[ehsankia]

> It's always preferable to counter propaganda with free speech

Except the past few years have shown that not only does not work in practice, it can actually lead to people dying and democracy breaking.

The reality is that a lie takes a fraction of the effort than it takes to counter said lie. People can post dozens of blatant lie about vaccines and COVID on youtube in the time it takes people to fact check and counter a single one. The information war is asymmetric, especially when people can get rich from spreading lies which get clicks and attention.