Sir, – In a recent letter on tech giants and censorship, Piaras Mac Éinrí does not answer the central question (Letters, July 24th). Who decides which cases of speech are "blatantly and egregiously based on the singling out of entire groups of people as targets of hateful propaganda"?
If everyone agreed on what constitutes hateful propaganda, there would be no need for this debate, but we do not all agree. As an example, is it singling out an entire group for hateful propaganda to say that a biological man is not a woman? Lindsay Shepherd was permanently banned from twitter for doing so. In effect, is the statement that women cannot father children hateful propaganda? I have no doubt that those who had Ms Shephard banned would say it is.
Should the American multinationals then decide what is hateful propaganda? Or the government of the day? Or should opinions that egregiously offend the moral majority be censored? Or perhaps a group of learned academics could form some sort of committee of public safety, for the public good of course, to decide for us?
Or perhaps we could accept that in a free society, people should be free to advocate unpopular and controversial views, even if others consider those views hateful propaganda. – Yours, etc,
BRIAN KELLY,
Roscommon.