this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2023
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don't worry this is the type of stuff i go on reddit for I'm glad there are people willing to go into long form discussion here
so ultimately I think we have to agree to disagree a bit here although I respect your opinion. You're absolutely right that there are organizations out there, both governmental and billionaire funded, that astroturf the shit out of the internet ( and you didn't mention AI like chatgpt, which will make this problem exponentially worse since it will become increasingly cheaper to astroturf).
I agree that I'm not personally going to debate a holocaust denier - they can more or less get fucked. I just don't think they should be sent to jail or otherwise censored. And this more or less lines up with Chomsky's beliefs. I'm a huge fan of him and I am 100% behind his free speech absolutism.
Anyhow, if you want more detail about the whole thing with Chomsky.. there's a page on Wikipedia that goes over it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faurisson_affair
Here's what he had to say to critics of his decision to support the holocaust denier
I think the line that sticks out to me the most is- that it is precisely in the case of horrendous ideas that the right of free expression must be most vigorously defended
If we give up the principle, we lose everything.