There have always been groups of people determined to shut you up. Sometimes in the form of governments, sometimes corporations, and sometimes angry mobs.

Funnily enough, our biggest stick against the latter two is the government. What we need is a better general appreciation of free speech. Sometimes it feels like the only thing moderating public opinion is a sportsteam-like dedication to the constitution/national identity, without understanding what it really means.


With venture capital, no doubt...

The real problem is not that we'd be unable to communicate. It's that most people would be unable to communicate. Right now, the average user isn't going to get off Facebook or Google no matter how much they start censoring themselves.

People act all indignant when corporations try to appease lunatics, but who are we kidding here - wouldn't you? If we truly want corporate products to respect freedom of speech, the decisionmakers need to be backed up by society. Now it's more like damned if you do, damned if you don't. Too many people will side with the complainers out of political correctness or actually agreeing with censorship of anything unpleasant to someone.

Don't expect balance any time soon though, because there's just as many people who think freedom of speech means the right to force people around you to listen to you. This, for example, is just total failure on all sides of the issue.