I really want someone to come along who has an answer to all this. I sure don't. Just some observations. I think the last decades have been an unprecedented ex

I really want someone to come along who has an answer to all this. I sure don't. Just some observations. I think the last decades have been an unprecedented experiment in massively scaled two-way communication. People don't really seem to know how to handle the current stage of this experiment. It was a little easier back when it was much smaller communities on Usenet, or even IRC, and most of the time you recognized the same names and could work things out like everyone had got together for a slightly uncomfortable family dinner. But it's not like that anymore. Hasn't been for quite a while. The scale and speed of things is just hard to fathom now, and we really aren't equipped for it. Facebook has shared some responsibility in ethnic atrocities [1] [2] [3]. Different groups are now exploiting Facebook's advertising platform to stir up more social unrest [4]. Facebook isn't the only source of trouble; Reddit and other sites are radicalizing youth [5] and struggling with self-policing their most toxic bits [6]. Everyone's concerned about the loss of free speech. I'm pretty far left politically, I get it. It's a big step, maybe the last, towards tyranny. I've been opposed to forcing websites to police copyrighted content (DMCA, SOPA, PIPA). I've been a little less opposed to forcing them to police sexually exploitative content (FOSTA and SESTA -- although I don't love the execution of it). For people on the political left, who tend to both support free speech and recognize the danger of unregulated firearms, it might be time to take a more careful look at the damage done by massive social networks and ask: what makes this different from gun control? And is there any way to effectively reduce the spread of misinformation, radicalization of people, and incitement of violence on massive social platforms, without suffocating the free exchange of ideas? [1]: https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2018/04/21/tinderbox-countries-facebook-becomes-match/HK9BykGEbbnpnvWWwS32tJ/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/world/2018/04/21/tinderbox-... [2]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/revealed-facebook-hate-speech-exploded-in-myanmar-during-rohingya-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/03/revealed-faceb... [3]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook/u-n-investigators-cite-facebook-role-in-myanmar-crisis-idUSKCN1GO2PN https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-rohingya-facebook... [4]: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads/majority-of-divisive-facebook-ads-bought-by-suspicious-groups-study-idUSKBN1HN2KV https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-ads/majority-of-... [5]: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/all-american-nazis-628023/ https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/all-amer... [6]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the-struggle-to-detoxify-the-internet https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/reddit-and-the...