The radicalisation directly driven by 8chan, in particular, has led to a large number of people being shot. Dead.
There are dead people, because 8chan was allowed to exist.
That is not something that you should be fighting for. You are not fighting for any greater good there. You are promoting something that leads to actual, real people dying.
I support the right for you to have your own opinion. You should support my right to have my own, too. In this circumstance though it feels like a knee-jerk reaction without citation or factual evidence supporting your strong opposition.
The reality is the reason why people commit crimes, including violent ones such as murder, is a deeply complex subject that has the full time focus of many highly educated people. A simple one-liner attributing extremism to a specific site you find distasteful isn't constructive IMO.
Here's a quick primer on the history of crime and criminal psychology walking through the various phases of understanding why people commit criminal or violent acts. https://law.jrank.org/pages/12004/Causes-Crime.html
I have an absolutism posture on free speech. Everyone should say whatever they want without fear or retribution. This includes offensive speech. If this incites violence, so be it. Why not invest in mental health care instead of suppression of speech? The history of mental health care in the USA is abysmal.
I also come down staunchly on the side that freedom of speech should be broadly and zealously protected.
However, that doesn’t mean to me that speech should be free from consequences. To do so, you’d have to make it free from side-effects (including changing others’ minds) which would make it pointless.
The warmongering driven by the New York Times regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in particular, has led to a large number of people being blown up. Dead.
There are dead people, because the New York Times was allowed to exist.
That is not something that you should be fighting for. You are not fighting for any greater good there. You are promoting something that leads to actual, real people dying.
Whilst the media can influence people, including politicians, there is very little in common between the lead up to the Iraq war and the mass murders the parent poster is referring to.
The death of the FCC fairness doctrine in 1987 effectively killed the integrity of journalism and allowed op-ed and infotainment to take place of informed and factual reporting.
I'd be happy if this was successfully reintroduced. I can't imagine why this isn't widely supported, especially by those who detest "fake news" and want misinformation to be suppressed.
Just in America alone... more Americans have died of automobile accidents than total deaths in World War 1&2 __combined__. Going by your knee-jerk reaction that maybe a few people died from an internet forum, we also should absolutely abolish automobiles, right? I mean, automobiles crashes have literally killed more humans in ONLY America, than both world wars, terrorism, and extremist hate speech combined. Why do vehicles get a pass? And then this just leads us to the old "NERF the world" sentiment in which, every single thing humans do is dangerous enough that maybe we shouldn't allow anyone to do anything at all? Right?
>> Records indicate that there were 3,613,732 motor vehicle fatalities in the United States from 1899 to 2013.
Also 70 - 80 million people died in just the second world war.
So your first claim is wrong by well over an order of magnitude. If you meant just US deaths in both wars, you should say so. But in this case, I feel you should choose another comparison. To be so selective would be disrespectful to approximately a hundred million non-American war casualties.
Yes, you are correct that I meant to say Americans and not total all deaths like I typed. However, the point that vehicles are acceptable even though they cause vast deaths, yet for some reason if one thing someone doesn't like causes hardly any deaths, they can strongly condemn anyone being allow free speech and create a slippery slope.
If you were to add automobile accidents in all other countries combined with the US figures, you do get obviously a much higher figure. Automobile accidents are very high up on the list of cause of death.
(The article also only takes into account US traffic deaths since 2000 being greater than both world wars, and of course there were magnitudes more deaths going back to the 1970s, likely in the earlier decades as well I wasn't trying to be super pedantic, which is why I'll still leave my above post intact.)
There are dead people, because 8chan was allowed to exist.
That is not something that you should be fighting for. You are not fighting for any greater good there. You are promoting something that leads to actual, real people dying.