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by thsealienbstrds 2395 days ago
I suspect social media companies don't like the message because they don't like the costs required for good moderation. They don't really care about free speech, that's just spin.
2 comments

It's probably simpler than that. Their earnings are proportional to click-baitiness, so they optimize for that. Moderation is probably more akin to a water pump on a ship: its purpose is to keep it afloat. Free speech is probably just passing regulatory nuissance that moderation has to account for.

I'd like to call Occam's Razor, but, then, when has it become that the most selfish interpretation of an organization's motivations is the simplest one? Maybe it's simple simply because it aligns with my beliefs. Something to ponder.

Or they don't like the costs for moderation and believe in free speech.
Come on, Zuckerberg never designed FB with freedom of speech in mind, it started as a campus thing and transformed into a money printing machine, he may or may not care about freedom of speech but it's irrelevant, it's nowhere near the top of facebook priorities.

"Freedom of speech" is the new mantra you have to repeat if you want Americans to stop thinking about a problem.

Censorship and propaganda are the tools to limit thinking. More speech = more thinking, not less.

But yeah, would agree that "freedom of speech" wasn't a design pillar or anything for FB.

> More speech = more thinking

This is as true as saying "more code = more programming" -- possibly a technically correct statement, but if your goal is to create something valuable (to your business, to society) this won't help.