Do the world's populations need to be silenced a bit.
 

I think since about the 90s..the population has had a far bigger say in things regarding acceptability and what is acceptable or not....ands that has filtered onto or into politics as we see it today.

But Look at the state of things politically now!!


Should we all shut up?

It's since the Internet really... And on balance in some ways its been a revolution whilst in others it's been a ****ing disaster, because an awful lot of people are PAINFULLY stupid, but when you get a lot of scattered stupid people who are saying the same stupid things, and give them the means to combine that rabble of nonsense into one much louder voice... You unfortunately start to get a lot of painfully stupid outcomes based on populism rather than anything considered or rational.

(e.g. Brexit)

Well said TS

Yeah, why on earth should people be allowed a voice.

Politically, the 80s were a Utopia. :rolleyes:

Everyone is entitled to a voice, that's the whole point of democracy and free speech. However, those fine values have been subverted to cause chaos and confusion. The only way to get to the truth is by reasoned debate and let people make their own minds up. Debate is quickly becoming a thing of the past. It is no longer encouraged. That is the downfall of democracy

It’s far too easy to sit at a keyboard and talk a load of bullshine and algorithms bringing one sided news is another issue

Agree with this and people who are called 'stupid' to some fanatics will always be called names ,it's a way of trying to patronise them.

The issue is that on a scale like the internet, actual numbers in comparison to ratio become blurred and confused. So if let's say 5% of people hold some obscure view, but they've banded into a group of hundreds of thousands online, and that group is very vocal, it can be hard to assess the scale of the opinion. It can start to seem like "everyone thinks..." or "many people think..." when in fact, it's a small percentage screeching at the top of their lungs whilst most other people whisper. Combine that with the fact that the internet has also made politicians and their actions much more visible, and thus more inclined to pander to their voters in small, but visible ways... and you get some really dumb **** happening that completely flies in the face of actual research and logic.

Well, yeah, but I don't think the echo chamber of something like twitter makes much difference to the insanity going on inside politics.

As you say, it simply makes those idiotic decisions more transparent. That's only a good thing IMO and far preferable than the OP's notion of everyone just to "shut up". A lot of people hold stupid opinions/thoughts, with or without a website to scream about them on.

Politics in Ireland is far better now people have a voice, much rather be where we are today in Ireland than where we were pre 1990's tbqh

Leave the BBC
out of this , will you.

I'd rather have people's opinions out in the open