[jchw]

Note that the article in question is not suggesting the story is true and goes as far as to paint a picture that it is surely sensational and intentionally misleading. It is specifically interested in a change to the nature of which social media companies partake in censorship of information in a way that is unprecedented.

Personally, I think that Facebook and Twitter are damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If they do interfere and censor perceived misinformation, they run the very real, maybe inevitable chance of censoring information that is, in fact, true, or maybe just as bad, censoring misinformation with bias. On the other hand, if they do not interfere, they will surely be blamed for not doing anything to curb the misinformation spread on their platforms.

I think it’s all a symptom of the fact that social media websites like Facebook and Twitter that are effectively unmoderated trash fires should probably just not exist. Exactly why they should not exist is up for grabs but my personal pick is the seemingly reduced-to-zero liability they seem to have on many horrible things going on on their platform that wouldn’t be looked over on a small forum even if the owner tried to claim it was “unmoderated.”