Andrew Doyle about censorship

4 months ago
30

"Successive governments across the world, particularly the Western world are implementing the most draconian hate speech measures. We've seen it with the Hate Speech Bill in Scotland. Ireland actually has a definition in its proposed bill the definition of hatred is hatred, so it's completely circular definition, which of course can be applied and exploited by any future government. This is the key question I think people aren't reckoning with. We see these horrible things online and we think: I just want those to go away, I wish those people who said that, they're obviously repugnant people, what's wrong if we lock them up. But you're asking the wrong question. The question that you should be asking is which is preferable, which is safer: Having the society in which people are free to say whatever they want and that includes people saying really really despicable things on the one hand or on the other hand empowering the state to imprison its citizens because of what they say. Anyone who knows anything about history will know about the dangers of that latter option. That's the argument that we need to be having, it's not the argument that we are having."

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