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It has never been the US government's job to decide which speech is 'harmful' and should be silenced. The First Amendment prevents that. (Of course, some things like slander are illegal, but that's nothing like the 'harmful speech' Facebook is talking about.)

> Of course, some things like slander are illegal

Specifically, to prove slander, the defamed party has to demonstrate intent and damages. Same with fraud. Both of these are cases of "your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose."

Not in many non-USA countries. Just damage and negligence is enough in many other English speaking countries [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defamation

It also depends if it's a tort or criminal.

It is entirely the US government's job to decide which speech is harmful: it just takes the view that most speech isn't harmful, and should be allowed. The First Amendment is part of the US government's decision on speech: its view is that most speech is more good than bad, and thus is protected. When it does decide that certain speech, like libel, is harmful, it bans it. It even can ban speech in specific contexts! For example, in Brandenburg v. Ohio the court upheld that speech "which would be directed to and likely to incite imminent lawless action" could be banned. So, saying an inflammatory thing privately to your friend, for example, could be fine, but boosting that post to millions of people could be viewed as "likely to incite imminent lawless action" such as a riot.

> The First Amendment is part of the US government's decision on speech

This is just flat out incorrect.

The Bill of Rights was the people saying "You want a US government ruling over the several States? Here are the rules for what you're allowed to do." The US gov't never made a decision on speech, they agreed to the terms of "We, The People", full stop. You're acting like it's the opposite.

This is also why the gov't can't just rewrite the 1st amendment willy nilly—all of the US government's legitimacy with the American people comes from respecting the Bill of Rights. Stop respecting those rights and a rebellion is right around the corner.

Historically, the States had to approve the Bill of Rights (and the rest of the new Constitution) in order for it to come into effect. It's definitely NOT the US gov't "deciding", and it never was. All of the power resided in the States.

Interestingly, the "Federalists" that (re-)wrote the Constitution were mostly opposed to the Bill of Rights—that's the contribution made by the anti-Federalists to the US Gov't as it exists today.

Isn't it funny how most citizens treasure the Bill of Rights more than anything else in the Constitution? That makes it pretty clear which "side" had the well-being of the people in mind.

I think there's a bit of a disconnect when it comes to "harmful" speech, and "illegal".

The US government isn't going to decide what is "harmful" at least not for long as a legal challenge would quickly do away with any such rules.

In the end the platforms have to decide for themselves and police themselves unless they want to be 4chan or whatever the next "post anything" kinda place is now a days. Right or wrong they're the only folks who can do it.

The only problem I see here is Facebook is offloading the 'hard problem' of algorithmically dealing with such massive data that requires top-notch machine learning algorithms to be able to detect sentiment at 'Facebook level Scale' to a massively more technically inept party. Look up how much money it cost to do the ObamaCare website, then tell the same party to develop an algorithm that Facebook, one of the biggest technology company's in the world, is having a hard time solving. This problem is only going to get harder and harder as the amount of data created is rising.

> I agree with this. Having a private corporation that's invested in engagement, which is also headquartered in the US (very far geographically and culturally from some of the places it moderates) be in charge of defining what's right and what's wrong, is and has been a recipe for disaster— let alone the implications it could have around the sovereignty of nations.

What? If Facebook decides it, it's a threat to sovereignity of countries other then the US, but if the USG decides it, it isn't?

> I don't think anyone is vouching for "big brother" type government control here, but governments always have a principal role in civil rights, inclusion and the moral development of a nation.

Lol, what does this even mean? You want a Theocracy with Zuck writing the scripture? Are your views tainted in any way by Facebook Incorporated?

The government and their role in defining "harmful" has been defined already. It's called the First Amendment. Might want to check it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...

Who’s government?

Each person's, hopefully.