[MostlyStable]

The core of the problem is that many many people no longer believe in a culture of free speech. They think that, as long as it's not the government doing it (and even sometimes when the government is standing right over there, waggling its eyebrows and flexing its muscles), it is both acceptable, and in many places good for people to be punished for nothing but speech.

The first amendment is absolutely just a governmental restriction, but the concept of free speech itself absolutely must be more broadly protected. The new social media era of algorithmic content makes these waters murky. Because these platforms aren't just hosting content, they are picking and choosing who it gets shown to. It's a complex situation that isn't as black and white as some free speech advocates would like to admit, but before we can address any of those complex factors, I think it's vital to argue vehemently that free speech is a more broadly important value than just the first amendment.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

> it is both acceptable, and in many places good for people to be punished for nothing but speech

I think part of the issue is that the internet is practically only speech. Spam is just a lot of speech. Doxxing is just speech of a specific privacy. Advocating violence is just a form of vigorous . Rape threats and revenge porn… It’s all basically just speech.

It’s difficult to say we should have a free speech culture when we also have spam filters.

[GauntletWizard]

You should have a spam filter. I should have a spam filter. We, the collective we, should not. A ton of things should be done to prevent spam - a vast majority of spam is also fraud, and should be tackled that way much quicker than it is. The delegation to the government (or large enterprises) to "fix the spam problem" has resulted in our current state of innundation.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

Well now we’re back at that the right to speech isn’t the same as the right to listen.,, which is what the original poster was protesting