Comment by angoragoats

I’m not saying we should control what people are allowed to hear, and even if I were, banning people from posting garbage on social media hardly rises to that level. I think you’ve got this part drastically wrong, but maybe I didn’t explain myself well enough, so I’m sorry for that.

I’m specifically against the amplification of radical content through profit-driven social media algorithms, which has no analogue in the 20th century or indeed any other time in human history. There is no historical or philosophical context that I’m aware of that you could share with me that would be equivalent.

This is what I mean by “free reach” — radical content keeps eyeballs on apps/websites, so it gets amplified so that shareholders can make more money via advertisements. The algorithms that do this need to be banned and/or heavily regulated, and until they are I am in favor of banning/silencing entities who use those algorithms to their advantage to spread dangerous content.

Any of the above-mentioned entities is free to post whatever content they want on their own sites, blogs, or social media that isn’t profit/algorithm-driven. Therefore, no “free speech” (ugh, again, I hate that term in this context) rights are lost, nor is anyone being deprived of the right to hear something.