Has freedom of expression gone to far?

[Lencoboy]

I know this question might be controversial to some and I don't in any way mean to cause offence to anyone, but particularly owing to the current political situation in the USA where the social media giants have now barred Trump, where they previously seemed to have an 'anything goes' attitude, and seemed indifferent to misinformation being spread across the globe willy-nilly, does anyone think free expression has now gone too far and used as a lazy 'get out of jail' card for a lot of misdeeds?

Don't get me wrong. I still consider free speech/expression by far the lesser of the two evils compared to full-on totalitarian dictatorship, but surely lines need to be drawn somewhere?

[ankietyjoe]

Trump was using social media as a 'call to arms'. He was inciting hate speech and whilst in power he was threatening to shut down any platform that opposed him.

In this case, his stupid fat fvcking mouth needed shutting. Freedom of speech is a double edged sword, and censorship isn't always a negative thing.

[Lencoboy]

Trump was using social media as a 'call to arms'. He was inciting hate speech and whilst in power he was threatening to shut down any platform that opposed him.

In this case, his stupid fat fvcking mouth needed shutting. Freedom of speech is a double edged sword, and censorship isn't always a negative thing.

I agree with what you say there, and I think the current Trump affair is probably the final straw, coupled with all the pandemic-related BS that has been circulating across the Web over the past year.

The social media giants should have taken their heads out of the sand and attempted to curtail this misinformation madness ages ago IMO, even long before 2016!

Nevertheless, YouTube have seemingly got tougher over more recent years regarding some of the content posted on there, unlike during its earlier years, virtually anything was permissible on there, such as videos of terrorism, riots, beheadings, happy slapping, vandalism, domestics, child abuse, animal abuse, you name it, all with relative impunity, and available to view freely by all and sundry, plus the comments section underneath often littered with endless F, C, and N-bombs!

[Fishmanpa]

A new report charted a 73% decline in misinformation on Twitter and other social media sites since Trump and many of his allies were banned. That should tell you something. If you've noticed, the media talks far less about him as well since the ban as they don't have that constant feed of drama all day. Best thing that could have happened IMO.

FMP

[Lencoboy]

A new report charted a 73% decline in misinformation on Twitter and other social media sites since Trump and many of his allies were banned. That should tell you something. If you've noticed, the media talks far less about him as well since the ban as they don't have that constant feed of drama all day. Best thing that could have happened IMO.

FMP

Well that's reassuring to know FMP.

Hopefully once all the current Covid-related restrictions finally come to an end and the pandemic finally starts to peter out (which I'm sure it will as this year wears on), people will start living life for the real once again and not get bogged down in relatively trivial matters and 'fictional' events just because they're trending on social media!

[MyNameIsTerry]

Thought it was all Putin's fault?

Balance. There is Trump but there is his equal opposite too. Make sure you censor both and leave your personal bias out of it.

Speech comes with consequences in the UK and we don't have an Amendment to try to justify it.

Has it gone too far? I think you are many years too late on that one. But then we never really had it anyway. The internet complicated matters as lawmakers have always been so slow to extend real world laws to the Wild West internet with different lawmakers seeing a different challenge; different societies so different levels of normal real life censorship and control.

[NoraB]

I know this question might be controversial to some and I don't in any way mean to cause offence to anyone, but particularly owing to the current political situation in the USA where the social media giants have now barred Trump, where they previously seemed to have an 'anything goes' attitude, and seemed indifferent to misinformation being spread across the globe willy-nilly, does anyone think free expression has now gone too far and used as a lazy 'get out of jail' card for a lot of misdeeds?

Re Trump: the man used his social media platform to incite violence and people died.

"With great power comes great responsibility."

Trump has millions of followers...

Don't get me wrong. I still consider free speech/expression by far the lesser of the two evils compared to full-on totalitarian dictatorship, but surely lines need to be drawn somewhere?

Problem is that people demonstrate their right to free speech but forget to act responsibly and respectfully. Sometimes it can be 'heat of the moment' stuff, but many people are just R soles.

[WiredIncorrectly]

The premise behind freedom of speech is to be allowed to say whatever you like. This should always be a fundamental human right. But, if you say something that upsets people you've got to be prepared for the consequences of those actions. This is no different to free will. In this world you can literally do whatever you want. But there are consequences to those actions if you break the law etc.

My 2 cents

[ankietyjoe]

The premise behind freedom of speech is to be allowed to say whatever you like. This should always be a fundamental human right. But, if you say something that upsets people you've got to be prepared for the consequences of those actions. This is no different to free will. In this world you can literally do whatever you want. But there are consequences to those actions if you break the law etc.

There are also consequences if you don't break the law. The way that social media works is very dangerous for the free speech brigade. You only have to look at the absurd theories about vaccinations and lizard rapists to understand that people can be hoodwinked en masse to believe complete fvcking garbage.

[WiredIncorrectly]

There are also consequences if you don't break the law. The way that social media works is very dangerous for the free speech brigade. You only have to look at the absurd theories about vaccinations and lizard rapists to understand that people can be hoodwinked en masse to believe complete fvcking garbage.

Yeah this is a problem, but I think it demonstrates the gullibility of those people. I think society will learn over time that 90% of it is a load of crap.

I've got an SMB7 now, so maybe my first video I could expose what these people do and how it's purely for profit. The likes of David Icke. Urgh. The Coffeezilla channel on Youtube exposes a lot of stuff. Good channel. My soundcard doesn't have the gain power though, have to normalize everything.