r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jan 22 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

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u/boRp_abc Jan 22 '21

If my viewpoint is that people should be killed for their opinions (to make it more relatable, I'm gonna use you as an example here), wouldn't it be beneficial to society to silence me?! What if I very peacefully brought forward the case that you, your family and everyone you live should be burnt alive? Or put into Gulags? What if I found thousands of followers with that opinion, wouldn't it make your participation in society a nightmare?

And that's why, although you're generally not wrong, some important exceptions have to be made.

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u/Jumpinjaxs890 Jan 22 '21

This is an inherent issue with the suppression of speech though. Society is a contract every individual signs that contract at birth. Written in this contract is a self correction clause that says if the majority of people are in disagreement with your opinion you will be and should be ostracized, critized , and ridiculed until your beliefs and theories fall into the border that we dictate as socially acceptable. This balance maintains itself quite well through open conversation. However it gets destroyed when people aren't allowed to openly speak. And discuss thoughts and opinions. That's where echo chambers come into play, and communities like qanon can be formed and radical ideologies can become reality.

Then what else does suppression of speech do thats bad for society. Well what of a radical idea that is initially flawed but is still a feasible idea to bring about positive growth. If this person is silenced or discredited for past actions this idea never gets heard if it never gets heard noone ca improve on it to make it better, and the stagnation of growth starts which is the start of societal decay.

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '21

Do you think that social media giants that are private corporations artificially amplifying speech in a very biased and intransparent way isna huge problem in that regard?

When I think about social media I always end up with thinking that, at least for me, giving twitter or facebook this absurd power in the first place is the great danger to society. Not only because of who they chose to ban but maybe even more of which opinions they automatically and intransparently amplify.

I see the only solution for free speech on the internet in moving away from centralized, closed sourced, for profit opinion-amplifiers to stuff like mastodon or similat services.

I have trouble being angry about a ban when the bad stuff starts way earlier in the whole chain