Freedom of speech, freedom of political opinions, freedom of the press etc. It's called freedom for a reason, it means you don't have to ask anybody for permission to do it, it belongs to you just as the air that you breathe. For a long time now private companies in the form of social media eg Facebook, YouTube etc. have been suspending users accounts and sometimes even banning them because of their views. Since when is it the job of a private company to tell anybody what they can and cannot say. Some will even say ''well it's their website so they can do what they want with it''. Yes they can change the typical white blue Facebook colour theme to white red, or change the letters to gothic etc., but they do not have a legal right to police people's constitutional rights. We must also take into consideration that speech and where it occurs is now very much online. A person might not leave their house for a week but that doesn't mean that they haven't communicated with other people, they just did it online. If a private company blocks them then they block that person's ability to speak to other people, this is a very serious interference in that person's human rights. If a person makes a comment that is illegal then let them have their day in court and if the magistrate determines the comment to be illegal then delete it. Private companies are not competent and neutral enough to police freedom of speech because they and their workers have their own opinions and agenda's. Most online speech is not illegal speech, and most banned speech is probably critical but still legal speech. Newspapers eg used to allow comments to be published in real time, then they started to moderate, then they deleted a comment after the fact possibly if somebody complained, then they started very selectively publishing comments, and now in some cases they don't even activate the comment section at all. In some cases if many of the comments published differ in opinion from the opinion of the journalist then they will remove the comments after already publishing them. The same media that would bitch and moan if anybody prevented them from reporting(freedom of the press) is preventing the practice of freedom of speech in the form of comments, when it suits them to do so. It is cowardice and or elitism. We must be pro refugees, pro muslims, anti Russia, anti Trump, supportive of Global Warming ideas etc. or else we are the dangerous commenters and we must be censored, banned, shadow banned etc. I guess the question is if a person is a racist scum bag does it serve people who he targets if he is unable to speak, or is it actually great f the guy publishes under his own real name and exposes himself as the scumbag that he is thereby giving those people the means to respond with a comment and or to prosecute him in court. I know, I know most people use pseudonyms anyways but do the bans not possibly create a fake sense of reality. On a blockchain such bans are either not possible or much more complicated to do and that is a good thing.
Shadow Hand
