A short thread on free speech. 1. I make no apologies for being a near free speech absolutist. To me, there is almost never any valid reason for restricting speech definitely not the reasons that are commonly used. Just in case you were wondering, and feel free to look, 1/n

I have never called for or pushed for the censoring, deplatforming, etc of anyone or institution this includes the CCP and all their minions. I do not believe in that. This is not partisan or group, I hold that constant for all groups 2/n

2. Being a free speech absolutist means that you do not approve of the speech content but that people should have the ability to say it. I'm not a racist. Communist. Facist or whatever other -ist you may want to claim but I believe people should be able to say it 3/n

3. One of the biggest reasons I am a near free speech absolutist, in line with long history on US courts, is that there is no standard that can be widely applied to speech without quickly becoming nonsensical farce. In other words, any "standard" you create about acceptable 4/n

Speech can likely be used against you almost instantaneously OR will be misused almost instantly. Let's take the the debate about Trump as a simple example. The same exact standards for deplatforming Trump and Parler could be applied to Facebook, Google, Twitter and others 5/n

There are so many examples of groups regularly using their services to do all kinds of bad things, the same exact standards these companies are using to deplatform others could be used to cut THEM off. Let me strongly emphasize this is absolutely not a defense of violence 6/n

in any form by any group etc etc but merely to illustrate the absurdity. Even in a private enterprise manner, which I will not explore in depth here, the rationale these entities are using could just as easily apply to them. This is historically why US courts have 7/n

Given such broad protections to speech, not just government regulations but others, because any standard regulating speech is virtually worthless. As SCOTUS head noted, I don't know what obscenity is, but I know it when I see it. 8/n