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Brian Stout's avatar

I appreciate this post, and I'm almost entirely with you. I think the harder edge case is deciding what forms of content we actually should censor... we generally seem to agree that incitement to violence is that bar (as indeed the supreme Court found in proscribing falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater). it is pretty easy to agree that we would not allow/platform Hutu genocidaires to advocate for the mass murder of Tutsis. but: what of the white supremacist who advocates for the mass destruction of Jews... albeit skirting the line carefully enough to not explicitly call for a final solution?

to me that is the much harder case, to decide where specifically we draw that line in the Sand. if we agree that any censorship is possible and even desirable, as I think we do... the two most difficult questions are who decides, and what is that Rubicon? I have personally struggled with this, and specifically in the context of substack against Nazis (as someone who also writes on substack) and I found Hamish's response unsatisfying.... even as I think Katz depicted a straw man and didn't deal with the two hardest questions I name above. I don't expect you to answer this, as it is incredibly hard, but i would be curious to hear your thoughts as someone whose opinions I respect.

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