Then what? Allowing false information to fester is wrong, censorship is wrong. The way forward is to ban recommendation algorithms and go back to personal (as in, from other humans you know) recommendation systems.
That sounds good, but it is not true. If the CEO of YouTube was a committed Hindi the public would demand that he overlook Buddhist/Muslim/Christian/Atheist content on his platform. Tolerance of people we truly believe to be wrong is a key value that needs to be preserved.
The sort of people who talk about "false information" in their policies tend to be running more authoritarian style countries - they don't actually know what is true and false, but they do know what they want to hear to promote stasis in leadership.
I mean they have the right to take it down, but if I were running YouTube I wouldn't.
I much prefer recommendations from people.
But things like the Hunter censorship absolutely cross a line and are enraging. Banning (even loosely defined) hate speech is not the same thing as being the arbiter of truth.
They want Facebook to open its social graph so other social networks can compete...and take privacy seriously so there isn't another Cambridge Analytica.
So what happens when "false" information "conspiracy theories" turn out to be true? How should it be handled when people in the position to censor information choose to do so in bad faith? (e.g. they lied about it being fake, or they weren't sure it was fake but they chose to censor bc it aligned with their political beliefs) And what if the censorship impacts were time sensitive? (e.g. they negligently censored sensitive election-related information immediately before an election, and then decided to report it as legitimate news shortly after the election - after the censorship goal was accomplished)
"Oops we made a mistake" is not even close to an acceptable response. I say we treat free speech more like civil rights, harsh penalties and all.
From the article: Hunter Biden was announcing that his “tax affairs” were under investigation....That news was denounced as Russian disinformation by virtually everyone in “reputable” media, who often dismissed the story with an aristocratic snort....That tale was not Russian disinformation, however, and Biden’s announcement this week strongly suggests Twitter and Facebook suppressed a real story of legitimate public interest just before a presidential election.