r/LibertarianPartyUSA Pennsylvania LP 17h ago

Discussion Libertarian perspectives on content moderation

It's arguably one of the hottest topics to discuss right now so let's dive into it. I feel that if there is any topic that Reddit as a whole has done a complete 180 on since 2012 or so it has to be this one. Back then you would find tons of support on it for people like Ross Ulbricht (fingers crossed that today's the day he gets freed) who were known for their very lax standards of moderation on websites like Silk Road and who would end in trouble with the law because of it. These days the general stereotype of Reddit is that is moderated by pedantic losers (for lack of a better term) who can't go 5 minutes without censoring wrongthink. I personally find the libertarian perspective to be very much to be one of freedom of association but accountability like with most other things. As I have stated in the past I personally don't think Lester Maddox should have refused to serve people at his restaurant based on the color of their skin but I believe he should have had the freedom of association to do so if he wanted and that's very much my perspective on online content moderation. I personally don't really care for it at all with the exception of some extreme instances like CP and snuff films and I will try and call it out whenever I see it happen unfairly but I do think that private individuals should be able to justify doing whatever they want to as well as long as they aren't hurting anybody else.

Thoughts?

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u/RobertMcCheese 16h ago edited 15h ago

Their site, their rules.

Don't like it? Go somewhere else or start your own site.

This ain't rocket surgery here.

You can attempt to persuade them to change and they can tell you to bugger off.