Here's an interesting take on Free speech... it's educational/informative and worth reading. IMO
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The First Amendment in the age of disinformation.
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The business model for the dominant platforms depends on keeping users engaged online. Content that prompts hot emotion tends to succeed at generating clicks and shares, and that’s what the platforms’ algorithms tend to promote. Lies go viral more quickly than true statements,
research shows.
In many ways, social media sites today function as the public square. But legally speaking, internet platforms can restrict free speech far more than the government can. They’re like malls, where private owners police conduct. Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have guidelines that moderate content that could drive
away users, including spam and pornography, and also certain forms of harassment, hate speech, fake engagement or misrepresentation and violent extremism. But for years, the companies enforced these rules subjectively and unevenly — allowing for explosions of anti-Semitic memes and targeted harassment of women, for example.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jack Dorsey of Twitter have each said that their sites cannot be “arbiters of truth” and make important exceptions to their guidelines.
The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation - The New York Times (nytimes.com)