Ever the contrarian, though, my concern is that in our earnestness to not inspire evil we don’t unwittingly protect and enable it. And I’m not comfortable embracing the same rationales that are used to hyperbolize and demonize gun ownership: treating it as a public health “pathogen” and forcing changes on the behavior of all due to the aberrance of a few. [More]
A lot of people from "both sides of the debate" are counseling us that voluntary media withholding of information about killers is needed. I have yet to see any credible data pointing to a verifiable measurable reduction in incidents or body counts, and fear suppression generally seems to work in the interests of those who would define and control the narrative.
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(I can't tell if this was submitted the first time. Dang "smart" phones.)
You could (and I did) also ask whether corporate social media censorship, ostensibly intended to reduce or eliminate "hate speech" and "violent rhetoric", instead merely drives those discussions to other parts of the Internet, where rational people rarely tread.
IOW, "in our earnestness to not inspire evil", does banning those conversations from public forums "unwittingly protect and enable it", by forcing it into "safe haven" sites where an evil person can surround himself with other evil people?
I would say, "Yes."
(Please excuse what I'm sure looks like shameless self-promotion; I have not seen anyone else addressing this connection, but I believe it's important to point out.)
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