Re: The Paradox of Tolerance summarizes my opinion:(@ Geriant)
"If you approve of censorship..."
If this censorship were being carried out by a government, I'd mostly agree with you and Chomsky (who, coincidentally, IMO is both a genius and a nice person). What we're seeing here is a different beast, i.e. Society performing censorship against groups it considers evil.
If someone puts up a website defending kiddie fiddling, rape or the Holocaust, he/she can expect to receive a similar treatment, and with good reason.
I know, I know. Sometimes this mechanism is abused/subverted, and there are countries were it's used to crush minorities and dissenters (e.g. most Muslim countries). But in the case of Western nations some Societal censorship is good. You have to draw the line somewhere. Nazis and the KKK, FFS!
Regarding Unwin's quote in your last paragraph ("The enemy of subversive thought is not suppression, but publication...) I find it al little bit naive. In recent* times, we've seen several examples of how deluges of misinformation and hate speech can decide the result of elections and referendums.
Note*: And also in not so recent times. The rise of Nazism in Germany is also a good example, even though back then they didn't have Internet.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
