defend any stupid opinion, but especially on topics like the pandemic people were cheering on others getting banned. There is a political cost to this and that does extend to people having little ground to criticise the current US administration on these grounds.

Free speech doesn't give you the right to a megaphone on every platform you see fit. It just protects you from government prosecution. As a moderator, I also ban people who are just obnoxious and loud without any substance.

Right now, the government is suppressing free speech according to the very definition of that term.

How can you not see the difference.

You can do that as a moderator, but you still violate the principle of freedom of speech in that case. The is the prejorative of any group to do so.

I tend to prefer groups that understand the principle of free speech, but it isn't a hard requirement.

Culture formerly forced large commercial internet platforms to adhere to freedom of speech and we have lost that partially. And people are rightfully not too amused about that and it isn't necessarily team Trump they blame for that. That is the reality why he now can claim to defend freedom of speech, even if it isn't really true.

> It just protects you from government prosecution.

The first amendment of the US does, but the principle goes beyond that. It is a necessary requirement for independent research for example. There is no law for it and it still is essential.

You might want to look up what free speech actually means before engaging in discussions about it.

Free speech means a lot of different things. I like Ken White's framework

https://popehat.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-free-speech-ped...

Free speech rights - The government shouldn't restrict speech

Free Speech culture - Private institutions shouldn't punish speech

Speech Decency - Individuals should judge others by their speech

Incoherence - Nobody should be judged for anything they say

Families are also private institutions. Have you ever corrected your kids in a shouting match?

I have no clue what you are trying to say.

All private institutions, families included, can set their own terms and conditions on where they draw limits to free speech.

There are no free speech absolutists. Only realists and hypocrites.

Let us use a reference here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Your interpretation is widely spread but also wrong. The government is only a relevant party if we talk about specific laws.

> As a moderator, I also ban people who are just obnoxious and loud without any substance.

You then don't follow the principle of freedom of speech, simple as that. That is no crime, but you aren't liberal in these cases either.

Taking away the megaphone is simply not incompatible with free speech and there will never exist a single person or institution who will adhere to what you say free speech means.

Depends on the circumstances, it very well can be. Who are you to decide who gets a megaphone or not? But abstractly you cannot really confirm or deny such statements.

But that is besides the point. The criticism of free speech isn't new, the arguments are always the same and usually those that argue for more restriction do end up being wrong. I don't see the path developing differently here.

To ask why Trump can capitalize on these issues, a careful reading might be appropriate as the result wouldn't be too surprising without needing to much predictive capacities.

"It depends" "It can be" "Cannot confirm or deny" "Might be appropriate" "Wouldn't be surprising"

This is tiring. Have a good day.