[Brian_K_White]

What philosophical principle justifies censorship, which is just propaganda through ommision?

How can someone decide for themselves that they agree something is bad, if they aren't allowed to see it, or even know it exists?

I don't think there is any philosophical principle that resloves to "and therefor we should commit ignorance"

[camgunz]

I think the typical rejoinder here is Germany's denazification. There's a difference between preemptively censoring things and deciding some things are just wrong and not worth debating for the umpteenth time.

FWIW we preemptively censor things all the time. Information is classified, we don't let you post plans to build nuclear or biological weapons, etc. And to broaden a little, we also have lots of speech restrictions and compulsions. Fraud is against the law and that's largely speech. Inciting imminent lawless action isn't allowed. We require nutrition facts on products, we require doctors to say things before performing abortions, we compel testimony, etc. I personally wouldn't like it if you posted my address and when I'm likely to be away.

Speech is complicated, it's powerful, fundamental, and there are a lot of competing interests and principles.

[Brian_K_White]

What does wrongness have to do with anything?

No one in Germany studies the history of Nazis and how they came to be?

[camgunz]

Germany doesn't censor any mention of Nazism; they censor support for Nazism.

[Brian_K_White]

That is reassuringly sane.

So who said anything about supporting?

That was my whole original point, that if something is bad, it's if anything even more important not to censor information about it, not so thoroughly that it is actually removed from active and specific searches at least.

That absolutely includes things that advocate, because those very statements are the bad thing that needs to be seen to be believed and understood.

You can't just tell some kid who wasn't there "He rose to power and killed millions of Jews." It makes no sense and teaches no lesson. You have to show the crowd-pleasing speeches and other pro-nazi propaganda to show how attractive a bad thing can sound, to show how totally good and normal people just like you can end up cooperating with something wrong, to study and understand that aspect of the badness.

Some people will study that so they can then do it, but I don't see how that changes anything because we're right back to ignorance is no answer. Making everyone else ignorant is even worse. It creates even more victims than the one actually doing something bad.

[camgunz]

> You have to show the crowd-pleasing speeches and other pro-nazi propaganda

They do. You just can't deny the holocaust, spread anti-semitism, etc. [0]

My point, which I admittedly obscured, is that while there are things we censor and compel (which we mostly agree on), there are weirdly some things we don't censor that we also mostly agree on.

Anti-semitism is a good example. There's no value in talking about it. Anti-semitic hate groups use the shield of freedom of speech to spread their lies and recruit members. Proponents will spam forums, WhatsApp groups, social media, etc in what is effectively a DDoS on fact checkers. The thing that fixes anti-semitism isn't letting them say whatever they want wherever they want, it's a Wikipedia page on anti-semitism and a ban everywhere else.

It's also worth saying that while we're having a relatively academic debate, Jewish people, Black people, trans people, etc get to wade through a morass of hate on the internet which every so often leads to a mass murder. What's the value of that?

[0]: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/germanys-laws-ant...

[Brian_K_White]

"You can't say this thing"

Is and entirely different thing than

"You can't see this thing"

I guess people are deciding that linking is saying rather than merely referencing.

Even if so, it just means that the need to be able to reference is more important than the need to hide a few of the unwanted things that manage to get said. Anything else is simply not sane, as in, not functional. Even if everyone agrees that some messages are offensive and some knowledge is undesired, that doesn't justify breaking the very concept of communication and knowledge.

[eiiot]

It can certainly be justified under a utilitarian framework…