Censoring content rather than refuting its claims is counterproductive. If skeptics are not able to be argumentatively refute a claim, they will not succeed in

Censoring content rather than refuting its claims is counterproductive. If skeptics are not able to be argumentatively refute a claim, they will not succeed in changing minds. The current strategy of trying to silence view points will eventually fail miserably. The issue is that when a platform outsources its censorship (“moderation”) to a third party that it still controls, rather than a third party that is actually perceived to be neutral by most people, then you create distrust which further fuels conspiracy theories. Also a conspiracy theory may actually be true. Jeffrey Epstein was not discussed during the 2016 election aside from a few fringe articles. It was too toxic for mainstream to touch. And everyone in Hollywood knew about Harvey Weinstein and even joked about it. These topics were covered up only for so long. Today there are lots of insane and farfetched theories being floated. But the theories being censored today that are indeed based in reality, will eventually become common knowledge and the censors will be implicated in the coverup thereby harming their trust. Discussion, debate, argument, evidence, analysis lead us towards truth. Mute only appears to work and can be a useful political tool for only so long. Today our public forum is virtual, but still a public forum. Trump wasn’t allowed to block certain followers because of their right to be in the forum and hear from their president. So the question is whether governments will acknowledge this fact and limit the power of our big tech group communication platforms and enforce transparency and non-biased appeals process. Or will they cede total control of our public forums to Big Tech out of short term political convenience.