[fallingknife]

Reddit and Twitter very much touted free speech 10 years ago and didn't have this issue (unless you want looking for it). And Google and FB effectively allowed whatever but didn't talk about it, until 2015 or so.

1. Tout free speech to great success and become a dominant platform

2. Get advertiser and political blowback

3. Ban unpopular speech

4. Now "free speech" platforms only have unpopular content

As a tangent, pre 2010, the best argument I had with conspiracy nuts was "if all this shit you're saying is true, then why is the government / corporations not trying to silence you, like you say they are doing to all the people involved." Can't use that anymore.

[smcl]

Did that strategy ever work with conspiracy nuts? In my experience that argument was always met with a response that wove an even more elaborate conspiracy. Like the government/corporations/illuminati deliberately allow just enough people to talk about it unless they get too close, or something similar.

Unfortunately I think this strategy is doomed, it relies on people who have rejected reality to use basic common sense. I don't even know if there is a good strategy to calm a conspiracy nut, thankfully I don't really talk to such people.

[fallingknife]

You're not arguing with them, but with everyone else in the room. Now the conspiracy nut would just say "but they do try to silence us" and he would be right.