I was lurking, and this really caught my eye (also surprised to see a familiar face, but that's beside the point).
I have to entirely disagree with you on this one Katie.
People are entitled to hold whatever opinion they like over anything, and to voice and express that opinion, no matter how ****ed up that idea might be, so long as it isn't harming anyone. It's a universal human right: free speech.
Drawing the line over what is "fine" or not is the real slippery slope. How do you label what is ok for discussion and what is not? How do you keep monitoring fair and objective? And finally, what makes something ok and something else not when the values of society always change? How do you balance that? Who polices the police, you know what I'm saying? How do you prevent subjective opinions from taking over the system, and abusing it to promote their skewed values?
The best system for the proper filtration of good and bad ideas is one in which you allow an open discussion for all sorts of opinions and ideas, those ideas that can't stand criticism, will eventually die out.
For this to happen, you need to allow that people have the freedom to hold and express whatever idea they might have, no matter how absurd.
You have to give everyone an equal platform, even if they're a racist prick. I might not like the Confederate flag, but people are free to be openly racist to their own liking.
For example, I might not agree with the notion that Daisy is a bad character because of her gender, however, whoever might hold such opinion has every right to have and express it. You can't dictate what values people choose to adopt, and you can't label some value systems as acceptable, and others as not. You can't take away people's freedom of choice and opinion, it's like trying to control their will, and that is a far bigger sin. This person might then voice such opinion, and I can then openly look at it, and analize WHERE the sentiment is coming from, and why it's objectively incorrect. I could agree that Daisy is a bad character, but not due to her gender, but rather because she's uninspired and boring.
Then, though this person might not agree, and start crying, and will not change their mind, other people can objectively view both ideas, and reason over which holds more weight.
You see, if you create a system in which you start drawing lines over what is "fine" and not then you limit the opportunity for objectivity to clear out dumb opinions. This is especially bad since the majority opinion tends to be led by herd mentality in which most don't bother to look into the facts for themselves and just pick a side on a whim. Combine those two, and I'm sure you can see why this is a recipe for disaster, which... it has been, many times throughout history in fact.
If you start saying that some ideas are "fine" and others "not." Then it's very easy for skewed and incorrect concepts to quickly take power, and it quickly becomes authoritarianism.
Funny enough, it's always the weaker value systems that try to push for some sort of censorship (religion, extreme feminism, social justice movements, etc...), because they know they can't face objective criticism.
Anyway, this caught my eye because it's been a topic I've discussed with numerous people lately after Anita Sarkeesian made the headlines a couple weeks ago for being stupid enough to ask the UN to monitor the internet because she wants to stifle dissent and criticism of her ideas, all in the name of "stopping cyber bullying" and her "one-true feminism."
All censorship is bad Katie, period, and I stand firmly against it. Let objectivity and reason naturally filter out stupidity.
"There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance."
Hippocrates
After all, you wanna be a journalist right? You should be all in favor of free speech.
Anyway, my two cents, not here to debate. This place already does a fine job at silencing unpopular opinions. But I felt it was worth expressing regardless.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯