> Moderating heavily just means that the group in power will censor the other side’s opinions.
They key is not to moderate based on content, but on tone. "Tone" isn't really a good word, because tone is hard to get through a textual medium. I think what I mean is that you moderate things like ad hominem attacks and people being disrespectful or uncivil. Criticism is fine as long as it's constructive and delivered respectfully. But you don't moderate based on what someone's views are.
I know that's hard, and even people who actively try to watch their biases and avoid making decisions influenced by them will still screw up sometimes. But it's not impossible.
"Polite" racism is still racism. You can't really express the idea that certain people are inherently inferior to their faces without it being offensive, no matter what wording you choose.
No? Tell a bunch of men that men are more likely to end up in prison because they're more likely to break the law and you won't see much disagreement, let alone offence taking.
Well functioning societies define politeness very narrowly. It's about please and thankyou, not yelling, and other mechanical aspects unrelated to the content. The definition you're using here leads to forum outcomes like not being able to discuss workout techniques because that might imply there's such a thing as an ideal weight, or not being able to talk about last weekend's hike because enjoying the countryside is a dog-whistle for racism (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/07/british-countrys...). Once you decide that discussing group differences is impolite and therefore verboten, the only logical outcome is to conclude that there is no reason for any group differences to exist, but they do which means it must be due to oppression.
In other words, defining politeness that way ends in requiring everyone to be Marxist. That has outcomes that are objectively worse than societies that use a narrow definition (e.g. compare hunger levels in America vs North Korea).
It's perfectly reasonable to set up a forum where everyone is required to be committed to the tenets of Marxism under the guise of politeness, but you can't have such a forum and also have it be intellectually curious or truth seeking.
> left-leaning people often can't stand to be in the presence of right wing arguments. They fear "contamination" of some sort, so they either find ways to abuse the rules to kick the right wing people out or they leave.
Ehhhh... most times I've seen left-wing people avoid right-wing arguments it's been due to factors like racism -- or, often, 'not even wrong'-ness. This is in my experience the largest factor.
As for Europe and free speech, while you can't really speak about Europe as a whole even as much as you can the US, it seems to follow a policy that's closer to the forum this article is about. Germany has laws on hate speech and anti-Semitism, for example. That's not 'free speech' but it is moderation on a national scale.
They key is not to moderate based on content, but on tone. "Tone" isn't really a good word, because tone is hard to get through a textual medium. I think what I mean is that you moderate things like ad hominem attacks and people being disrespectful or uncivil. Criticism is fine as long as it's constructive and delivered respectfully. But you don't moderate based on what someone's views are.
I know that's hard, and even people who actively try to watch their biases and avoid making decisions influenced by them will still screw up sometimes. But it's not impossible.