[vuln]

> For instance, social media platforms did a better job of not being completely owned as fire hoses for propaganda and disinfo.

Better job by not cashing the adversaries checks?

https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/01/russian-facebook-ad-spend/...

> Of course, some then complained that this constituted "censorship" by the platforms.

Ah you mean the government going hunting and finding accounts that violated the ever changing ToS which was heavily influenced by the USG?

[unclebucknasty]

Yes and yes.

Safe to say that $46K ad spend was a drop in the bucket versus their overall effort, but sure, Facebook not accepting those rubles in 2020 counts as a small example.

I have no problem with the U.S. government working with American communications platforms to prevent adversarial propaganda, disinformation and disruption of US elections. These are foreign governments engaged in psyops against American citizens. Falls pretty squarely (and obviously) within government purview to defend against it.

[the_doctah]

The US government didn't stop there though. They used their influence to censor US citizens' tweets. That's censorship, and that's what happens when you give the government this power. Put censorship in quotes all you like, you support it.

[unclebucknasty]

Twitter is infested with trollbots and sock puppets, and can't even agree with itself on its count of real users. So, if some real user accounts that parroted disinfo were swept up in bans or whatever you're calling "censorship" during the disinfo fight, then so be it.

And, in any case, if they're parroting the same disinfo as foreign adversaries who are working to destroy us, then they don't get special dispensation just because they're U.S. citizens.

This is why the First Amendment famously has limits.

[the_doctah]

>Twitter is infested with trollbots and sock puppets, and can't even agree with itself on its count of real users.

You just described every social media platform.