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> Anyone who has only been deplatformed and is complaining that the world is becoming authoritarian needs to realize that this has always been the way of the world. Forever. There has never been a time in history when someone could voice an unpopular view or be seen as an unpopular identity and not receive public ridicule, shame, or retribution of some kind, and where companies censored no content whatsoever. I generally agree that historically we haven't had totally free speech; however, we've been on an upward trend, and some of us are sad to see organizations at the helm of huge channels of speech using their power to prop up certain worldviews, especially somewhat extreme, fringe worldviews with questionable moral credentials (to put it charitably). We should keep the trend going; not reverse it to regress back to "the way things always have been". > There has never been a time in history when someone could voice an unpopular view or be seen as an unpopular identity and not receive public ridicule, shame, or retribution of some kind, and where companies censored no content whatsoever. No serious person is asking for the ability to express views without criticism, and regarding corporate censorship, utilities aren't allowed to censor speech--I support regulating social media companies as utilities. This doesn't mean social media has to be a dumb channel either; those companies could curate content so long as it's not on an explicitly ideological basis. For example, it would be fine for Twitter to promote content that is popular, so long as "popular" is determined purely by their users and not dependent upon Twitter's ideology. > What America, and other nations who value freedom, have is a protection against government interference. Let's keep it that way and accept that people are jerks to each other and not everyone wants to hear what you have to say. I think social media in its current state is represents a kind of threat to free speech that formerly could only be mustered by governments. Notably, there is a significant concern on both sides of the aisle that social media companies can be used to steer governments, including as an attack vector by foreign governments. These companies have unprecedented control over speech at this volume that it must be dealt with, in my humble opinion. |