• SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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    9 months ago

    Can you point to any time in history where the people censoring controversial things were the good guys in the ensuing conflict?

    Whether there’s “good guys” in a war is debatable. But if you’re under the belief that there are good guys in wars, then we can point to basically every war in history.

    Censorship during wars was actually the norm in the past. The Spanish influenza didn’t originate in Spain, it’s just that it was first reported there. Because Spain wasn’t a part of WWI. The news in the countries involved in the war were censored and couldn’t report on it.

    Nazi propaganda was banned in the US and other allied countries in WWII.

    People in the American Revolution were publicly tortured (tarred and feathered) for speaking out against the revolutionary government.

    Sorry, history just isn’t as clean and simple as you might think.

    • TempermentalAnomaly@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Just to add to this, shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there is no fire is a phrase often used to define to limits of free speech. However, this was an analogy used by Oliver Wendell Holmes to describe what it is like to oppose the draft in WWI. That part of the ruling stood for about 40 years.

    • SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      How about Poland in ww2? I’d say they were “the good guys” since they were attacked unprovoked.

      But if you’re under the belief that there are good guys in wars, then we can point to basically every war in history.

      Fallacious logic. “If case X is true then it must be true in every case.”