>>23179846This was a somewhat valid idea in the era before algorithms, astroturfing, troll farms, ragebait, mass disinformation campaigns, AI, and so forth. The massive surge in far-right ideas comes from artificial campaigns to indoctrinate people to act against their own interests, and these are funded by powerful interest groups with billions of dollars at their disposal. A functioning democracy shouldn't reflect just what people think, but what is in their best interests. That is why it's important to combat misinformation/disinformation and to ensure that voters are well-informed.
Ultimately, the truth does not win out in the "marketplace of free ideas", bullshit does because bullshit tends to be simpler and more digestible than reality which is usually multi-faceted and complex, and as per Brandolini's law (AKA the bullshit asymmetry principle)
>The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.Think of all the people who still believe that the earth is flat, that evolution isn't real, that anthropogenic global warming isn't real, that vaccines cause autism, and so forth despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Censorship in and of itself is not bad. It is a tool which can be used for good or bad depending on who uses it and why. Fascist ideologies in particular must not be allowed to have a platform anywhere and they must be forcibly repressed and not allowed to propagate.
I do not care if fascists whine about being censored or repressed. Their very presence is a threat to the continuation of civilization as a whole.
