It seems to me like there are more forums for free speech now than ever before. When in our history has it been easier for the average citizen to find a platform to host their views?
We can likely reach pre-2016 levels of Internet freedom again. I'm not sure if Gab is a critical piece of that, but they seem to be doing mostly the right things right now (though I would like to see some sort of /r/all mechanism for popular activity, right now feeds appear to be completely self-curated).
Before the masses were corralled into walled gardens. If a free and open Internet was a threat to gatekeepers, walled gardens are the solution. You can say anything you want on their platforms, as long as it adheres to the party's content guidelines.
The gate-kept illusion of freedom is arguably more toxic, because it normalizes the curated garden of propagandized views.
Yes, you have more options than broadcast TV, newspapers and radio. Especially if you espouse mainstream views which one would easily find on those sources.
There was a time before eternal September, let's call it August. Google searches were populated by independently run forums and websites. Tech giants were not bent on imposing their political will. Individuals were getting the word out about Hans Blix on independent sites. One can only wonder how Twitter or Facebook's fact checkers would handle that today.
"Experts confirm Saddam has WMD"
In the august days before fact checkers and Facebook, users could still obtain free hosting. They could even post on forums without learning the basics of HTML. That's when the history of the Internet turned.
The total audience for the internet was far less in those days.
To the contrary, the Internet was still growing by leaps and bounds. I propose that the Internet had reached a point where vested interests needed to capture it to maintain control of the narrative.
Now the entirety of society is an "internet addict". I'll admit the nerd inside me feels a bit vindicated, even if horrified overall with where the internet has taken us.
The other day I was thinking back to when I was younger and people freaked out at the possibility of dating someone you met online. Now with dating apps it's the norm.
I'm not sure how old you are, but when is this time you speak of? AOL had users in a walled garden for decades. Then those users moved to myspace, then facebook. You're going to need to be more specific about this magical time when the average user was somehow "free of walled gardens".
The free hosting providers were not engaging in political censorship. Google had a maxim, "Don't be evil". They didn't have infoboxes explaining, "Experts agree that enhanced interrogation is not torture".
Maybe start by explaining how they were worse?
There have always been alternatives to the walled gardens, they have never been larger than their walled alternatives.
Facebook and Twitter are actively policing speech that is not illegal.
That is why your analogy is inapt.
What some people don’t seem to understand about the first amendment is that while the government is obligated to not stop you from publishing, no private party is obligated to assist you.
What some people don't understand about freespeech is that it's a bigger principle then just the 1st amendment protections. Most of us are not arguing that companies ARE violating the law/first amendment. only that political/religious speech restrictions by large gate keeping institutions can have similar negative effects on society. We are arguing for ether more protections to be put in place or even for social change where instead of demanding companies censor these who disagree with us we demand they allow them to speak, EVENTHOUGH we disagree with them.
> Society can and does execute its own mandates: and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practises a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.
> Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough: there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling; against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development, and, if possible, prevent the formation, of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
> There is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence: and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs, as protection against political despotism.
~ John Stuart Mill, On Library (1859)
Dangerous antivax nonsense is not well moderated on many of those platforms, especially Facebook