> Today hate speech can piped into eyes and ears by our mobile phones, turbocharged by algorithms which are funded by billions in advertising dollars. > > Back in John Stuart-Mill's day the most anyone could achieve would be to write a book or a newspaper article, which are quite easy to ignore.

Turning off Twitter and Facebook are quite easy to do, apart from their addictive designs. (I permanently disconnected from Facebook two years ago, and today only occasionally check Twitter a few times a month.) There are a few things I miss out on not being on Facebook (mostly some groups that would be helpful for my actual, real-life networks); I miss absolutely nothing by being off of Twitter (and HN is like a quality filter for the tech industry Twitter crap).

So, indeed, even if someone could define an objective criteria for "hate speech," everyone is still offended by their own consent.

"Apart from their addictive designs" is the key phrase here.

Purdue only created OxyContin for legitimate pain management but they knew full well the level of abuse because of their profits

I'd rather live in a society where the creators of these things take some responsibility for effects of whatever they've created, whether intentional or not

I think your point has its limitations but is quite important. "Just turn off FB" sounds similar to "Just build your own social media", it may be seen as too limiting.

On the other hand I think people against non-censored speech often frame the receivers of the message as somehow mindless. Now that I think about it, censoring people on social media (i.e. deplatforming Trump) implies that users have no free will (whatever that means) and can only act as an obedient crowd. From that perspective, everyone who might become a leader of the masses seems dangerous and requires intervention. Not only that, their followers are also potentially dangerous, just not powerful enough. To me such attitude is in contradiction with individual's freedom to express their views but also a denial of existence of freedom to act in accordance with one's views.

"I know we asserted a principled stance against smoking, but we now live above a tobacconist!"

You could also say that when rumors did spread back in Mill's day (or before), they were harder to correct as quickly. As an example Cervantes spends a whole chapter in Don Quixote Part II arguing against the inauthenticity of a false sequel.

Times have changed, but the bar must remain high to dismiss centuries of political synthesis and struggle, based on a few new conditions.

I don't think they were easy to ignore. News was far more valuable before mass communication, and authority was also far more respected. We can see this with how they used paper (and its equivalents) to distribute information, which is arguably far more expensive than distributing it over a wire or through radio waves. And indeed it was also more expensive the further back you go, because of how difficult it is to produce. For instance, there was a time when letters were so expensive that every millimetre of it was used to write on before sending it away.

Yes, paper is of course still used today, but only for more valuable information, such as those connected with formalities or ads that the sender hopes will result in profit. Industrialization has of course made paper cheap enough to use it a lot more frivolously than before, but the mere difficulty and “slowness” of it prevents most people from using it more in daily life.

Before the internet, or indeed before radio, it was really hard to find evidence to the contrary of any received information, so the default was to trust authority. Today you can find a scientific study (or perhaps a “scientific” study...) that opposes nearly whatever view you distrust at a click of a button. And thus groups and blocks form, and it's not easy to tell which one believes in the truth and which one does not. Indeed at some point most people just retire and trust the authorities that they like, which is how most political divides are created anyway.

On a slightly different tangent; without condoning hate speech, today there is a great debate raging as to what should be defined as hate speech, and by whom, and I think the growing consensus is that big tech is a poor censor.

Accessibility is a non-issue unless your intent is to become the morality police. You don't get to decide for others what speech they have access to. It's actually absolutely none of your business what conversations others are having, and what debates they're engaging in.

You can also ignore advertising and social media in very much the same way you ignore nudity. Hate speech is not "piped" into our eyes and ears. Is there lots of it? Yes. Are you forced to engage with it? No. You don't report your cousin Dave to the morality police for racist or sexist comments over the dinner table, despite the fact that you're less likely to avoid hearing it than the hate speech on social media.

Thing is, the big social media platforms are deciding what speech their products consume. The algorithms seem to be designed to feed into division and biases. It's absolutely no business what conversations others are having and yet this precise metric is being leveraged to abuse people into generating income. You and I can ignore social media but it seems to have caught an alarming majority in its wake. Add in misinformation and encouraging division and it's a troubling state of affairs, especially when it is proving to be so very profitable.

I definitely agree that a morality police can only make things worse, but a fact police may help :-)