My buddy in Toronto made me question if banning hate speech actually silences real debate
Had a long phone call last week with an old friend who moved to Toronto. He said Canada's approach to banning certain speech feels safer but also makes people avoid hard conversations. I argued the US model lets terrible ideas surface and get shot down publicly. He countered that letting hate speech spread online just normalizes it, and that got me stuck. So which is closer to protecting free speech, letting everything out or drawing a line somewhere? Anyone else got a conversation like this that flipped their thinking?
Had almost the exact same thing happen with my cousin up in Vancouver, he said people there just stay quiet instead of saying what they really feel and it kinda freaked me out. Still not sure which way is right but that convo stuck with me for weeks lol.