It’s not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media::One person’s content moderation is another’s censorship when it comes to Democrats’ and Republicans’ views on handling misinformation.
There is a key difference here. Social media companies have some liability with what gets shared on the platform. They also have a financial interest in what gets said and how it gets promoted by algorithms. The fact is, these are not public spaces. These are not streets. They’re more akin to newspapers, or really the people printing and publishing leaflets. The Internet itself is the street in your analogy.
Your analogy about Newspapers isn’t accurate either. The writers of a newspaper are paid by the company and everyone knows that writers execute the newspaper’s agenda. Nothing gets published without review and everything aligns with the company’s vision. Information is one way and readers buy it to consume information. They don’t expect their voice to be heard and the newspaper don’t pretend that the readers have that ability either. This isn’t comparable to a social media site at all.
Companies probably shouldn’t be liable then for what individuals share / post then, instead the individuals should. Social media constantly controls their push / promotion of posts currently using algorithms to decide what should be shown / shared and when.
I hate this so much. I want real, linear feeds from all my friends I’m following, not a personally curated style sanitized feed to consider my interests and sensibilities.