[mattchew]

A little older than you, but same basic experience.

I also don't understand how the tide turned so swiftly against freedom of speech, and in favor of authorities deciding what people should be allowed to hear or read. But it did turn, and I don't see the trend reversing.

While I don't like the prospect of an increasingly censored society, it will be interesting to watch the struggle between the big platform censors and those who want to say banned things. I expect this will only escalate over time.

Anyway, just wanted to say you're not alone. Watching some of your cherished values be discarded by society is something you have to accept as you get old, I'm afraid.

[SECProto]

> I also don't understand how the tide turned so swiftly against freedom of speech, and in favor of authorities deciding what people should be allowed to hear or read.

Freedom of speech meant freedom from /government/ control of speech. It has never meant freedom from the any impact. This article (facebook et al blocking/removing/deplatforming) is functionally no different than a newspaper choosing what to publish in their editorials page, a property owner having a bulletin board whose postings they control, or a shopping mall not allowing someone to stand up on a soap box and proselytize.

[mattchew]

Freedom of speech has always meant the idea that different points of view should be aired, not suppressed, and that people should decide for themselves what is right or what is correct, rather than authorities deciding for them.

A society where "wrong" points of view are thoroughly suppressed by giant social media companies or angry mobs (or angry mobs on social media) might not violate the literal text of the First Amendment, but it lacks the spirit of free speech that inspired the First Amendment in the first place.

What I find most disappointing is not that Facebook is censoring QAnon (or whatever), but that the popular sentiment is they should be. That's a big change from the culture I grew up in, and not for the better.

[SECProto]

In my local newspapers growing up, the "letters to the editor" section was always populated by the local nutjobs writing inflammatory screeds. Hypothetically, the letters had stirred a lot of discussion, and my local paper decided to print them in bold type on the front page. Then the letter-writer got so popular, he was elected mayor of the town. But then the newspaper noticed it was having some negative impact on local politics, and the garbage collection for the print shop was suffering, so they decided to entirely stop publishing the nutjob. The writer cried out that it was a violation of their freedom of speech.

But none of it has anything to do with freedom of speech because they don't . I'd 100% support the newspapers' decision to stop publishing them (while also criticizing them, since it was their choices that created the issue in the first place). I'd also applaud anyone who felt strongly enough to cancel their newspaper subscription, or even start their own local competing paper!

[manigandham]

Social networks are specifically not publishers. They do not have editorial control over the content of their users.

[SECProto]

They work under that exemption, but by having an algorithm that preferentially shows certain material to each user, they are exercising editorial control. Worse, the editorial control is a black box from the outside.