> Not at all. I'm simply asking whether you can see how speech restrictions can be abused. Nothing vague here.
Speech restriction being able to be abused doesn't mean that speech restriction is never appropriate. There are countless things that are fundamental to day to day life that can be abused but are vital in their non-abusive form.
> This is an anti-scientific perspective. There is no such thing as "known falsehoods". There is only "current best understanding", which is the thing that most aligns with observations of reality.
If you are making a claim based on information you know to be incorrect, this is a known falsehood. This isn't anti-science, we're not talking about people making arguments against the scientific consensus in good-faith with some framework behind their reasoning.
> Questioning existing axioms or intermediate conclusions is a great technique to advance understanding of reality. If everyone simply referred back to the previous "foregone conclusions", we'd still be trying to discover fire.
Trying to frame this discussion as being a matter of people performing science and not people taking a politically or financially motivated stance (or people that have been conned by people that did that) is also fundamentally dishonest.
> The problem here is the gatekeeping of discussion. Humanity has spent thousands of years trying to escape the power of the societal priest class, and we are in a better place than ever.
Free speech isn't absolute, and private companies are allowed to moderate the speech that happens on their property. This isn't a societal priest class.
Even an extremely slanted Supreme Court didn't find that the actions of the government had significant influence on social media companies and their tamping down of covid misinformation.
> There are countless things that are fundamental to day to day life that can be abused but are vital in their non-abusive form.
Great. Waiting for your argument on why this is one of them.
> If you are making a claim based on information you know to be incorrect, this is a known falsehood. This isn't anti-science, we're not talking about people making arguments against the scientific consensus in good-faith with some framework behind their reasoning.
I'm curious, how did you come to know that everyone who is asking questions not in line with the consensus belief is a bad faith operator? And what makes you able to assess the framework behind their questions?
> Trying to frame this discussion as being a matter of people performing science and not people taking a politically or financially motivated stance (or people that have been conned by people that did that) is also fundamentally dishonest.
This is exactly the problem. You're equating the small minority of folks who are using their speech to defraud with the remainder of the "dissent group" (for lack of a better term) who is trying to get to the truth. Then, by claiming the existence of the minority's speech is incredibly dangerous, attempt to ban anything not in line with the orthodoxy.
I'm not defending people using their speech to profit politically or financially. I'm saying the benefit of getting rid of that speech is not worth the collateral damage that would inflict.
How did the folks that questioned the early "masks aren't effective" claim stand to profit? Or the claim that the virus definitely 100% had zoonotic origin? Maybe you believe they were heavily invested in mask manufacturing companies and were imminently about to launch a political campaign on a Sinophobic platform?
> Free speech isn't absolute, and private companies are allowed to moderate the speech that happens on their property.
There's a lot to unpack here, and I'm not sure how much you've gone into the details of what you're saying, but:
- "free speech is not absolute" is not normative, but descriptive (not really relevant to our discussion)
- "private companies are allowed to moderate the speech that happens on their property" Wrong. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._R.... Whether this applies to social media is currently being tested in our court system.
- SCOTUS saying "not much came of this" doesn't mean nobody was wronged, or that much couldn't have come of it. Also, doesn't this (govt intervention in speech) directly contradict your claim that it was just private companies acting in their own domain?
> This isn't a societal priest class.
You're literally advocating for a priest class, who is blessed to discuss "science", because they are doing it in the way that you interpret as "good faithed" and have the right "framework" behind their discourse. Which is exactly what qualified the religious leaders of old times.
I'm incredibly grateful to not live in a time where only certain people could speak on particular topics. I wish more people were.
Speech restriction being able to be abused doesn't mean that speech restriction is never appropriate. There are countless things that are fundamental to day to day life that can be abused but are vital in their non-abusive form.
> This is an anti-scientific perspective. There is no such thing as "known falsehoods". There is only "current best understanding", which is the thing that most aligns with observations of reality.
If you are making a claim based on information you know to be incorrect, this is a known falsehood. This isn't anti-science, we're not talking about people making arguments against the scientific consensus in good-faith with some framework behind their reasoning.
> Questioning existing axioms or intermediate conclusions is a great technique to advance understanding of reality. If everyone simply referred back to the previous "foregone conclusions", we'd still be trying to discover fire.
Trying to frame this discussion as being a matter of people performing science and not people taking a politically or financially motivated stance (or people that have been conned by people that did that) is also fundamentally dishonest.
> The problem here is the gatekeeping of discussion. Humanity has spent thousands of years trying to escape the power of the societal priest class, and we are in a better place than ever.
Free speech isn't absolute, and private companies are allowed to moderate the speech that happens on their property. This isn't a societal priest class.
Even an extremely slanted Supreme Court didn't find that the actions of the government had significant influence on social media companies and their tamping down of covid misinformation.
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/justices-side-with-biden-...