When I grew up, outside the liquor store there used to be some drunks debating wild conspiracy theories about who killed Olof Plame. Nobody cared. Nobody felt the need to silence their obvious falsehoods. Everyone could see that they where not the brightest minds, and not worth engaging with.

Today its hard to distinguish these people from scientists at the top of their fields. Maybe the issue isn't that we need to scilence people but rather we need different tools to distinguish who's worth listening to.

Censorship fails because its an impossible judgement to make and its impossible to find a fair judge. Modern social networks amplify the outrageous, not the thoughtful. The needs for clicks has ruined discourse more then freedom of speech. I think there is a lot of work that could be done to build systems that encourage dialog and promote thoughtfulness online that isn't done today because everyone focuses on banning.