> another perspective is possible, that Trump should be able to speak freely as the leader of the country supported by half its population
Arguably Trump would've been banned under Twitter rules a whole lot quicker if he hadn't been the leader of the country supported by half its population.
> people can be suppressed for saying the wrong thing (see: Trump).
People are lying to themselves if they think they are in favor of unfettered speech. Otherwise your favorite online forum would be chock-filled with Viagra links, crypto, nft and forex spam, multipage crank proofs of the coming singularity, race-baiting rants of the worst sort, ASCII art, Base64 encodes of Blu-Rays, etc. We all want limits on speech, we just differ in where those lines should be drawn.
> What are the upsides of this? A more engaged voter population. A move of politics back towards the center of cultural life, where it should be. A closer integration of politics, culture and ecommerce.
People become strongly politically engaged because there is something they strongly dislike about current public policy. Politics being the center of cultural life is a sign of bad things going on. So I don't see fighting angrier and more hypercharged online wars as an upside. If anything it just primes people for fighting angrier and more hypercharged offline wars, which is where we seem to be headed.
> Politics being the center of cultural life is a sign of bad things going on
I was going to disagree. But then the historical examples that come to mind at the tail end of democracies and republics is this sort of populist (versus civic) engagement.
A dictatorship only resolves things be basically by “cleansing” the heretical thoughts of the others. Not a very good solution nor is it respectful of free speech.
Argument is there are certain modes of free speech that are unstable. They create social harmonics that empower populists who tear down the liberal order and destroy the rights that brought them to power (and could now threaten to topple them).
Classical case for this, with respect to democracy (not free speech), is Athens.
Arguably Trump would've been banned under Twitter rules a whole lot quicker if he hadn't been the leader of the country supported by half its population.
> people can be suppressed for saying the wrong thing (see: Trump).
People are lying to themselves if they think they are in favor of unfettered speech. Otherwise your favorite online forum would be chock-filled with Viagra links, crypto, nft and forex spam, multipage crank proofs of the coming singularity, race-baiting rants of the worst sort, ASCII art, Base64 encodes of Blu-Rays, etc. We all want limits on speech, we just differ in where those lines should be drawn.
> What are the upsides of this? A more engaged voter population. A move of politics back towards the center of cultural life, where it should be. A closer integration of politics, culture and ecommerce.
People become strongly politically engaged because there is something they strongly dislike about current public policy. Politics being the center of cultural life is a sign of bad things going on. So I don't see fighting angrier and more hypercharged online wars as an upside. If anything it just primes people for fighting angrier and more hypercharged offline wars, which is where we seem to be headed.