The main utility of suppressing ideas is suppressing the ability to coordinate around them. If a lot of people hold some latent antisemitic ideas, but anybody expressing explicit antisemitism is regarded as a sort of loathesome toad, that prevents the emergence of active antisemitic politics, even if it’s a wash in terms of changing any minds (suppose, plausibly, that conservation of expected evidence means that “why can’t you say this” more or less balances out people being exposed to fewer arguments).
Obviously there are plenty of costs as well—enforcement mechanisms can be weaponized for other purposes, preference falsification also makes it more difficult to identify the good guys, etc. Your original contrarian take is still a largely defensible one, though really I think the nature of the internet is such that it’s kind of a fait accompli under current conditions that it’s harder to make things taboo and prevent the coordination of your opponents.
The main utility of suppressing ideas is suppressing the ability to coordinate around them. If a lot of people hold some latent antisemitic ideas, but anybody expressing explicit antisemitism is regarded as a sort of loathesome toad, that prevents the emergence of active antisemitic politics, even if it’s a wash in terms of changing any minds (suppose, plausibly, that conservation of expected evidence means that “why can’t you say this” more or less balances out people being exposed to fewer arguments).
Obviously there are plenty of costs as well—enforcement mechanisms can be weaponized for other purposes, preference falsification also makes it more difficult to identify the good guys, etc. Your original contrarian take is still a largely defensible one, though really I think the nature of the internet is such that it’s kind of a fait accompli under current conditions that it’s harder to make things taboo and prevent the coordination of your opponents.