Lot of people look real stupid getting on the Kanye bandwagon for "free speech" only for it to end like this. Dropped by Balenciaga, likely about to be dropped by Adidas, apologizing, etc. Also highlights that a lot of this shit is and has always been a movement to bring hate speech into the public square. It's not about "free speech" - which has nothing to do with non-government entities anyway. It has everything to do with folks who just want to say the n-word, attack Jews, etc.
hasn't it always been in the public square and this would be more about maintaining that ability instead of shutting it down?
like just thinking of the old internet and how common it was to say f@g and r-tard casually
This is actually a great point. I def remember that era but at some point many of us (nerds, gamers, movie watchers, etc as kids) started converging on message boards. Some message boards were no rules, no holds barred wild wild west shit. As time passed the largest boards, from GAF to IGN forums, had pretty strict moderation policies/TOS on that stuff. You could get away with all types of shit on GAF but using the f-word or n-word was auto permaban shit. 4chan popped up and had entirely different approaches to these things but that shit was more of an exception than a rule.
Flash forward to 2022. Forums are largely dead, social media runs the internet. But like forums, social media has TOS. So to me the issue is not them wanting to return to the old internet...it might as well be us going back to 2002, dealing with the weirdo who just wanted to call people fegs. After that permaban he'd just go to one of the chan sites. The problem today is these people realize those off brand sites they create aren't wavy or cool. At least back in the day, chan sites basically influenced everyone else meme/humor wise. Now these losers aren't nearly as funny or creative and just want to be in the normal person pool (twitter) talking that shit. Nope lol.
As Benji supported, a big problem with your supposition is that everyone that has issues with free speech on social media is a racist homophobe.
"They just want to bring back the n-word and f-word" is peak liberal ivory tower thinking that people generally resent. This "I know better for you" mindset.
Go to Twitter right now and find a tweet you disagree and write literally,"this is fucking distinguished mentally-challenged" or "this is fucking stupid" and chances are you will be greeted with a warning of conduct of language and likely get a warning. As the tweet cap Benji posted shows, you can't say anything about anybody regardless of context. A consequence of banning stuff like cigarillo or nicca is that it's not humans doing the moderating, it's bots, and black people - the very you're trying to protect - will be banned from social media for a wide range of things from simply saying "nicca" to "he called me a nicca." The problem with policing language is that it is an endless regress where, without actual moderation, we are only left with a complete white washing of the word even when used in example. Even before social media I disagreed with the censoring of the word nicca because it gives the word power. I remember being called nicca on the playground and I still dislike any censorship of the word because it presumes that I fear being called it when it's the contrary. I write it myself here, filtered out from the Bore's own distinguished mentally-challenged word filter. I just dislike censorship as a rule.
Moreover, you speak of the old days but I know the Phoenix Dark that called overweight women "orcas". You act like you were above it, but you were just like the rest of us. Why were you allowed to say that on NeoGaf or here but a nicca can't say a lady is fat on twitter?
How do you manage to be against the book/library situation while advocating for speech censorship? They're utterly against odds. At this point you might as well be for banning Huckleberry Finn.
"They just want to call people nicca and cigarillo" is overly simplistic and binary in its thinking. This idea that if you support free speech you're a racist is dangerous as racial minorities need free speech the most. Personally, I've backtracked to 2000's internet rules. I say whatever the fuck I want here regardless of "new" internet's rules. Remember. You yourself called overweight women orcas and whales. You can claim to be better or have grown, but that's just the hypocrisy I can't stand. "We used to say this when we were younger so we are just going to disable your ability to say it because we were wrong?" It's just a power play and a method to force everyone in to your own ruleset so you can control culture and call anyone and everyone that goes against it your enemies.