I agree wholeheartedly with this classic xkcd, but it brings up a point with subtle implications. Between speech deemed illegal (fire in a crowded theater, imminent lawless action, etc.) and perfectly acceptable speech ("TPM is not the worst Star Wars movie"), there is an amorphous, shifting category of speech that you're allowed to say, but maybe you shouldn't say. Whether this is any of Trump's mind-boggling utterances or "joking" rape threats against feminists or Holocaust denial, there are plenty of ways to express yourself that might not get you thrown in jail, but will get you condemned, boycotted, and so on.
Now, there is an argument to be made that this social shaming is useful because it exposes awful opinions to criticism, which is what the marketplace of ideas is all about. The difficulty, however, is that both indecent speech and the shaming of indecent speech can lead to the same consequence: the chilling of speech. That is, indecent speech can cause plenty of people to withdraw entirely from a social situation because they don't want to be involved with such ugly stuff. But on the other side, the collective shaming of such speech can lead to people being unwilling to speak up at all for fear of being associated with indecent elements.
So, because there is an unpleasant extreme on both ends, a balance of decency is required, such that people aren't too disgusted or too afraid to participate in the exchange of ideas. What is that balance? How do you encourage oddball/satirical/impolite ideas while discouraging disruptive, hateful rhetoric? Have we lost the balance and veered too far toward one extreme? Is this thread secretly about Apolyton? (No. I mean that. No, it is not.)
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