• despite what “free speech” absolutists would like to believe, the vast majority of the world does not wish to tolerate hate, racism, and bigotry. refusing to accept these is not suppression, it’s maintaining healthy and welcoming communities.

    it’s no different than swimming pools having a basic “no shitting in the pool” policy. if you want to shit in the pool, you are going to have to go swim with others that are ok with swimming in shitty water.

    with that said, I hear exploding-heads may be what you’re looking for

    • “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”

      I personally believe that a community that support free speech is going to be healthier on the long run than one that doesn’t.

      exploding-heads seem to have rules against not being authentic, trolling and slurs

      • You should read about the paradox of tolerance and why free speech should be limited to what doesn’t hurt or limit others’ access to freedom.
        Being able to trash talk minorities (completely random example obviously) is not free speech, it’s hate speech that will ultimately devolve into atrocities.

        Also, please share the kind of things that you think should be allowed without naming them (in full details like “racist slurs”, or “calls to violence against a minority”, or “cryptoscams”) , I think it could be interesting.

        • Censorship is also a gateway to disasters and history is filled with examples. I cannot read french but i can understand that your instance has rules against trolling. I have been accused of being a troll by some in this thread so if i was in your instance i could technically have been censored.

      • Their rule agains slurs obviously isn’t enforced considering it’s full of anti-trans slurs and “jokes” about trans folk killing themselves.

        Do you really think that a community that’s full of nothing but hate and amazing posts like “why do women disrespect or avoid nice guys and go for the players and bad boys” is gonna be healthier long-term than one that fosters respectful discussion?

        • Censorship doesn’t promote discussion, it goes against it. I’m not looking for a community where only hate is allowed, i’m looking for instances that support free speech.

          • Allowing hate also kills discussion - I don’t see particularly many trans users joining in with the “fun” over on exploding heads, for example.

            Every single “free speech” website ends up turning into a hateful circlejerky echo chamber where discussion that doesn’t align with the agenda is shut down hard.

  • Why don’t you just share with the class exactly what you think you should be allowed to say instead of being so oddly cryptic.

    I mean, my instance has rules and I enforce them. Should I not be permitted to do that?

    All I hear from this is a snowflake upset about the fact that they can’t use “basic slurs” (whatever the hell that means) without facing repercussions. Imagine that. People disliking the use of offensive words towards the underprivileged. The audacity.

      • You’ll find that most are—and probably more so than corporate platforms since they’re user-driven and hosted. They aren’t beholden to shareholders and advertisers. The reality though is that the majority of users and instances won’t tolerate slurs and similar stereotypes, insults, etc. and the instances they federate with won’t either. Conspiracy theories? You’ll find plenty of spaces for that kind of stuff. The same goes for right and left-wing stances too.

        Hexbear, for example was found to be far too extreme in its views for some instances and users, and those instances took it upon themselves to no longer federate with them. That’s the catch with being able to freely express views. They are not immune or free from criticism and being relegated to obscurity.

        Communities like this are always fractured into echo chambers and safe spaces for people. That’s the benefit of them. It’s not like going outdoors where you’re subjected to everything and have no way to filter it. People aren’t seeking out a giant pool of collective noise; they are seeking out the specific music they want to hear.

    • This should be the standard response to the “free speech” screechers. Free speech to say what, motherfuckers?

      And don’t let them dodge the question. If they don’t answer with specifics then you know exactly what they want “free speech” for.

  • I doubt there are truly any. Even on the free speech advocating instances, I imagine if you started posting terrorist threats and/or scat porn you’d quickly find their limits on free speech (bonus points for combining the two in one post).

    If you just want to say nasty things about minorities (which these kinds of posts are often code for) or hype some crypto scam then there are instances for that.

  • There cannot be “free speech” instances because every instance (or more generally speaking: any online community) I am aware of that claims to be “free speech” ends up being an alt-right echo chamber, a platform for hate speech, or a site to share questionable pornographic content.

    Unfortunately you need moderation if your Internet platform is open to the public.

    • The people who make these posts looking for “free speech” are really looking for no consequence speech. They like to pretend they’re fans of the town square but ignore the fact that people can get run out of the town square, they can get shouted down in the town square, and they can get drowned out by the others in the town square.

      They want to be able to say hateful things without being accountable for their hate. That’s not free speech as envisioned by anyone who is an actual advocate of open society or free speech.

      What we have on Lemmy is probably the closest thing we’ll ever get to a public square in the Internet. Someone can go and say their hateful thing. Then they can get run out of the instance they’re on and go find another one. If they say hateful things and get run out of there, they can find another one. Who knows, one day they might find an instance full of like minded hateful people who don’t run them out. Of course, they’re likely to find that instance is not federated very well or broadly. Much like people from non racist towns don’t like to have much to do with towns widely known to be full of racists.

      • … and if they can’t find a town square where they can spew their hate, they can still found their own town!

        The people who make these posts looking for “free speech” are really looking for no consequence speech

        This is why I intentionally use “free speech” instead of free speech. Free speech is important and and essential part of every society.

  • Freedom of speech is for the government, not privately run servers. This sounds like a Republican not wanting people to disagree with him. That’s fine but maybe try 4chan or that trump twitter site?

    • There are still a lot of caveats. For example, your server hosting provider can block you for posting objectionable content, like anti-LGBT references. If you host at home, you ISP can ban you. Then comes the domain extension. The domain extentions are controlled by some company or the other, like .com is managed by verizon, .zip is managed by Google etc. They, or the domain provider can also terminate your contract.

      Onion domains may be a solution, but if you post seriously objectionable content, like leaking CIA secrets, you can expect someone to knock on your door soon.