1/ This quote by @jasonintrator is mind-blowing. To argue that free speech is AS likely to threaten democracy as to make it flourish ignores 2,500 years of history as well as troves of empirical data.

2/ Compare the US and Russia, until recently both had illiberal presidents willing to subvert the rule of law and democratic norms. In the US Trump lasted one term after being subjected to relentless criticism and thwarted by courts in his attempts to sue and silence the media.

3/ In Russia Putin has been in power since 2000. During which period he has used state power to kill and imprison journalists, censor independent media and the internet and turn traditional media into his mouthpieces

4/ When Navalny defied these forbidding odds and challenged Putin´s rule he was poisoned and then imprisoned after a star chamber trial in a kangaroo court, and by all accounts he may be in lethal danger.

5/ Trump frequently fantasized about locking up his opponents, but the First Amendment and a culture of free speech underpinned by independent institutions made him powerless to do so. In fact many of Trump´s loudest critics have become media stars with huge media platforms.

6/ To be clear: free speech can be used for nefarious ends including to organize attacks on democracy and democratic values and no one can guarantee that democracy will always come out on top. But historically the benefits of free speech have vastly outweighed the potential harms

7/ One need only look at the many times moral panics about communism, fifth column activity and the like have led to draconian restrictions on free speech targeting political, relgious and racial minorities in democracies including the US http://www.freespeechhistory.com/2020/08/21/episode-41-free-speech-and-racial-justice-friends-or-foes/

8/ from the overthrow of democracy in Ancient Athens to the subversion of democracy by Orban in Hungary, free speech is almost always the very first victim of authoritarians who know, what many liberals seems to have forgotten: Free speech is the bulwark of liberty and democracy