“But it’s ok, we’re the good guys and doing it for the right reasons”, says every tyrant ever.
Never let speech get censored no matter how good it makes you feel in the moment. It’s the worst precedent you can ever set.
I’ll try and give an example here that might be safe to give because it rips the Republican Wing of the Military Industrial Complex.
If Facebook was one of the world’s primary communication channel in say the early 1990s, the people who would have called BS on tearful made up testimony about Saddam unplugging babies from respirators that was used to sell the war to the public wouldn’t have even had an opportunity to challenge the official story. Facebook would have blocked their opinions as hateful content and if they persisted just conspired with the rest of Silicon Valley to completely remove them from the Internet. A chain of events that have cost arguably millions of lives and trillions of dollars can be tied to some of that testimonial propaganda and would have been unable to be talked about critically with Facebook’s current rule set.
Now we want Facebook in charge of determining truth? Be careful about what you wish for. You applaud today, but now the precedent is set. What’s next on the chopping block might not be something you’ll like.