CDZ Free Speech in the Social Media Era

[Blues Man]

One of the things that is becoming a concern over the past decade, is free speech in the realm of social media and in an era when previously persecuted minorities are now empowered to push back on what they previously had to endure. In addition, social media has created and amplified echo chambers that we naturally tend to be drawn towards. What I am seeing seems to be an increasingly fractured society where we no longer even agree on a common set of facts.

Within this the right of free speech is increasingly coming into scrutiny and threat. I firmly believe that rights come with responsibilities, and when enough of us abdicate those responsibilities, then lawmakers are forced into making laws to create some restrictions.

Social media has grown exponentially, and has long been a relatively lawless frontier. It’s founders and owners held a philosophy of maximum free speech (along with data collection and marketing dollars), but pushback began with the growth and spread radical groups. ISIS differentiated itself from Al Queda in it’s sophisticated use of social media for propaganda, recruitment and radicalizing. Parents were shocked on finding out their children had been radicalized over social media. But ISIS was only the first.

I just read an article that identified one of the rioters who broke into the capital, as an Air Force veteran (the dude with the zip tie hand cuffs). Friends reported he had become increasingly radical and extreme and distanced themselves from him.

Leake said that he believed the same intense commitment that had made Brock an effective fighter pilot had led him to this week’s events in the Capitol. “Torch got all in on Trump,” Leake said. “He went all in on the alternative-news-source world. He actually believes liberals and Democrats are a threat to the country. You can see how the logical conclusion to that is, We’ve gotta take over.”

It isn’t just ISIS any more. What exactly should be done? The findings that terrorists like ISIS were recruiting through social media finally put pressure on social media to begin banning and removing them, reluctantly. This pressure has only increased in recent years with more and more bubbles and more radical movements using it to recruit or sway.

What is at the moment difficult to sort out is the responsibilities and possible limits of social media in relation to free speech. Social media platforms are all privately owned, and it seems to me they are at the line where they must start taking some responsibility or face legal action in the form of new laws or removal of protections.

What is the answer that would balance free speech and public safety?

1. Make laws against certain types of speech. Europe has this with Holocaust denial for example. But I am not a fan of this. For instance WHO gets to decide what constitutes prohibited speech? Also I’ve always felt that sunlight is the best cleanser. Let those voices be out in the open where public pushback can refute them, provide facts, and marginalize them. If they are prohibited, they just fester in the darknet and utilize this discrimination to justify their stances.

2. No restrictions other than the basic laws of libel, slander etc. Let the people sort it out and pushback on these fringe groups. But what happens when that doesn’t happen? Or when leadership joins the fringe and gives credibility by bringing it into the mainstream and violence, civil unrest, or terrorism occurs because enough people believe in something that has no factual basis?

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

no social media service can violate your first amendment rights.

how can a social media service violate your first amendment rights?...
they would need the power to arrest people to be able to do that...
they didnt prevent anyone from speaking their mind...
they just dont want these people on their platform...
because these agitators use the service against the terms and conditions...
thats all...

that's what I said

 

[WelfareQueen]

One of the things that is becoming a concern over the past decade, is free speech in the realm of social media and in an era when previously persecuted minorities are now empowered to push back on what they previously had to endure. In addition, social media has created and amplified echo chambers that we naturally tend to be drawn towards. What I am seeing seems to be an increasingly fractured society where we no longer even agree on a common set of facts.

Within this the right of free speech is increasingly coming into scrutiny and threat. I firmly believe that rights come with responsibilities, and when enough of us abdicate those responsibilities, then lawmakers are forced into making laws to create some restrictions.

Social media has grown exponentially, and has long been a relatively lawless frontier. It’s founders and owners held a philosophy of maximum free speech (along with data collection and marketing dollars), but pushback began with the growth and spread radical groups. ISIS differentiated itself from Al Queda in it’s sophisticated use of social media for propaganda, recruitment and radicalizing. Parents were shocked on finding out their children had been radicalized over social media. But ISIS was only the first.

I just read an article that identified one of the rioters who broke into the capital, as an Air Force veteran (the dude with the zip tie hand cuffs). Friends reported he had become increasingly radical and extreme and distanced themselves from him.

Leake said that he believed the same intense commitment that had made Brock an effective fighter pilot had led him to this week’s events in the Capitol. “Torch got all in on Trump,” Leake said. “He went all in on the alternative-news-source world. He actually believes liberals and Democrats are a threat to the country. You can see how the logical conclusion to that is, We’ve gotta take over.”

It isn’t just ISIS any more. What exactly should be done? The findings that terrorists like ISIS were recruiting through social media finally put pressure on social media to begin banning and removing them, reluctantly. This pressure has only increased in recent years with more and more bubbles and more radical movements using it to recruit or sway.

What is at the moment difficult to sort out is the responsibilities and possible limits of social media in relation to free speech. Social media platforms are all privately owned, and it seems to me they are at the line where they must start taking some responsibility or face legal action in the form of new laws or removal of protections.

What is the answer that would balance free speech and public safety?

1. Make laws against certain types of speech. Europe has this with Holocaust denial for example. But I am not a fan of this. For instance WHO gets to decide what constitutes prohibited speech? Also I’ve always felt that sunlight is the best cleanser. Let those voices be out in the open where public pushback can refute them, provide facts, and marginalize them. If they are prohibited, they just fester in the darknet and utilize this discrimination to justify their stances.

2. No restrictions other than the basic laws of libel, slander etc. Let the people sort it out and pushback on these fringe groups. But what happens when that doesn’t happen? Or when leadership joins the fringe and gives credibility by bringing it into the mainstream and violence, civil unrest, or terrorism occurs because enough people believe in something that has no factual basis?

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

The entire basis of free speech is accepting the right of those to express ideas you do not like. Social media is squashing speech they do not like. It is totalitarian and deeply anti American.

The left is terrified of Trump. That is what this is about. They want to silence him and his supporters. They are too stupid to realize that only makes the situation worse.

I do not like a lot of Anifa's speech or BLM for that matter, but I would never advocate attempting to silence them.

But the hard Left is Fascist. It has always been Fascist. There is no hard Left in history that did not attempt to squash free speech. They do this because they know their ideas cannot survive the light of day.

the first amendment does not protect you from private parties only from the government making laws that prohibit free speech.

An individual or business can stop you from speaking on their private property and it is 100% legal.

Why does every Dem make exactly the same point? The issue is not if it is legal, understand? The issue is is it proper that giant social media corporations exclude voices they don't like solely because they do not want to have certain political ideas expressed.

To me that is wrong and is deeply un American. Get it? Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple control way to much of the information flow. Any sane person knows that and can see that. What they are doing is wrong. To defend their actions is ridiculous.

Edited: No slurs, flames or put downs in CDZ

 

[Bob Blaylock]

Parler has become the primary medium for the exchange of opinions and information that are being suppressed on Facebook, Twitter, and other mainsleaze media.

Now, we have Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, and Amazon (who who knows who else) openly, actively conspiring to shut Parler down. I have to wonder if there's a basis here for an antitrust lawsuit. Surely, this cannot be legal, for all these other media to conspire to shut down a competitor in this manner.

It certainly puts the lie to the “if you don't like the rules on one site, go to a different site” argument when the same ones on whose behalf that argument is made are trying to shut down that different site.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

But you conceded the press has never told the truth, right here,no?

No, I did not.

 

[Donald H]

Private companies have the right to limit the continuous inciting of violence by Trump.

It's not as if the extreme right don't have their own media sources they can listen to that have no qualms against inciting violence, racism, and hate.

The extreme right has sites such as Breitbart, Newsmax, Oann, and several others of the same ilk, which they can make large by increasing their traffic. They're no different from the MSM media that is biased toward the left and less extremist people.

If right extremism is ever going to be great again then it needs to build it's own large media outlets and the left can just not tune in. Nobody is forcing rightwing extremists to tune into any of the existing MSM leftist sites such as MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc.

And fwiw, the extremists can always try to capture back Fox News to the extreme right agenda. Fox News as with any media source will do what earns them money!

 

[Blues Man]

One of the things that is becoming a concern over the past decade, is free speech in the realm of social media and in an era when previously persecuted minorities are now empowered to push back on what they previously had to endure. In addition, social media has created and amplified echo chambers that we naturally tend to be drawn towards. What I am seeing seems to be an increasingly fractured society where we no longer even agree on a common set of facts.

Within this the right of free speech is increasingly coming into scrutiny and threat. I firmly believe that rights come with responsibilities, and when enough of us abdicate those responsibilities, then lawmakers are forced into making laws to create some restrictions.

Social media has grown exponentially, and has long been a relatively lawless frontier. It’s founders and owners held a philosophy of maximum free speech (along with data collection and marketing dollars), but pushback began with the growth and spread radical groups. ISIS differentiated itself from Al Queda in it’s sophisticated use of social media for propaganda, recruitment and radicalizing. Parents were shocked on finding out their children had been radicalized over social media. But ISIS was only the first.

I just read an article that identified one of the rioters who broke into the capital, as an Air Force veteran (the dude with the zip tie hand cuffs). Friends reported he had become increasingly radical and extreme and distanced themselves from him.

Leake said that he believed the same intense commitment that had made Brock an effective fighter pilot had led him to this week’s events in the Capitol. “Torch got all in on Trump,” Leake said. “He went all in on the alternative-news-source world. He actually believes liberals and Democrats are a threat to the country. You can see how the logical conclusion to that is, We’ve gotta take over.”

It isn’t just ISIS any more. What exactly should be done? The findings that terrorists like ISIS were recruiting through social media finally put pressure on social media to begin banning and removing them, reluctantly. This pressure has only increased in recent years with more and more bubbles and more radical movements using it to recruit or sway.

What is at the moment difficult to sort out is the responsibilities and possible limits of social media in relation to free speech. Social media platforms are all privately owned, and it seems to me they are at the line where they must start taking some responsibility or face legal action in the form of new laws or removal of protections.

What is the answer that would balance free speech and public safety?

1. Make laws against certain types of speech. Europe has this with Holocaust denial for example. But I am not a fan of this. For instance WHO gets to decide what constitutes prohibited speech? Also I’ve always felt that sunlight is the best cleanser. Let those voices be out in the open where public pushback can refute them, provide facts, and marginalize them. If they are prohibited, they just fester in the darknet and utilize this discrimination to justify their stances.

2. No restrictions other than the basic laws of libel, slander etc. Let the people sort it out and pushback on these fringe groups. But what happens when that doesn’t happen? Or when leadership joins the fringe and gives credibility by bringing it into the mainstream and violence, civil unrest, or terrorism occurs because enough people believe in something that has no factual basis?

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

The entire basis of free speech is accepting the right of those to express ideas you do not like. Social media is squashing speech they do not like. It is totalitarian and deeply anti American.

The left is terrified of Trump. That is what this is about. They want to silence him and his supporters. They are too stupid to realize that only makes the situation worse.

I do not like a lot of Anifa's speech or BLM for that matter, but I would never advocate attempting to silence them.

But the hard Left is Fascist. It has always been Fascist. There is no hard Left in history that did not attempt to squash free speech. They do this because they know their ideas cannot survive the light of day.

the first amendment does not protect you from private parties only from the government making laws that prohibit free speech.

An individual or business can stop you from speaking on their private property and it is 100% legal.

Why does every Dim make exactly the same point? The issue is not if it is legal, understand? The issue is is it proper that giant social media corporations exclude voices they don't like solely because they do not want to have certain political ideas expressed.

To me that is wrong and is deeply un American. Get it? Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple control way to much of the information flow. Any sane person knows that and can see that. What they are doing is wrong. To defend their actions is ridiculous.

I'm not a democrat

and all that matters is legality.

and I'm not defending anyone I am simply stating facts you start whining about fairness and you are basing you entire argument on emotion

 

[westwall]

Making laws against certain types of speech would be unconstitutional and render the First Amendment useless. Social media companies have every right to control the content on their platforms as the First Amendment does not apply to private organizations, however, if they pursue this attempt to deplatform other apps, such as Parler, like Google and Apple are currently attempting, they may run afoul of antitrust laws.

Ironically, Big Tech did everything it could to get Biden elected and the Democrats in the majority and the Democrats may be the ones who end up breaking them up.

I have yet to understand why there has been so little movement in regards to anti trust over the years with these companies. Follow the money.

Don't expect any now. Anything the dems do about big tech will be merely a show for the rubes.

They have bought the political class, so the political class will do nothing to harm them.

 

[Coyote]

Guys - this is in CDZ and the TOPIC is free speech, read the OP.

 

[Coyote]

Making laws against certain types of speech would be unconstitutional and render the First Amendment useless. Social media companies have every right to control the content on their platforms as the First Amendment does not apply to private organizations, however, if they pursue this attempt to deplatform other apps, such as Parler, like Google and Apple are currently attempting, they may run afoul of antitrust laws.

Ironically, Big Tech did everything it could to get Biden elected and the Democrats in the majority and the Democrats may be the ones who end up breaking them up.

I have yet to understand why there has been so little movement in regards to anti trust over the years with these companies. Follow the money.

Don't expect any now. Anything the dems do about big tech will be merely a show for the rubes.

They have bought the political class, so the political class will do nothing to harm them.

I think both parties are tied to Big Tech money, this is obvious for years, but I think things are getting to a point it can't be ignored. Both Dems and Repubs are looking into anti-trust violations albeit with different reasons behind it.

I think that overall is a good thing and I think it's a fair question to ask if there is real competition available. If competition can be deplatformed and unable to establish a new platform due to anti-trust practices then you can't really say there is competition and other sites available. But I also support private entities rights to create rules for their platforms.

 

[Coyote]

Parler has become the primary medium for the exchange of opinions and information that are being suppressed on Facebook, Twitter, and other mainsleaze media.

Now, we have Facebook, Twitter, Google, Apple, and Amazon (who who knows who else) openly, actively conspiring to shut Parler down. I have to wonder if there's a basis here for an antitrust lawsuit. Surely, this cannot be legal, for all these other media to conspire to shut down a competitor in this manner.

It certainly puts the lie to the “if you don't like the rules on one site, go to a different site” argument when the same ones on whose behalf that argument is made are trying to shut down that different site.

If that is the case, it certainly does. I think it merits a bipartisan investigation and possibly an overhaul of anti-trust laws which really are very out of date and don't reflect the reality of the digital world.

 

[Donald H]

If that is the case, it certainly does. I think it merits a bipartisan investigation and possibly an overhaul of anti-trust laws which really are very out of date and don't reflect the reality of the digital world.

Baloney. The only force involved is in Trump being forced to turn to the left's media to get his message out. There's nothing stopping him from going to Breitbart or Stormfront, other than he wouldn't be heard immediately enough for his urgent agenda.

So would he be heard on the extreme rightist sites, had he used them during his 4 years? Or would he be heard now if he tried it? Maybe a tweet or two on Breitbart would make that site great overnight. That which makes a site great is the size of the audience. Advertisers would quickly buy time on Breitbart of Stormfront, for examples, and pay big money for it.

There are nobody like Americans for refusing to understand how capitalism works.

Fox News makes the case! The extreme right have lost that media giant because Fox won't go the distance the extremists want to hear. Trump's promoting of revolution and inciting violence are too far out for Fox News and so the extremist right condemns Fox too now.

Americans seem to have some sort of twisted view that free speech is being censored when in fact it's the bounds of decency and respectability that are being observed.

Breitbart and Stormfront don't hold to any such bounds. And that's the reason why this free speech bitching is all baloney.

 

[d0gbreath]

Free speech is extremely important.

Social media is not.

 

[westwall]

Making laws against certain types of speech would be unconstitutional and render the First Amendment useless. Social media companies have every right to control the content on their platforms as the First Amendment does not apply to private organizations, however, if they pursue this attempt to deplatform other apps, such as Parler, like Google and Apple are currently attempting, they may run afoul of antitrust laws.

Ironically, Big Tech did everything it could to get Biden elected and the Democrats in the majority and the Democrats may be the ones who end up breaking them up.

I have yet to understand why there has been so little movement in regards to anti trust over the years with these companies. Follow the money.

Don't expect any now. Anything the dems do about big tech will be merely a show for the rubes.

They have bought the political class, so the political class will do nothing to harm them.

I think both parties are tied to Big Tech money, this is obvious for years, but I think things are getting to a point it can't be ignored. Both Dems and Repubs are looking into anti-trust violations albeit with different reasons behind it.

I think that overall is a good thing and I think it's a fair question to ask if there is real competition available. If competition can be deplatformed and unable to establish a new platform due to anti-trust practices then you can't really say there is competition and other sites available. But I also support private entities rights to create rules for their platforms.

Nothing will ever happen. The political class doesn't care about party affiliation. It cares about power. Hopefully you'll figure it out someday.

 

[candycorn]

One of the things that is becoming a concern over the past decade, is free speech in the realm of social media and in an era when previously persecuted minorities are now empowered to push back on what they previously had to endure. In addition, social media has created and amplified echo chambers that we naturally tend to be drawn towards. What I am seeing seems to be an increasingly fractured society where we no longer even agree on a common set of facts.

Within this the right of free speech is increasingly coming into scrutiny and threat. I firmly believe that rights come with responsibilities, and when enough of us abdicate those responsibilities, then lawmakers are forced into making laws to create some restrictions.

Social media has grown exponentially, and has long been a relatively lawless frontier. It’s founders and owners held a philosophy of maximum free speech (along with data collection and marketing dollars), but pushback began with the growth and spread radical groups. ISIS differentiated itself from Al Queda in it’s sophisticated use of social media for propaganda, recruitment and radicalizing. Parents were shocked on finding out their children had been radicalized over social media. But ISIS was only the first.

I just read an article that identified one of the rioters who broke into the capital, as an Air Force veteran (the dude with the zip tie hand cuffs). Friends reported he had become increasingly radical and extreme and distanced themselves from him.

Leake said that he believed the same intense commitment that had made Brock an effective fighter pilot had led him to this week’s events in the Capitol. “Torch got all in on Trump,” Leake said. “He went all in on the alternative-news-source world. He actually believes liberals and Democrats are a threat to the country. You can see how the logical conclusion to that is, We’ve gotta take over.”

It isn’t just ISIS any more. What exactly should be done? The findings that terrorists like ISIS were recruiting through social media finally put pressure on social media to begin banning and removing them, reluctantly. This pressure has only increased in recent years with more and more bubbles and more radical movements using it to recruit or sway.

What is at the moment difficult to sort out is the responsibilities and possible limits of social media in relation to free speech. Social media platforms are all privately owned, and it seems to me they are at the line where they must start taking some responsibility or face legal action in the form of new laws or removal of protections.

What is the answer that would balance free speech and public safety?

1. Make laws against certain types of speech. Europe has this with Holocaust denial for example. But I am not a fan of this. For instance WHO gets to decide what constitutes prohibited speech? Also I’ve always felt that sunlight is the best cleanser. Let those voices be out in the open where public pushback can refute them, provide facts, and marginalize them. If they are prohibited, they just fester in the darknet and utilize this discrimination to justify their stances.

2. No restrictions other than the basic laws of libel, slander etc. Let the people sort it out and pushback on these fringe groups. But what happens when that doesn’t happen? Or when leadership joins the fringe and gives credibility by bringing it into the mainstream and violence, civil unrest, or terrorism occurs because enough people believe in something that has no factual basis?

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

Social Media is the Morton's Steakhouse of the Internet. Feel free to go there but if you aren't willing to pay the price on the menu (or operate in the confines of the TOS), you should go to Waffle House for something a little more lenient on the old pocketbook. You get the same meal at USMB that you get on Twitter but the price on the menu is much lower. Here...you can say pretty much whatever you want...we have people who actively say they want a civil war. Nobody cares. Cheap admission = lower standards. You do that on Twitter and you'll get run.

The point I'm trying to make is that Social Media is a restaurant...you don't have to go out to eat. You'll do fine eating at the house.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

In other words there is a responsibility to conform your thoughts, words and opinions to those that are politically acceptable.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

.mn.
I disagree with that, what is happening is the culmination of a number of different things. The idea immunity really needs its own discussion.

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

Is this not all about how Trump has been denied the right to speak? If not then the president's immunity is off-topic as you suggest.

But if is about media outlets taking away Trump's rights then it is directly related to his ability to commit crimes against his country because he has immunity from the law.

Twitter, for example, can't claim that immunity and therefore it is obliged to not become the vehicle for Trump's high crimes of inciting violence, sedition, or treason against his country.

You always have the right to censor any discussion on the president's immunity!

Ok...but I am sure I am following you.

Seems if we go down that rabbit hole we are pursuing a discussion on whether or not the president should ha prosecutorial immunity...

No. We don't have to question that unless it's your pleasure to do so on this thread. I thought I make it very clear why the issue of immunity needed to be addressed, from the POV of Twitter's legal requirements. Twitter would obviously have the force of law behind them in all other cases.

No ordinary citizen could be permitted to incite violence, sedition, and treason on any media site. You could maybe consider your own responsibility if that happened here on this one.

Your president could post on this site with no fear of reprisal by the law, due to his immunity. That wouldn't negate the site's responsibility. And so out of the conversation on immunity, we can come full circle on why media outlets needed to censor Trump.

So now we can proceed to my other examples on how free speech must be limited.

Or if you aren't interested in discussing it then let's just leave it at that.

In a free country speech is only limited to harmful imminent action. The difference is in one case "I don't like this movie. I might burn the theater down" and in the other case "flee for your lives the theater is on fire".

You are using terms like treason and sedition to describe speech you just don't like. In a fresh country like this one used to be the answer to unacceptable speech is more speech not less. Open the public square to every idea.

 

[Donald H]

Some media outlets have decided to not allow Trump's inciting of violence and that's their right.
Other media outlets have decided to allow Trump to incite violence and that's also their right, until the break existing laws on inciting violence being illegal activity. It's as simple as that.

Trump's problem with the sites that allow his illegal activities are still regarded as fringe extreme right sites that don't receive enough traffic to interest Trump. He wants to be heard by the masses.

The obvious solution to Trump's problem is to make those extreme right sites popular and noticed by the majority.

Breitbart, Stormfront, Oann, Newsmax, and other extremist sites are open to any criminal behaviour Trump wants to throw at the American people.

Are there any questions on free speech that doesn't answer?

If that solution can't be accepted then Nazi Germany demonstrated the only other solution to what was perceived to be unfair censoring of free speech. The use of force on the media with summary execution being the remedy for the disobedient media.

 

[Dogmaphobe]

Some media outlets have decided to not allow Trump's inciting of violence and that's their right.
Other media outlets have decided to allow Trump to incite violence and that's also their right, until the break existing laws on inciting violence being illegal activity. It's as simple as that.

Trump's problem with the sites that allow his illegal activities are still regarded as fringe extreme right sites that don't receive enough traffic to interest Trump. He wants to be heard by the masses.

The obvious solution to Trump's problem is to make those extreme right sites popular and noticed by the majority.

Breitbart, Stormfront, Oann, Newsmax, and other extremist sites are open to any criminal behaviour Trump wants to throw at the American people.

Are there any questions on free speech that doesn't answer?

If that solution can't be accepted then Nazi Germany demonstrated the only other solution to what was perceived to be unfair censoring of free speech. The use of force on the media with summary execution being the remedy for the disobedient media.

"Incite to violence".

The fact that you keep repeating this mantra ad nauseum does not make it an established fact.

Show a Trump quote where Trump encouraged violence. Maxine Waters and other Democrat leaders have certainly done so to encourage BLM and Antifa violence, so show where Trump has said something that rises to their level (and which obviously did not receive the same censorship).

 

[Dogmaphobe]

In a free country speech is only limited to harmful imminent action. The difference is in one case "I don't like this movie. I might burn the theater down" and in the other case "flee for your lives the theater is on fire".

You are using terms like treason and sedition to describe speech you just don't like. In a fresh country like this one used to be the answer to unacceptable speech is more speech not less. Open the public square to every idea.

When people parrot buzz phrases over and over and over again, I often wonder if they are under the impression that this makes them true?

The word "incite" is being SO misused here as just about anything can be accused of incitement. It is really a slippery slope when the person who uses the words is accused of incitement based solely on other people's REACTIONS to the words and not the actual words, themselves.

 

[donttread]

One of the things that is becoming a concern over the past decade, is free speech in the realm of social media and in an era when previously persecuted minorities are now empowered to push back on what they previously had to endure. In addition, social media has created and amplified echo chambers that we naturally tend to be drawn towards. What I am seeing seems to be an increasingly fractured society where we no longer even agree on a common set of facts.

Within this the right of free speech is increasingly coming into scrutiny and threat. I firmly believe that rights come with responsibilities, and when enough of us abdicate those responsibilities, then lawmakers are forced into making laws to create some restrictions.

Social media has grown exponentially, and has long been a relatively lawless frontier. It’s founders and owners held a philosophy of maximum free speech (along with data collection and marketing dollars), but pushback began with the growth and spread radical groups. ISIS differentiated itself from Al Queda in it’s sophisticated use of social media for propaganda, recruitment and radicalizing. Parents were shocked on finding out their children had been radicalized over social media. But ISIS was only the first.

I just read an article that identified one of the rioters who broke into the capital, as an Air Force veteran (the dude with the zip tie hand cuffs). Friends reported he had become increasingly radical and extreme and distanced themselves from him.

Leake said that he believed the same intense commitment that had made Brock an effective fighter pilot had led him to this week’s events in the Capitol. “Torch got all in on Trump,” Leake said. “He went all in on the alternative-news-source world. He actually believes liberals and Democrats are a threat to the country. You can see how the logical conclusion to that is, We’ve gotta take over.”

It isn’t just ISIS any more. What exactly should be done? The findings that terrorists like ISIS were recruiting through social media finally put pressure on social media to begin banning and removing them, reluctantly. This pressure has only increased in recent years with more and more bubbles and more radical movements using it to recruit or sway.

What is at the moment difficult to sort out is the responsibilities and possible limits of social media in relation to free speech. Social media platforms are all privately owned, and it seems to me they are at the line where they must start taking some responsibility or face legal action in the form of new laws or removal of protections.

What is the answer that would balance free speech and public safety?

1. Make laws against certain types of speech. Europe has this with Holocaust denial for example. But I am not a fan of this. For instance WHO gets to decide what constitutes prohibited speech? Also I’ve always felt that sunlight is the best cleanser. Let those voices be out in the open where public pushback can refute them, provide facts, and marginalize them. If they are prohibited, they just fester in the darknet and utilize this discrimination to justify their stances.

2. No restrictions other than the basic laws of libel, slander etc. Let the people sort it out and pushback on these fringe groups. But what happens when that doesn’t happen? Or when leadership joins the fringe and gives credibility by bringing it into the mainstream and violence, civil unrest, or terrorism occurs because enough people believe in something that has no factual basis?

How do you preserve free speech in this environment?

IMO we already have laws against speech that incites violence which would be good without the differential enforcement we have seen lately. I have not seen any speech from trump related to the storming that is even on par with hundreds of post inciting violence this summer. That is the danger of such laws, political prisoners. Danger rising from the loose nebulus language allowing platforms to shut down certain types of speech like inciting violence.
As for those laws to begin with I do support them, even though part of me feels like someone else's words cannot make me violent. Our minds are very pliable as divisionism points out. A couple of decades ago and certainly after the disaster that was Bushbama we should have simply fired both "major gangs" But hey they had the money to court us on TV so we stuck with them despite bipartisian faliure everywhere we looked.. Instead most of us just doubled down by supporting one of them no matter what they did.! Not surprisingly no good has come of that.
Anyway IMO while we do need certain restrictions on speech in certain situations those situations are so loosely defined as to allow corporations to manipulate elections.
Lastly I agree that rights come with responsibilites but if we are to lose rights over shirking responsibilites as a people we would have no rights left. Perhaps that is exactly what has been happening?