> As far as I can tell, pre-internet conspiracy-theorists and demagogues never had a guaranteed platform. We tried a great experiment letting anybody say anythi

> As far as I can tell, pre-internet conspiracy-theorists and demagogues never had a guaranteed platform. We tried a great experiment letting anybody say anything with amplification of the masses. Based on the results of the great experiment (Qanon, Trump presidency, "stop the steal", capitol riots) people want to pull back to the tried-and-true pre-web-2.0 journalism (i.e. gatekeepers). It's worth noting that the invention of the printing press caused massive social change in Europe, and was not looked upon very kindly at the time by many. I think the internet analogy writes itself, and I hope that we maintain the ability of humans to converse about what interests them regardless of how crazy they are. Just remember kids, words are not actions. I can say that I'm gonna burn Y-combinator down (I don't even know where it is, to be honest) but that is not the same as actually burning down their buildings. I worry that we're conflating these two things too much in terms of what we see on the Internet. And to be fair, the major driver of the craziness of the Republican party is TV and talk radio, not social media.