China has a very Orwellian reason for banning typing "1984" on social media, while allowing people to read Nineteen Eighty-Four

[tachin1]

@bobtato

What vindicates Western freedom of speech isn’t that letting people form cults or incite hatred is harmless. It’s that by letting that tiger off its leash, you force reason and empathy and suchlike to win the argument on merit. Free speech is only a good if people are healthily afraid of its dark side.

I’m not convinced that so called western freedom of speech has been vindicated though it’s certainly less bad than full censorship. Since it’s the constraint under which a lot of us have flourished, we’re probably too close to judge it “good” objectively.