Are "Hate Speech" and "Disinformation" often just an excuse for government censorship?

You work in a think tank yet spin disinformation all day without verifying anything you post. You answered your own question.

 

Of course. Not only for government censorship but for private actors as well. It is much easier to silence your opponents than to make convincing arguments against them.

 

Is targeting transgender just an excuse for government censorship?

 

As a libertarian then do you think that the first amendment should be applied to the private platforms?

 

When I think of suppression of speech by government I think of intent and motive. Is the intern to suppress activist movements with less power because the people at the top want to keep their power?

To me that's the very core essence of protected speech of the government. To give truth to power.

So is ******** on trans people 24/7 a avenue to speak.trurh to power?

Is a state government trying to claim education that makes "white children uncomfortable" the actions of people with power trying to suppress truth to power by white washing history?

 

No. I think private platforms should choose to honor and celebrate the ideals of free speech of their own volition.

You should think of act and mechanism. A government that suppresses speech you don't like can also turn around and suppress speech you do like, especially when different people are holding the levers of power. I would much prefer that stuff I don't like is not suppressed to ensure that stuff I do like is also not suppressed.

 

You should think of intent and motive though. Neither can be in isolation. Because those who spend an indordiniate amount of time waxing lyrical about free speech to say the N word or "misgender" are probably not advocating for the concept of free speech in good faith.

 

Then you would agree that they have no obligation to do so and your opinion about what constitutes the ideals of free speech wouldn’t apply if they disagreed.

 

So when DeSantis brings pressure on Disney regarding speech critical his administrations policy that would be a first amendment issue then.

 

@StupidMoniker
Do you believe they social media is a defacto
Town square?

 

People not being able to say the N word freely is the biggest threat to our country.

 

Along with anything that makes white students uncomfortable. The most free society would allow all white people to publicly use the N word, and also to restrict anything that makes white students discomfort with anything related to race.

 

He’s so brave.

 

Question - are you talking about government or private sector?

In the private sector, there is definitely a consensus on uncontrolled "speech" causing harm to the company. Their primary interest is protecting their brand and their pocket. The excuse here is more often aligning the actions of "censoring" for the good of their users, but it's ultimately about them - their brand and their $.

In the government sector, at least in the US, there is also definitely a consensus (or probably I should said, there WAS a very strong consensus) on free speech, that the gov should not be suppressing speech, expression, the press and so on (1A stuff). That has shifted recently with the trend to punish private company for their expression BY THE GOV and to ban books BY THE GOV.

ps. Personally, I think the government can play a larger role in censoring harmful content that almost everyone agree on. Child p*rn. When AI is alive and kicking, censor 'how to make a pandemic virus to kill Billions', propaganda materials for ISIS and even domestic terrorists (but I do get some are sensitive to the government defining domestic terrorists, so fine, we can leave that along).

ps2. If you are talking about non-democratic or very weak democratic countries, then yes, it's almost always suppression for the gov's benefits more than for society's benefit.

ps3. Truth is a cool word to notice some tendency. Trump's "Truth social". Musk's "TruthGPT".