Just a small anecdote, one of the first times Reddit did a mass banning of subreddits there was a public outcry that to me, uninformed at the time, seemed reasonable. The creators of Voat assured they'd never adopt such a policy. If you know anything about Voat's history, you know how it ended up. I couldn't just ignore the slurs on the front page of the website. Back on Reddit, the mythical day where they came for the things I love would never come. Ever since, I've found free speech is much easier for websites than people pretend. By removing bad posts, the only lasting implication is discouraging more bad posts. Easy.
Right, like Parler or 4chan.
Yes, that's what invariably happens when your standard for moderation is bare legality.
I think it's more about the pseudonymity of internet culture and the interactions it tends to fosters. eg: I am responding to you without knowing you personally and the only relationship I have with you is your username and the broader HN message board; the freedom to be critical without human 1:1 feedback.
There is a lot of space in between Tiktok's current policy and allowing literally anything that's legal. It doesn't have to be a binary choice between chaos and strict policing.
Ironically, Parler is extremely heavily censored, far more than Twitter - it is verbatim the censorship regime that conservatives pretend exists elsewhere, only actually existing yet in their favor
When someone/something gets associated with Parler, 4chan or Gab, it loses a lot of legitimacy with the mainstream. That's why conservatives are fighting to not be relegated to such corners of the internet, but instead allow to eat off the legitimacy and reach of mainstream platforms like TikTok and Youtube.
Why would anyone consider Tiktok or YouTube to be legitimate or illegitimate in any measure? They are literally just places where all kinds of people upload all kinds of content. That the platform carries a certain video, doesn't mean it has some stamp of approval.
Because they are well known platforms that plenty of media personalities have careers on. When a person sees that a podcast is hosted on www.1776GeneralLeeDidNothingWrong.com, they are going to automatically turn up their noses and walk away. Youtube and TikTok don't incur such baggage. There is a reason that conservative personalities screech everytime they are given the boot from these platforms.
And yet you could only get real data re: the potential COVID Lab leak from 4Chan for quite awhile. It was deemed misinformation and bad for our health to read. Maybe censorship is what is actually "problematic"..
There was no hard censorship of the lab leak theory. It was posted everywhere, including here on HN I'm sure.