From this thread on Twitter censorship of German fascists, blocking only other Germans from seeing their Tweets:

Quote:

Navin_Johnson: Disgusting speech is best fought with more speech, not less.

Antinous: We have more access to information about fascist groups than ever before and fascism is on the rise. Your statement is an optimistic meme and has no factual basis.

Well, it’s less a meme, more of a philosophical and political aspiration that has been cited many times throughout history, notably Judge Louis Brandeis: [source]

Those who won our independence by revolution were not cowards. They did not fear political change. They did not exalt order at the cost of liberty. To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such, in my opinion, is the command of the Constitution. It is therefore always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.

…and I don’t smell an emergency in Germany, nor in Cyberspace.

The discussion on BoingBoing rapidly heads-off into territory where all sides are trying to out-Godwin each other (“first one to justify accusing your opponent, wins!”) – but when a pro-free-speech librarian writes:

nowimnothing: If I don’t have a book in my library that offends you, then I am not doing my job.

…and Antinous makes the cogent, reasoned response:

Antinous: Honestly, that just makes you sound like a rebellious twelve year-old.

…the quality of the BoingBoing moderator’s ability to reason and engage with the blog’s readership could not be more jaw-droppingly clear.