[pibaker]

> And then when Jane down the street starts talking about the need to kill "insert group here" well you know who they are and you can go down and have a talking to them or tell their employer, or whatever.

This works the other way too. You tell others online "hey maybe we should stop killing X people" or maybe expose that X people are being killed without the public knowing and the people in favor of killing X people can and will ruin your life.

We in fact saw more of this happening in the past few years than the opposite.

[ericmay]

That's just the messy fundamentals of democracy. I think it comes down to perception of what the threat is. I think groups like white nationalists, Antifa, pro-Hamas, pro-Russia, &c. are a much greater threat now than the potential downside of supposedly silencing people who "speak up".

How valuable is speaking up anyway? It's all good to argue when you see the positive case or the one you agree with, but do you also give sympathy to folks who are "speaking up" about white replacement theory or "speaking up" about avoiding COVID-19 vaccines, or other such nonsense?