[onesociety2022]

What country do you live in? In the USA, you can say “I think person X is an idiot”. That’s protected speech. No one can sue you for expressing your opinion online or IRL. If someone punches you in the face for calling them an idiot on the street, then they are likely going to get prosecuted for those actions. Yes you run the risk of getting punched in the face but you are not in any trouble with the law.

OTOH it’s a problem if you say “Person X is a rapist”. Then you might get sued for libel. You can’t make false statements to destroy someone’s reputation.

Censorship online on a social media platform is not subject to any freedom of speech laws. Freedom of speech only applies to the US Government not restricting your speech. The social media platform has the authority to regulate speech however they want to on their platform.

[protimewaster]

> You can’t make false statements to destroy someone’s reputation.

This is something that people seem to expect to be able to do on social media. I think maybe that's part of the point that was being made. People don't want social networks that are concerned with stopping libelous remarks from going viral. In fact, it seems like people would love a social network that consists exclusively of libelous remarks.

The weird thing is that social networks seem to actually be willing to deliver this content.

[dreamcompiler]

> No one can sue you for expressing your opinion online or IRL

In the USA, you can absolutely be sued for this. The plaintiff is unlikely to win, and you could probably get the case dismissed if you convince a judge that's it's clearly an opinion, but you'd still have to pay a lawyer some fees.

People can sue you for anything.

The first amendment doesn't protect you from lawsuits. It protects you from the government putting you in jail for speech.

[hatefulmoron]

I don't really get why people point this out. Yes, you can be sued for anything. But what are you actually suggesting? That you do nothing, ever, because you could be sued for anything? Or are we just doing the same old nitpick?

[lesuorac]

They point it out because there was an explicit claim to the contrary.

"No one can sue you for expressing your opinion online or IRL. "

[Teever]

A charitable interpretation of that claim would be that 'No one can successfully sue you for expressing your opinion online or IRL.'

[hatefulmoron]

Pointing out that the statement is false in the most uninteresting literal sense is just odd. Sure, you can be sued for that in the same sense that you can be sued for eating a croissant. Glad we got to the bottom of that.

[soco]

So the difference is the kind of insult?