>What's so insane about this is that it's the Internet... you can literally just go spend an afternoon and create a new forum using some off the shelf forum software and a hosting service.
Depending on which phase the moon is in, you'll hear defenders of hate speech alternate between saying (1) we shouldn't allow any efforts at moderating speech on platforms because it will make no difference,because people can just move to new platforms or create new platforms, or (2) mainstream platforms are de-facto public utilities and it's literal legal free speech that is infringed if they engage in moderation.
I don't know how that contradiction is supposed to be reconciled, or what motivates the adoption of these conflicting views, but I suspect that (1) is motivated by a desire to prevent major platforms from engaging in any moderation because they support the speech that would be moderated and (2) is that arguments about "free speech" need to get around the private platform issue.
Depending on which phase the moon is in, you'll hear defenders of hate speech alternate between saying (1) we shouldn't allow any efforts at moderating speech on platforms because it will make no difference,because people can just move to new platforms or create new platforms, or (2) mainstream platforms are de-facto public utilities and it's literal legal free speech that is infringed if they engage in moderation.
I don't know how that contradiction is supposed to be reconciled, or what motivates the adoption of these conflicting views, but I suspect that (1) is motivated by a desire to prevent major platforms from engaging in any moderation because they support the speech that would be moderated and (2) is that arguments about "free speech" need to get around the private platform issue.