Paradox of tolerance

The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Karl Popper described it as the seemingly self-contradictory idea that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must retain the right to be intolerant of intolerance.

I find this a very odd take... You are free to say whatever you want, however people are also free to not listen to you. Why is the freedom to not listen seen as a "lesser" freedom than the freedom to say what you want?

The main benefit of federation like Mastodon and Lemmy is that if you and like-minded people in your community don't wish to listen to vitriol being spewed then you don't have to. Don't like it? Go and find an instance that does tolerate it and does want to listen.

The beauty of the Fediverse is that anyone can set up an instance and, if a bunch of Nazis, for example, did that then it needn't be an issue for as, in the normal run of things, I wouldn't just stumble across it, I'd need to seek it out.

Where that Nazi instance would become an issue is if:

• Their content is illegal in the country another instance is based in (for example Germany), as anyone subscribing to a community on the Nazi server from another instance is causing that content to be drawn over and displayed in another instance. It happened recently with issues arising from lolicon.

• The Nazis decide to stir the hornets nest and start cross-posting objectionable content or just being unpleasant trolls. If an instance becomes known as a hotbed of trolls and bots it is likely to be cut off by the main instance.

Neither example is anyone scoring "Internet points".