RE: Free Speech, The Internet, Filter Bubbles and Censorship
Well said. Like kind attracts like kind until there is balance, harmony, peace.
And, as you know, opposites attract as well; like the opposing ends of a magnet. However, what they attract is not always good, and they always battle one another. There is a dynamism with opposites, friction, intensity. Sometimes, like kind is needed, and sometimes opposites are needed.
The concept of free speech involves these two attributes: like kind and opposite attraction. Ither way, it has to have practical limits for everyday life. We have the right to speak freely, which means we have the right to offend.
So, we must exercise free speech only to the extent that offense does not lead to violence. Even the most patient and understanding person can be led to violence if continuously offended, under the guise of "free speech".
The same is true of other rights. For example, we have the right to bear arms. But, it would be offensive to walk around with a handgun actually in our hands everywhere we went. So, rights must be exercised in a practical manner.
People on the internet seem to think free speech is violated when they cannot say or do whatever they want, without being censored. The reality is that those broadcast platforms are owned by someone, someone who does not want certain things said and done using their platform.
So, when someone wants to express free speech without being censored, they must find or create their own platform. People who want to hear and/or see them will seek them out, and they have the right to seek out followers.
Recently, a lot of people have been complaining about the denial of advertisers on YouTube. There is definitely a change and a decision to stymy content. The people who create videos on that platform cannot force the issue using the "free speech" argument. They do not own the platform. So, they must ither create a new platform, or upload videos to another platform; like STEEMIT or DTube.
Free speech is always free, depending on where one uses it.
Certainly other platforms are free to censor as they please, but they may do so to the detriment of developing a healthy community where new and valuable ideas can be forged in battlefield of a good discussion.
Why certainly when one wants to exercise their free speech they have to create their own platform, open platforms provided by internet that facilitate communication is a good thing. And open platforms and ideas tend to flourish as time goes on.
I will disagree on the violence thing, however. Unless someone is threatening your safety or the safety of another person directly, you should never use force because someone says something you may disagree with. Are there people that use violence? Absolutely. But when someone offends someone in a way socially inappropriate and that person uses violence, the person using the violence is committing the worse action. If that person didn't use violence, then society has ways of isolating people who take free speech too far. But no one should be prevented from speaking on the basis that they might get hurt because it may offend the wrong group of people. Because some people get offended at the tiniest things and we shouldn't be intimidated by them if what we are saying is something we believe in.