Now that I understand that you’re making a prescriptive argument about what you think “freedom of speech” should entail rather than a descriptive argument of what you think it does entail under existing laws (American constitutional law) and rules (Medium’s), I can better appreciate the point you’re making, but I guess I’d still ultimately disagree.
If this were about the government censoring speech, I’d agree with you. In that scenario, yes, let a thousand flowers bloom, and if people write things that are disgusting or stupid or otherwise objectionable, we just let those people make fools of themselves or alienate others if they’re going to, etc. The reason I think this is different is because it goes to the question of whether a privately owned and operated business, such as Medium, has any obligation, in the name of free speech, to provide a hospitable public forum for speech that incites or promotes violence. I’d say it doesn’t. No one is taking away The DiDi Delgado’s right to post whatever garbage she wants on her own private blog, but Medium is not under any obligation to provide a megaphone for her to broadcast her message of violence in the name of race-based hatred far and wide. (This is especially true if she then uses the power given to her by Medium to block her followers and readers from viewing criticisms like mine after they become popular: see https://medium.com/@Zoobahtov/after-my-response-to-her-hateful-post-rose-to-1-cowardly-race-baiter-the-didi-delgado-blocked-me-c7e3d4a558e2 to understand exactly what I’m talking about.)
And I also disagree with this point of yours: “You simply assume that people who read such stuff will fall for it. As I say, this sounds like hubris. If you did not fall for it, why would others?”
The reason I know that people will “fall for it” is because this woman has 3.1 thousand followers, and this particular article that she wrote has 253 “likes” as of this moment. I’m not saying that all these people will actually start punching cops, of course, it’s reasonable to assume that her violence-inciting hate speech is going to make others angrier, more radicalized and more prone to display hateful or violent attitudes and behaviors towards cops. If even one of those 253 (or of the many more who’ve probably read her article and felt sympathetic to it) does something violent to a cop as a result, that’s already one too many. We may not want to live in a nanny-state that restricts people’s rights in the name of protecting them from themselves, but again, Medium is not the State. Unlike the government but like any publication or platform, such as the New York Times, Medium is even entitled to endorse or promote an editorial point of view. If Medium wanted to, it could even decide that it was going to become a platform only for those who promoted divisive identity politics (which it already promotes in a more surreptitious and deceptive manner by giving aggressively endorsing and recommending such writers). So I just don’t see a problem with it taking the view that it is going to be “responsible” in how it allows its tools to be used and take a stance to ban people who do things like promote violence against law enforcement.
