Its a shame that the majority, the lambs, are raised and slaughtered not knowing the wonders of the universe. They are happy with their commonly shared worldview, oblivious to the possibilities.
The sheep, the self righteous, the horde, the believers, the capitalists, the socialists, and the anarchists.
All are feeding from the same trough. All will come to the same end.
Its the ones that have the lest tenable grip on reality who are the most interesting.
I touched a glacier once. It felt like ice.
WordPress takes down SandyHook truthers. Personally these people and their ideas are repugnant. My question is do we want platforms to police thought or is there a better way?
Technically as a private entity WordPress is not bound by the first amendment and can do whatever they want, as long as they are not pressured directly or indirectly by a government entity. As an aside an argument could be made that when a politician comments that something should be done about these “bad actors” the markets take notice potentially moving the stock price. The company would then make decisions to maximize that price by banning the bad actors. Thus the decision to censor online content would be political.
What I am struggling with is the utility of the ban and it's consequences. These truthers will not stop their message and one could argue the act of being banned could enbolden them draw more attention to their cause.
I sympathize with those that feel something must be done to counter the hateful messages. Simply ignoring it is not a satisfactory solution. And as they keep posting their ideas, stupid people will continue to buy into it.
That brings us back to my quandry. Does society want to abdicate moral responsibility companies like Twitter and Facebook and their shareholders? Or can society make such ideas so repulsive that they are removed from the common zeitgeist ( e.g universally knowing that cannibalism is bad)?
Or is it all of the above? Are these bans both a response to societal pressure,. business decisions, and tacet government intervention? Are we seeing a shift in the collective reasoning that says, enough is enough?
What does that say about the concept of free speech when unpopular thinking is locked away from the masses?