Rex Kerr
2 min readApr 29, 2022

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Free speech has always included hate speech.

And the right to rebut it, freely and vocally, so everyone can see it for what it is.

For instance, when someone says, "Is free speech really under threat?" and then proceeds to give a grand total of zero evidence about anything related, we can call them out and say: that's a poor argument. It's hardly even an argument at all.

"Everyone knows" the election was stolen. "We all know" free speech is code for hate speech.

Mm hm.

Well, what's Twitter banning? Hate speech? Well, yes, sometimes, but that's not why Republicans are banned far more than Democrats: https://psyarxiv.com/ay9q5

So, no, we should freely reject your argument because it doesn't comport with evidence.

Just as Trump's claim about the election being stolen has its sign flipped from being democracy-supporting to undermining democracy because it is not true (obviously a genuinely stolen election would be an attack on democracy--the point is that the claim is actually part of an attempt to steal it the other way), so your claims about free speech actually meaning hate speech which restricts freedom to speech and therefore deserves attack--ta da!--has its sign flipped exactly backwards.

You are arguing against freedom of speech, using exactly the same methods, with exactly the same lack of reliability, that Trump has used to argue against democracy.

I suggest, kindly, that you cut out that part, and stick to that which you can demonstrate with evidence, or at least bother to argue for in a well-reasoned way.

You could, instead, ask interesting questions like, "If a valuable and true yet socially not-very-accepted perspective appears, is there a mechanism by which it would escape the label of 'misinformation' given Twitter's current content moderation approach?" (For bonus points: "How confident are we that we can even know the answer to that question?")

Being against free speech because you're on the left and your tribe has decided that's thing to do makes about as much sense as being against masking because you're on the right and your tribe has decided that's the thing to do. But if this isn't exactly what you're doing, you give us precious little way to tell.

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Rex Kerr
Rex Kerr

Written by Rex Kerr

One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.

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