Some have been applying pressure on social media companies to limit hateful or divisive speech. Unfortunately, this means that someone has to have the power to decide which speech is hateful or divisive. The government may not make such a decision; they are restricted by the 1st amendment. But what happens when the aforesaid pressure comes from members of the legislature? What happens when such legislators have made clear what speech they believe should be limited? What happens when the decision made by social media companies on what to censor is driven by the threat of regulation by these very same legislators? Is it really the social media companies censoring their own networks, or the government through the threat of regulation?
Today, social media companies have taken a stance to limit what “they” consider to be hateful or divisive speech by significantly censoring the content of Alex Jones InfoWars on-line presence [CNet, Business Insider, Mac Daily News, Fox News], an alt-right leaning “news” source (I use the term “news” here loosely). I’m no fan of Alex Jones, but I don’t need Apple, Facebook, or Google/YouTube telling me to whom I can or should listen. Nor do I need Diane Feinstein or other legislators coming to my rescue.
My greatest concern is that these censorship acts are being driven by the threat of regulation. We should all be leery of such possible attempts to end-run the constitutional protections of the 1st amendment.