Was reading this morning about people in New Zealand being criminally prosecuted for downloading, distributing and even making statements in favor of the Mosque shooting.  New Zealand is a free and open society where freedom of expression is protected, but free speech rights are not quite so clear as they are here in the U.S.

I'm a first amendment absolutist and always have been.  But everybody has limited means and energy and so my personal willingness to "protect your right to say whatever..." really does have a lot to with what's being said.  Ban a sexy book from the library and I'll get mad.  Shut down a Klan parade and I'll kind of shrug and say, "I guess it's wrong, but I can't really be bothered to advocate for those scum bags."  I guess I've come to a point where I believe you can be a first amendment absolutist without having to throw down for every fight.

Pew said in 2016 that Americans are more tolerant of offensive speech than anyone in the world. But I wonder if that tolerance is slipping.  While I don't think everything that happens on college campuses flows into society (sheesh, it's just kids practicing at life) you can certainly find anecdotes about the young wanting to enforce community standards of safety and comfort over allowing people to say whatever they like. 

You certainly see people enthusiastically pointing out that this or that internet service or social network is "privately owned" and not protected by the First Amendment. When I was growing up, the idea of corporate censorship was commonly discussed as a huge problem.  These days, you have to explain that yes, a corporation can censor you unfairly even if they haven't violated your constitutional rights.

I sense a general softening on attitudes towards free speech. It might just be me, but I think that after so many social media fueled mass shootings, the riots of 2016, fake news and the still untapped malicious capabilities of the internet that people are going to shift gradually towards allowing more regulation of speech.  It will mostly be speech that none of us want to engage in anyway and if the courts sense that the public has moved in that direction, they will find ways to allow it.  We'll always have amendment #1, it will just have been a bit polished away. Maybe we'll become a bit more like other countries and it will be okay for you to be a jerk and put a confederate flag bumper sticker on your car but anything more overt will be off limits.

It's hard to say this, as a free speech absolutist, but I'm not sure we'd be worse off for it, were something like that to happen.