[throwaway11460]

Just like that bullshit about today's "censorship" being in any way comparable to what happened in Eastern Europe. Tell that to my father who was banned from schools or to my grandfather who was in prison, both of them would punch you for it.

[lynx23]

If any of your relatives would punch me for whatever reason, the correct reaction would be to go to the police and take them to court. Just because you are upset does not mean you can suggest physical violence like that, just casually. Sticks and stones, you know...

[throwaway11460]

I am not suggesting anything, I am just telling you what would happen. Don't go near them spewing bullshit like that.

Consider that even getting a fair hearing at a court is a privilege to them. They grew up in a world where they said the wrong thing to the wrong person (not even a crime or anything morally/ethically wrong, or even offensive at all) and it affected three generations of their family with no end in sight if the USSR didn't collapse. No courts involved - the municipal Party Committee's opinion was enough to put my grandfather in prison for years. That's censorship, not some ban from a single inconsequential private website with million alternatives.

You know what upsets me about this? When people use words like censorship to advocate for a world more like it was before 1989. Not wanting to enter into a business relationship with somebody is not censorship, it's freedom.

[lynx23]

So, given that you propose violence as a viable solution, I hope your relatives (and you, for that matter) are not imigrants in a country I visit. Just because you had a unhappy past does not mean you can and should drag your bullshit behaviour with you into civilized countries.

[throwaway11460]

I didn't propose any solution, much less viable. I told you what the reaction of people who experienced actual censorship would be, nothing else. I don't see it as reasonable, but people sometimes don't behave reasonably when somebody tells them bullshit like that with a straight face.

[exe34]

> my father who was banned from schools or to my grandfather who was in prison

We have those in the west today.

[ivan_gammel]

The West is a too broad term, we have very different political systems among Western countries. In some of them cancel culture and big tech aren’t that strong. Besides, it is really different from USSR. Do you know any example in the West in XXI century where a poet or a writer were censored to death?

[exe34]

By the state, no, but Salman Rushdie probably doesn't care who's doing the stabbing.

[throwaway11460]

It's very different. A stabbing is a crime that is prosecuted, state sanctioned imprisonment is not.

[exe34]

the chilling effect is the same.

[throwaway11460]

No, the chilling effect is very different. One is a tragedy that needs to be brought to justice, the second one is never going to get any semblance of justice from its very principle.

[ivan_gammel]

In the countries with free speech the effect is not chilling at all. Do you remember “Je suis Charlie”?

[throwaway11460]

Where in the west? Certainly not anywhere in EU. In the US... Could you send me some examples please?

[exe34]

https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/university-exeter-...