Interesting. I guess it depends on how people define “left” and “right” and whether they see them as having equal dominance in our capitalist world. Some claim China to be communist whereas it’s essentially state capitalism and still an oppressive hierarchical system. I am essentially, I guess, what people might define as a libertarian socialist or anarcho-communist, so some might see me as very leftist, whereas others still claim Corbynistas or Bernie supporters or even Democrats in general are leftist - many social democrats and even centre-right politicians claim to be socialists or leftists.

Centrism has protected the capitalist status quo for so long it’s arguably stifled meaningful alternatives and contributed to the emergence of Brexit, Trump, Bolsonaro, conspiracy theorists, Covid denialists, and fascism. Free speech doesn’t include hate speech. Those intolerant views shouldn’t be tolerated because that itself leads to the eradication of tolerance (too numerous examples from history on that one).

To push safe spaces into the shadows is to cede ground culturally to such bigotry - in fact, the bigotry is what must be pushed away, with no room to breathe. In a fairer, non-hierarchical, anarchist society, rather than the current capitalist status quo of destruction, I think people’s troubles would be tackled, and we’d find people weren’t, at their core, intolerant or bigoted, they were just discontent and couldn’t comprehend why. Fascism preys on the poor and exploits their irrational fears.

We must ask ourselves what kind of world we want to live in, and act on it - “build the new world in the shell of the old.” So codes of conduct and safe spaces online are really very important, and the broader they become, the more common they become, and the more positive change is achieved.