In a free society, people must be allowed the ability to discern for themselves which information is useful, true, or otherwise. We do not need a state or its proxies to tell us which information is correct.
Google has a monopoly on searching for information, which makes it as different to me as a nuclear bomb is to a butterknife. They need to play by different rules
Not only does Google not hold a true monopoly on search (they hold top mindshare, but there are several other easily available search engines one of which I use frequently), this particular brouhaha is about hosting, not search, on which they don't hold anything that could even be reasonably confused with a monopoly.
It's even more alarming that the host of my data is actively scanning those 1s and 0s for signs of deviation from truth and sending those 1s and 0s it views as untruths down a memory hole. I mean, why stop there, why not just correct the untruths? Flip a few 1s here that should be 0s. This strikes at the core value proposition of tech and who is who is boss of what data.
One can agree they should not be compelled while ALSO thinking it would be much better for society that they stop censoring. Just because setting up an institution to compel would be worse than the censorship we're trying to fix doesn't mean the censorship is good.
That's a nice fantasy. People don't get enlightened by banging rocks to start fires for 18 years then becoming a philosopher.
The art of thinking critically and using logic takes training, and far too many people don't seem to have those skills, due to an inadequate education system in the United States.
Free people should be "allowed" to listen to, and say, what they want. I don't even think Tucker Carlson should be silenced by the government, no matter how much better I think society would be without him on the air.
I think there is a space for content to be labelled as "bullshit" by the people hosting it. Youtube labeling anti-vax lies as "misinformation", the FCC disallowing Fox from using the term "News" on its marquee during their "Four Hours of Hate" from 5-9pm.
Just as fast food is allowed to be sold to people, but they're required to disclose nutrition data - people should be allowed to listen to and spout bullshit, but it should be labeled.
That's so naïve.. If only sufficient amounts of people were capable of discerning for themselves which information is useful, true, etc.
The rise of batshit crazy and easily demonstrably false conspiracy theories like Qanon, flat earthers, 5G, Covid is fake/a Chinese bioweapon/etc. Pizzagate, what have you, and clearly empty populist politicians and political movements across the world show that way too much people struggle with that. And the choices they make impact all of us.
I honestly don't think there's a solution for this. Any authority on "truth" will be abused, but what we have now doesn't work either.
Well yes, if we had a perfect Oracle of Truth we wouldn't need the freedom to discuss and find out the truth. We don't and governments not only do not have such an Oracle, they cannot have such an Oracle due to the pressures on governments and the people that make them up preventing them from being unbiased (e.g. the tendencies for institutions such as government components to grow larger, defend their power and push to continue to exist).
Including people who run institutions like Google.
If they can be compelled to disseminate content they think of as irresponsible, so can you.