> The people voted wrong so we must censor or put a gate in front of social media. Next year, we'll simply retire voting entirely because we just can't trust people to make the right choice. This is democracy TM.
You must be confused. I'm referring to the 13 Russian indicted nationals and three Russian entities charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States in connection with the 2016 United States national elections; specifically their illegal use of social media "to sow political discord, including actions that supported the presidential candidacy of Donald Trump and disparaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/russi...
This is of course an aside from the other electoral interference scandal that resulted in the liquidation of Cambridge Analytica and a $5 billion fine for Facebook.
> Of course if I asked you who you voted for or why you would probably say that you made the right choice based on solid evidence but the people who did not vote like you, no way, they were just hoodwinked or tricked. Condescending much?
I'm not an American Citizen so can't vote, but that's irrelevant to the overall point regarding political literacy and comprehension amongst the greater American public.
At a binary level, 40% of Americans still do not believe that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 presidential election. This is not a safe fundamental basis from which to perpetuate an able democracy. More worryingly, roughly 23% of U.S. adults fully or mostly agree with core QAnon tenets, such as the idea that a secret group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles controls the government and media.
As Steve Bannon ably noted it was the press, rather than Democrats, that represented Trump's primary adversary and "the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit." As such, it would be deeply condescending, not to mention disingenuous, to not actively decry the state of media literacy in the American populace and the extent of social media disinformation they are subjected to.
>Of course it is, you are simply justifying the censorship because it suits your purpose at this present time. Protecting kids, stopping terrorism and keeping the population safe are always the same reasons given by governments on this planet to reduce the civil liberties of the population.
I really am not, as evident from my post-history. If anything I'm a free-speech absolutist in the Voltarian sense, and I have many issues with the EU on the extent and scope of this and many of their other societal initiatives. I can support the ethos and intent of such legislation without necessarily endorsing their mechanism of operation.
Put simply, I feel there is a moral and ethical necessity to ensure that the vulnerable aren't taken advantage of en masse to the detriment of their wellbeing. The world can't afford another Pizzagate scenario, particularly after the events of Jan 8th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theory
https://www.foxnews.com/us/pizzagate-gunman-refuses-to-dismi...
I have no truck with moral hand-wringing masquerading as ethics. I stand by the quote often attributed to Twayne, "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it".
I simply don't conflate safeguarding the vulnerable with restricting an adult's rights, but at some point every child needs to take their parents car keys away before they inevitably cause a serious incident.