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i received a DM earlier. i am not going to call out the person who DM'd me, but i am going to publicly share my response, because it is important. the context is @drewdevault@fosstodon.org's blog post earlier today about RMS. the person DMing me suggests for the "proper" place for this discussion was in the FSF channels and with RMS himself.

my response is this, verbatim:


"no. if we cannot discuss issues like this in places not directly controlled by the people at the root of the issue - e.g. in this instance, RMS and people sympathetic to him - then the reality is that we cannot discuss them at all.

we cannot restrict the discussion of difficult topics to forums controlled by people who might rather not have those topics talked about. there is a power imbalance, whether or not that power is used.

is free speech still free speech if, whether by rule or by cultural norm, you are only to criticize a king from within his castle, surrounded by his guards, with only the audience of himself and those who have chosen to be in that environment? even if the guards take no action against you, and allow you to freely speak your mind, there is no question in that situation that you do not hold the power, and you are at the mercy of those who do.

and, ever so frequently, they do exercise the power to silence or eject you, and if we do as you suggest, you are left with no acceptable avenue in which to exercise your right to speak.

you must be able to criticize the king in your home, or in the tavern, or on the streets, or wherever you choose, in places where his guards have no power. you must be able to do this with other people who would not have chosen to subject themselves to the king's court. you must be able to loudly proclaim his faults, so that those who would never have had reason to find themselves in his castle may hear, and understand.

the king will not dethrone himself because someone entered his court and made a good point. he will dethrone himself because crowds of people outside his court are making their opinions known, and he knows that if he does not, the castle he worked so hard to build will fall with him inside."