Ask the average free speech advocate for the solution to offensive speech, and they’ll likely tell you: more speech. And they’re right. (Though, I think ignoring speech can sometimes be the right call but I don’t expect others to feel the same.) However, the suggestion for “more speech” doesn’t always seem to apply on social media, where “more speech” and “mobs” seem to overlap quite frequently. Our tendency to lump together all responses to speech into one bucket often has the result of conflating the people trying to earnestly criticize with those trying to threaten or harass.
Twitter, more speech, and mobs
Twitter, more speech, and mobs
Twitter, more speech, and mobs
Ask the average free speech advocate for the solution to offensive speech, and they’ll likely tell you: more speech. And they’re right. (Though, I think ignoring speech can sometimes be the right call but I don’t expect others to feel the same.) However, the suggestion for “more speech” doesn’t always seem to apply on social media, where “more speech” and “mobs” seem to overlap quite frequently. Our tendency to lump together all responses to speech into one bucket often has the result of conflating the people trying to earnestly criticize with those trying to threaten or harass.