[wahern]

You mean censoring speech in the abstract or the failure to limit Nazi propaganda in the 1930s?

Also, in which historical era was voluntary and deliberate censorship solely by private, commercial entities a dominate factor in how things unfolded?

[rsj_hn]

Fun Fact: The Weimar government had very brutal suppression of Nazi Propaganda and jailed Nazi publishers. This just won them more popular support as the public wanted to know why Nazis were being suppressed. The court trials of Nazi publishers received wide attention and gave them a platform to air their views. It turned out that Weimar censorship was counterproductive then as it is now.

Another fun fact. The communists in Weimar Germany went for the whole "punch a Nazi" thing in a big way, violently attacking Nazi political groups, which directly lead to the formation of the SS (actually a precursor group) as a self-defense group meant to protect the Nazis from communist street violence. That turned out really well for the communists, too!

So indeed, those who fail to learn history really are doomed to repeat it.

[bitwize]

Fun fact: Germany today has arguably even stricter laws banning Nazi propaganda, and hasn't renazified in 75 years.

[rsj_hn]

This is false. German anti-Nazi laws are weaker today than under Weimar and the society is generally much more liberal.

Of course the reason why no nation has renazified is because Fascism exists as a boogeyman of the left rather than a reality. It is a completely discredited ideology. If you look at every public opinion survey, there are many more communists than there are nazis, even though morally both sides are equally odious.

If you could find a Nazi lurking about somewhere, rather than in the nightmares of radicals, they would never say "Real Nazism has never been tried". Whereas there are actually people claiming to be communists and insisting that communism deserves a tenth or eleventh chance. Nazism is a completely defeated ideology even as communism continues to try to come back from the grave.

[wahern]

That narrative sounds like someone played a game of telephone with this CATO institute essay: https://www.cato.org/policy-report/mayjune-2015/war-free-exp... I'll leave it at that. HN readers are perfectly capable of reading the history themselves and appreciating the complexities.

[rsj_hn]

You don't need one article. Just a basic grasp of history. We in the "West" are today a more liberal society, especially with regards to speech, than ever in history. Stuff that would have gotten you locked up in 1920 will not get you locked up today. If you don't understand that, or question it, or seriously believe that there were more political freedoms in the 1920s rather than today, then God help whomever was your history teacher.

[bitwize]

Yes, and what that means is that today's broad interpretation of the First Amendment (in the USA) is actually very recent in origin -- Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) to be exact. Far from being "originalist", it reads intent into the Founders that wasn't there, as some of those same Founders would go on to pass the Alien and Sedition Acts, which wouldn't pass muster today.

It may be time to consider whether the experiment of being permissive when it comes to hate speech has been a failure that has caused more harm than good to society and its citizens.