I'd say it suppressed the expression of ideas, but it was not successful enough to suppress the spread. It certainly did not extinguish the ideas. I would not

I'd say it suppressed the expression of ideas, but it was not successful enough to suppress the spread. It certainly did not extinguish the ideas. I would not say right wing terrorism was only inspired by recent online hate speech. The US always had militias, people like Timothy McVeigh, white supremacists, and so on. However, I think that social media made it impossible to "keep the lid on" these ideas. Before we could censor this pretty good in the mass media, but then mass media and mainstream society lost their monopoly of interpretation. Now people with nasty ideas realize they are not alone and come out, and organize.