Ask Lemmy

33509 readers

1768 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

6) No US Politics.

Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Bluetreefrog@lemmy.world

TheSaneWriter@lemm.ee

TheSaneWriter@lemmy.thesanewriter.com

Asudox@lemmy.world

lemmy_bot@lemmy.world

beefbaby182@lemmy.world

ModeratorCan@lemmy.world

neidu3@sh.itjust.works

asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev

candyman337@lemmy.world

candyman337@sh.itjust.works

[Politics] What is, in your opinion, a necessary set of minimal restrictions on freedom of thought, speech and expression? (lemmy.world)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by Iceblade02@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

48 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It seems to me a repeating pattern that once freedom of thought, speech and expression is limited for essentially any reason, it will have unintended consequences.

Once the tools are in place, they will be used, abused and inevitably end up in the hands of someone you disagree with, regardless of whether the original implementer had good intentions.

As such I'm personally very averse to restrictions. I've thought about the question a fair bit – there isn't a clear cut or obvious line to draw.

Please elaborate and motivate your answer. I'm genuinely curious about getting some fresh perspectives.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Libb@piefed.social 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

What is, in your opinion, a necessary set of minimal restrictions on freedom of thought, speech and expression?

Liberty of thought?
What the fuck?! Anyone should be free to think what they want, no matter how ugly, dirty or stupid, or even criminal, that could be. That's thoughts, ffs.
Liberty of expression. My stance is that we should not tolerate call to murder or to direct violence against anyone or any group of persons (be it physical, or otherwise). That also means, we should not tolerate any call to the 'I feel offended' argument to try to shut anyone we disagree with (we're all free to not listen to anything we don't like, that doesn't mean we have any right to censor it), and no tolerance towards any call to 'vengeance' or to 'cancel' anyone no matter how much they 'deserved' it (judging and then, maybe, punishing someone should be the exclusive job of justice not of an angry (and stupid) mob of people).

For the rest, the liberty of expression and the liberty of discussion are fundamentals to any working democracy—and to any working educative system too, looking at you (way too many) colleges and universities. Their absence being key to the creation of any kind of... dictatorship you can think of.

I'll let anyone pick the kind of political regime they want to live in, I've made my choice and it's not a dictatorship even one controlled by the 'good guys'. Fuck that.

Edit: if you feel like downvoting this, by all mean do it but keep in mind that this won't teach me (or anyone else for that matter) much of your reasoning in doing so. So, if you want to help me (and anyone else reading this) realize how wrong I am, maybe explain why/how in a comment? Otherwise, your downvote won't mean much if anything, to me at least.

[–] Iceblade02@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Yes on all accounts - I think freedom of thought and expression are linked to a great extent. We form and develop thoughts and ideas by expressing and discussing them, especially when it comes to more advanced concepts that benefit from group insights.