I think this topic is a little messier than how you put it.
4chan's /b/ is the same exact place that:
- posted racist, misogynist, misandrist, and shocking porn
- stood up to scientology
- acted as an obfuscator for anonymous
- led raids on other communities
A normal person can pick the things out of that list they don't want and say "be gone". The problem is, the other things on that list don't exist without it. This is generally the allegory and type of connection that keeps our idea of "government free speech" tied somewhat closely with (what I call) "personal free speech".
On the other hand, I moderate smaller communities than /b/ (and other large forums) and I agree, in these smaller settings there are left and right political grifters, there's content that will cause people to leave or backlash, and endless personal disputes that must be mediated.
The problems between my small communities (a couple thousand) and large forums (hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions) are very different, and they serve a very different purpose in the larger ecosystem of communication that I think is difficult to quantify.
4chan's /b/ is the same exact place that:
- posted racist, misogynist, misandrist, and shocking porn
- stood up to scientology
- acted as an obfuscator for anonymous
- led raids on other communities
A normal person can pick the things out of that list they don't want and say "be gone". The problem is, the other things on that list don't exist without it. This is generally the allegory and type of connection that keeps our idea of "government free speech" tied somewhat closely with (what I call) "personal free speech".
On the other hand, I moderate smaller communities than /b/ (and other large forums) and I agree, in these smaller settings there are left and right political grifters, there's content that will cause people to leave or backlash, and endless personal disputes that must be mediated.
The problems between my small communities (a couple thousand) and large forums (hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions) are very different, and they serve a very different purpose in the larger ecosystem of communication that I think is difficult to quantify.