> A misinformed populace acts to destroy democracy.
who is to be trusted with the authority to decide what counts as misinformation? Is it possible that a gatekeeper of information would find it easier to misinform the populace than a prominent person who had to contend with other dissenting voices?
It feels to me like both sides in this debate want to argue "of course it's patently obvious that I'm right". But services like YouTube and Facebook have no real historical precedents in terms of audience reach, and it's hard to think of a more rock-and-a-hard-place situation than choosing between "force a private company to treat their property like a public square no matter the cost to society" and "allow a private company to dictate what's allowed in a de facto public square."
So, yes, of course it's possible a gatekeeper would find it easier to misinform the populace. Over the long term, it's almost guaranteed. Yet it's also possible -- in fact, one can argue the probability is essentially 1.0 -- that refusing to have any gates will also misinform the populace. If we're looking for a blanket rule that will cover all possible situations in this new information reality, we're probably looking in vain.
The burden of proof lies with those who want to deny me rights, not those of us who want to maintain those rights. FB and YouTube has a right to remove content they don't want to host, just like me. If you want to take away my rights, you'd better come up with something really really good.
who is to be trusted with the authority to decide what counts as misinformation? Is it possible that a gatekeeper of information would find it easier to misinform the populace than a prominent person who had to contend with other dissenting voices?