[nostromo]

This is an age-old panic that happens with each new technology.

The printing press was seen as dangerous. Then the phone, then TV, and then the internet. And now it's social media.

Each time the arguments are the same. People worry that the "wrong people" will have the ability to share ideas to a broad audience.

And yet each time we've shown that more speech is correlated with an expansion of civil rights and liberal governance.

[dsfyu404ed]

You can credit the printing press and increase in accessible information to the literate classes with the enlightenment, broader literacy, modern banking and a whole lot of other good things but the backdrop of all these developments was 100-300yr (depending on how you count) of religious and succession wars as some power was taken from the catholic church and the rulers that were closest to it and redistributed to a broader set of local rulers.

It was definitely a step forward for humanity but it wasn't all unicorns and rainbows.

[toofy]

> Then the phone, then TV…

doesn’t the FCC heavily limit broadcast television and radio who and what behaviors are tolerated? like very heavily, no?

and aren’t there limitations on what you can and can’t do with a telephone?

[Karrot_Kream]

You might be thinking of the Hays Codes which were voluntary or the Fairness Doctrine, which was repealed by the FCC in 1987.