
Internet Speech Will Never Go Back to Normal - dthal
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/what-covid-revealed-about-internet/610549/
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duxup
I'm not sure I buy into the idea here that there is government speech control
from the federal government ... much at all. And certainly not what we see in
China.

"Community standards" are not directed to support a particular leader, nor do
they exist to suppress even silly mockery of political leaders.

The platforms have grown in influence, but they were never a free for all, and
with influence comes a lot of work and responsibility that they seem willing
to do when it comes to moderation, even if for their own purposes. YouTube
doesn't want to host anything and everything, same with Facebook. Few if any
site ever did, and those that chose to... often changed course after exposure
to what being a site that hosts 'anything' actually becomes (generally, just
the less desirable parts of 'anything' and the rest of the users flee).

Things change, but the idea that it was a free for all the father you go back
has more to do with the fewer people on the internet, and even then there was
moderation.

~~~
downerending
The subhead for that article is literally "In the debate over freedom versus
control of the global network, China was largely correct, and the U.S. was
wrong."

It's stunning to me to see China held up as a model for how speech in the US
should be properly controlled and censored.

It matters little whether the censorship is being carried out by the state or
by private actors. What matters is how _effective_ the censorship is and the
degree to which we come to accept it as "normal".

