Censorship
 

Freedom is learning new ideas and considering different views. Learning & debate are how societies advance.
Censorship is how societies rot.

If someone says something you disagree with you can simply ignored it ! But unfortunately censorship has become the way of suppressing independent thoughts and ideas.

Censorship is also agenda driven

In the past year I have learned that there are so many words that I'm not suppose to say...according to people that are offended by about everything....

Minority (not race) and special interest groups, no matter how small, are amplified to sound as thought they are the majority!!

They get away with it because the silent majority remains......silent!

Our lawmakers need to be reminded what the preamble to the constitution states;

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

The constitution explained;

The U.S. Constitution: Preamble | United States Courts

For too many agendas today none of this matters!!

Unfortunately, all too many people seem to be clueless as to what the 1A actually means, covers, or to whom it applies. It does NOT mean that a private business, has to allow all opinions. Besides, with even the laziest of searches, someone can find a site that supports their own confirmation bias - so where's the problem?

We seem to have Tyranny of the minority. Wonder what Tocqueville would say about this?

Funny you mention Tocqueville.....his visits to America to study our democracy is now lost, because we, as a country have destroyed the meanings of so many important virtues of our country...

"Americans are so enamored of equality that they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom."

Was a famous quote of his....does anyone think this still,applies ?

And we sort of reversed this observation he made....

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."


He also said quite a bit about honesty and morals, and we are not even in the same world as he thought we were and would be.

"Society is endangered not by the great profligacy of a few, but by the laxity of morals amongst all"

Well said and accurate.

The First Amendment is very specific: It protects all of us as Americans from the government limiting our speech, And so when people talk about, 'Well, if I get kicked off of Facebook, that's an attack on my free speech or on my First Amendment right' — that's just not true. The companies have the ability to decide what speech they will allow. They're not the government.

In addition, the OP said...” Learning & debate are how societies advance.”. And also said “If someone says something you disagree with you can simply ignore it”

You skip over, if someone tells a lie....a total, easily proven lie. That is and has been the subject, not censoring an opinion, but when confronted with an outright fabrication with no basis in truth.....

Enjoy America’s freedom

Say what you want. Do not let “THEY” control your thoughts or right to express your opinion.

Not sure what your meaning is, but of course everyone has a right to their own opinion.....

Problem today is an opinion is based on facts. Having "alternate facts" (I didn't coin that ridiculous term) the problem is not having a right to your opinion, but do you have a right to downright lie and deceive by making up facts ?

There is too much opinion being presented in the guise of unbiased news and fact.

Personally, I am offended by political correction. I'm offended by preferential treatment. I'm offended by discrimination. I'm offended by 'reverse discrimination'. I'm beyond offended by Affirmative Action. Where is the equality in that? Frankly, it's divisive.

What is a "fact"?
 

I love how some people say it is okay to censor "lies." Some people's lies are other people's truths. In the past few years, so many supposed "lies" have turned out to be truths. For example, I was appalled to learn that the policeman who died at the Capitol died not from being hit over the head by a fire extinguisher but from a stroke. (Report of the medical examiner.) And the death occurred long after the insurrection. The lie about the fire extinguisher was all over the supposed news. And I have yet to hear an apology from any of them. We should be allowed to hear what EVERYBODY says and decide for ourselves what is truth and what is a lie. And when the news media makes a mistake (as is inevitable from time to time), they should have the integrity to come out and admit it. Just sayin'.

All o the talk about companies "censoring" people is very interesting, since the implication is that the Government should protect peoples "freedom of speech" by forcing the companies to allow people to express themselves.

This is really fascinating, since the very people that are calling for the companies to be "controlled" by the government, also frequently the same people that say how wonderful free market capitalism is and how awful socialism is...

And yet, Socialism is where the government controls or runs the companies and capitalism is where the companies are allowed to operate as they see fit and the people vote with their money.

BTW, as others have said above the freedom of speech is very clearly defined as the GOVERNMENT can not abridge your right to say what you want (mostly - no screaming fire in the theater).

hmm...

The big problem is, some people have no concept of how to distinguish between fact and fiction. We could say The media needs to do a better job of fact checking, because so many people depend on it for information. But the media is controlled in some cases by very biased entities which are pushing their own agenda, so the media cannot always be depended on. I think a lot of it boils down to common sense, which seems to have gone out the window. Take the election results. There were blatant attempts to discredit the election results, with absolutely no facts or proof put forth, and look at the millions of people who bought into that lie. In this case, the voting machine companies are suing for billions of dollars, so the facts will come out in court. But there are many instances where people are unable or unwilling to take a stand, and lies prevail.

Apparently certain groups in our country think they do. And many opinions posited today are not based on facts but rather pure subjective opinion.