[mytailorisrich]

What is your definition of freedom? Because if it's having the absolute right to do exactly whatever you want that's not how freedom works in a free society.

I'm obviously provoking with that quote but it is a very good point: The world is not black and white and claiming that it is is extremely naive and simplistic, and I am afraid that what I read here in response to my comment is exactly that.

[LawTalkingGuy]

People arguing for censorship can never show anything that needs to be censored but there are countless examples of things that shouldn't be censored being squashed under policy. There's literally not a single example through history of a truth that had to be squashed for justice and safety. There are no great stories of historical censorship not because they're secret, but because they don't do anything except protect the people in power.

A censorship policy is, by nature, impossible to check. If anything is being censored you have to assume that other things, including proper discussion of the censorship, are being censored. It's not some complex "not black and white" thing where you're partly right, it's a failed idea with absolutely zero support from historical precedent.

You can't censor away bad ideas because we can't even agree on the bad ideas - such as for instance your censorship push. Why shouldn't your push to censor people be censored itself? Why do you assume that your choices for societal control are the correct impulses, which need to be bolstered with thought control, rather than the harmful impulses which will destroy society though totalitarian means?

No, censorship is always wrong because it removes the ability of the people to make decisions on the facts. Any politician who pushes censorship has to be assumed to be trying to undermine democracy because censorship can't do anything other than weaken the electorate.

> The world is not black and white and claiming that it is is extremely naive and simplistic, and I am afraid that what I read here in response to my comment is exactly that.

That's fallacious because it assumes that censorship deserves a better rhetorical chance which it was denied when in fact it's simply a bad idea. If you suggested to punish people for their family's crimes you'd get similar pushback because it's a similarly corrosive policy.

You haven't properly argued for censorship at all, by showing thoughts which need to be censored and why, you've just argued that it's a super important tool without any examples or reasoning.

[gowld]

National borders exist. Why?

The international Internet didn't exist 200 years ago, so there is no precedent on whether it should be permitted to exist.

Unless you are an anarchist, it's not at all clear what the legitimate functions of government are.

[cowl]

National Borders are not there to enforce "thought". They are there to protect Physical Security (and Economic one that can be ported again to the physical Security). Exchange of Information (What Internet is) has always been a borderless thing. To continue your Borders Analogy, Noone will stop you at the border because you have with you a coded paper that the border guards can not decipher, or even worse because in your country (not with your person) you have coded papers that might be used to communicate the same ideas that are "dangerous" to this country. The Role of the Government is to protect society from phenomena that are provenly damaging the society without encroaching on personal rights. It's a balance that needs to favour the personal rights in any occasion because what this government thinks damaging the other one might not, the personal rights are those that are more lasting.