> Go on then, what exactly "is happening in Germany"?
I actually elaborated on that before I made the comment you chose to respond to.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20350223
> Germany is easily within the top 10 most influential countries on the world stage.
But that doesn't mean, say, banning swastikas was a decision that came easy or without deep deliberation and discussion. It also doesn't mean we're not riddled with people seeking to control language in all sorts of ways, or that just censoring stuff we "don't consider valuable" is automatically a good idea.
> Oh, "we as individuals need to decide" on whether or not libel or aggression "have value" as constitutionally protected speech?
No, I simply said the way you phrased it, it's an euphemism at best. Individuals make decisions. If you want to be able to say "we as a society" as a shorthand, meaning the people you agree with, minus the people you think you can simply declare unpersons, then you need to be actually able to point to a process where said society had that serious discussion.
> Based on your argument upthread, I suppose you think it should be put up to a vote then?
Why are you shifting the burden to me? You talk about "we as society", so what do you think how would that go? Just doing it? I mentioned it wasn't done nilly-willy in Germany for the swastika etc., you could look into that for a start.
> Even America has decided, in principle, that certain kinds of speech are not protected.
You initially said this:
> The US is one of the few countries that believes in a radical, unlimited right to free speech. Most other countries, it is not tolerated, and this has not lead to a slippery slope.
How you just shift from Alex Jones to Nazis is also noted, but not accepted. To just say "certain kinds of speech" is not good enough, and if you start like that, you can just expand nilly willy. I even already said Germany is better for having banned Nazis -- but the way it's going in America, where people who act like Nazis, want to see people lose their jobs at a drop of a hat for example, I wouldn't buy "let's ban certain kinds of speech" combined with the double think of "oh, it's just a private platform, we're not banning anything". If you want to talk Nazis and don't even see how that shit has red flags plastered all over it, I just don't know how to help sorry.
If you want to make something illegal, lobby to make it illegal. It's not as if in Germany you can do the things you cited in real life, just not on the internet. That's the elephant on the couch in all this. It's just technocrats using somewhat agreeable examples to get their foot in the door to circumvent all that pesky supreme court stuff, and that's closer to the Nazis than Alex Jones will ever be, as foul as he is.