Censorship does not do good. We might want to believe it does, and this gets into the fake news problem, for example, that if we just empower Facebook to decide what we can and can’t see and what is good and bad, the problem can be solved. But this is a mistake for a number of reasons.
One, it creates a slippery slope where now we have private corporations deciding what can and cannot be said. But further, let’s say there are clear cases, we’re talking about things like Jihadist propaganda, we’re talking about fascist communities that are promoting ideas that are actively harmful, out in the public. The problem is, if you censor them, you don’t actually remove them. You don’t stop the idea from being spread. You just force them underground. It is underground where these ideas actually propagate best and most effectively. This idea that we can just stamp out ideas, we know does not work. This is the cause of every revolution in human history.
President Kennedy agreed:
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Indeed, the American government is doing what King George did before the American Revolution … trying to crush dissent.
Reprinted from Washington’s Blog.