[matchu]

Haha, I was writing a reply, too!

In Sam's case, it sounds like all of his social discomfort is happening entirely within free speech principles?

From what I can gather, Sam sometimes freely-speaks an idea that other people find harmful. Others then freely-speak back to him that he should stop, because it's harmful.

But it sounds like Sam's arguing not just for the right to free speech, but the right to have everyone listen to you. That right is limited by others' rights to live peacefully, and not be regularly subjected to words that harm them.

[whatshisface]

I think we're in a weird situation where nobody is really worried about Sam's ability to remain free, but at the same time nobody is all that interested in listening to the weaker voices that might actually end up silenced. In fact, that's almost a given: if a million people are going to read your blog post then, no, social mechanisms aren't going to shut you up.

What's in the back of my mind is an unremarkable person who has an opinion that their boss doesn't agree with. We never read their blog posts, because by definition I'm talking about when the power dynamic is backwards.

[fao_]

> But it sounds like Sam's arguing not just for the right to free speech, but the right to have everyone listen to you.

EXACTLY. It's amazing to me how many people take it upon themselves to conflate Right To A Platform and Right To Speak Unrebutted with the Right To Free Speech