[YEwSdObPQT]

> If removing threats of violence is considered censorship, then the word "censorship" has no meaning. Think about it: how does censorship really occur? Do governments cast a magic spell that makes it so that the words can't come out of your mouth? No. They threaten violence[0], in order to punish you for saying the thing you don't want to say, which creates a chilling effect. This is no different than what Nazis do - they threaten violence against people whose speech they don't like.

Denying the holocaust didn't happen isn't a threat of violence. It is saying that something didn't happen.

Also a threat of violence has to be credible.

> At that point, the choice is not between "freedom of speech" and "censorship". It's "censor the Nazi" or "let the Nazi censor everyone else". You must choose the option that preserves the most freedom of speech.

This is a false dichotomy.

> And this goes for every other entity that threatens violence - not just Nazis. I'm only mentioning them because we're talking about the German legal conception of freedom of expression. Nobody says "I'm going to kill you" for the sake of it; they say it to terrorize other people into doing things they want, including things like not saying words they don't want spoken. This also goes for threatening violence against groups of people rather than speakers of certain words, and political speech that proposes using the state as a means to do the above. All of that is censorious, and as far as I'm concerned a definition of freedom of speech that does not include freedom from threats of violence is incomplete.

Your conception of freedom of speech isn't freedom of speech. It is "freedom to hear things that aren't too unpleasant".

As for the the chilling effect might work with some people. It won't work with others. With me it wouldn't work. I would tell them to "fuck around and find out". I won't live in fear.