We have several “modern problems” that make completely-free speech potentially naïve. One, the sheer magnitude of easily accessible information is far greater

We have several “modern problems” that make completely-free speech potentially naïve. One, the sheer magnitude of easily accessible information is far greater than it has ever been, and this quantity not only overwhelms us in terms of how many headlines we will read but also how deeply we are willing to read. At some point, we are mostly reduced to headline-skimmers that trust far too much about the first few sentences of whatever is posted, and we place great trust in “something” to help us filter it out (and so far there aren’t a lot of great ways to determine what makes an online source valuable). It is also incredibly easy for people to set up their own online echo chambers now, which means that people can saturate their input with whatever they want to hear and leave it at that. People have shown that they’re clearly not responsible enough to intentionally diversify what they take in, which almost ensures a very skewed perception of reality, especially when combined with massive quantity and low quality. And, perhaps controversially, I believe that people are not being educated very well at all to recognize and adapt to these problems. (It’s learning about critical thinking, statistical significance of sample sizes, etc.) Indeed, young people are able to easily access online material from almost anywhere with no friction but all of the echo chamber.