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If you really want to scramble your noodle, look at the recent spate of state laws placing restrictions on speech and notice the lean of the parties that control those states.
Can you give some examples? Is it actually speech that's being restricted, or actions, or access to certain types of speech/content (e.g. age restrictions)?
There appears to be a recent shift on HackerNews no longer support freedom of speech. I don't know that its just HackerNews either - it seems like its 'internet residents no longer support freedom of speech.' I'm not sure how to interpret this.
For example, one reason I think free speech is vital is that I want everybody to have a say. Another is that think society works best when we hear from a wide variety of perspectives. However, there are some people who use "free speech" as a reason that they should be allowed to be abusive. Note, for example, the way that Kiwi Farms was waving the free speech banner. You'll see the same thing being done by people who advocate for exterminating Jews and returning Black people to slavery.
In practice, a platform like Twitter has to choose between hosting abusive Nazis and hosting the people who the Nazis would try to drive off the platform. Personally, I am more concerned about Jews feeling safe to speak freely than I am about Nazis wanting to use their free speech to abuse them. So although my 20-year-old self might have been shocked that I am no longer a free-speech absolutist, I am fine with him being shocked, because I have come to value net, long-term practical outcomes more than the isolated ideals that I now see as valuable heuristics, not articles of faith.
In my experience, the notion of being "for or against freedom of speech" is actually referring to something more subjective, and that phrasing is used to imply which side of the disagreement the speaker believes is correct, like referring to the debate about abortion as the debate about murdering babies. It signals a strong bias.
The big secret: democracy requires certain cognitive abilities among the population
It's very surprising to me to see that change in such a short span, or possibly it was not as popular or widespread as I thought it was growing up and I just never noticed. Is it the internet that has caused this uptick in the number of people who think free speech is a bad idea? Or has it always been like that?
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So how would you protect those with less information processing ability from the consequences of more free exchange of information?
Protect them from what? I assume you're presupposing that "free speech is dangerous" here?
Makes perfect sense to me. The free exchange of information is more appealing and less threatening when you have more information processing capability to begin with.
> The free exchange of information is more appealing and less threatening when you have more information processing capability to begin with. I struggle to get this. "Dumb" people feel threatened when others can freely express themselves?
Makes perfect sense to me. The free exchange of information is more appealing and less threatening when you have more information processing capability to begin with.
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Internet residents aren't government. They can't arrest people, lock anyone up, or sentence anyone to death for anything, let alone for saying something. There's nothing there for speech to be free from.
what about monetization. i.e. livelihood, the thing that keeps people from starving etc