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by archontes 970 days ago
If I were able to convince a large swath of the population to participate in a suicide ritual a la Heaven's Gate, do you think that it's wrong to quash the spread of that message on the internet?
1 comments

It is not wrong for websites to restrict certain information by their own choice. It is wrong - unconstitutional, even - for the government to force them to do so. You should read a bit about Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969) [1] and Hess v. Indiana, 414 U.S. 105 (1973) [2]. (By the way, suicide is not lawless action anyway. Whether advocacy of it is lawless is a different matter, but likely free speech.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hess_v._Indiana