Liberals have found an interesting rationalization that allows reconciling support for free speech with the need to censor ideas outside that threaten liberal ideology.
The trick is to claim that the total sum of valid ideas falls within the liberal ideology. All the ideas that are contrary are therefore fundamentally invalid, and thus can be treated simply as noise.
This is why liberals love the fake news and disinformation narrative so much. In their mind, they’re not censoring valid ideas that are contrary to their own ideology, but are rather fighting against noise that has no fundamental value. Since these aren’t valid ideas to begin with, liberals don’t see censoring them as a form of censorship.
I think there’s also the fact that a lot of things can be understood as “censorship” even when we don’t normally call it that. Moderating, blocking, filtering, defederating, etc.
Libs are so used to calling all the bad parts of liberalism by a different name that they really believe they’re not [doing the thing] while [doing the thing]. Like how they’re not concentration camps, they’re “immigration overflow facilities.” And they don’t sell weapons, they “provide lethal aid.” And they definitely don’t impoverish millions of people in order to incite war, no they uh “apply targeted sanctions” or something.
They probably, genuinely, don’t see the contradiction in advocating for free speech while banning stuff instinctively. They categorically don’t see it that way, because they’re the ones doing it.
To paraphrase some Russian guy:
By changing the names of things, they believe they have changed the nature of the thing itself.
Well, west Russia, fine. (No idea why I thought he was Russian, I guess because Marx is German but lived in the UK? Or I somehow got him mixed up with the bolsheviks? No idea.)
I know some “free Speech advocates” think it means an audience has to stand there and be harassed wherever, at least when it comes to “their side”
