Except that it is not a miniscule chance of some violence occasionally being committed. ISIS nearly succeeded in establishing a new country in the territory th

Except that it is not a miniscule chance of some violence occasionally being committed. ISIS nearly succeeded in establishing a new country in the territory they captured and it is absurd to pretend that they had not exploited poor moderation on major websites to recruit large numbers of people to their cause. White nationalists and neo-nazis have been equally effective in their use of social media to recruit members and to spread their propaganda. We are not talking about isolated incidents or hypothetical scenarios. Extremists in the US and Europe are becoming part of the political mainstream because so many people believe the extremist propaganda they are reading on social media platforms. Those same extremists have inspired an increasing number of terrorist attacks as their propaganda has spread. For someone like me, someone who is part of a minority group that is frequently targeted by those terrorists, that represents an immediate and growing danger. Really though, this entire debate is poisoned by extreme positions on free speech. I remember watching as unmoderated Usenet groups were overrun by neonazis; everyone fled to moderated newsgroups or off of Usenet altogether to some better-moderated platform. Free speech absolutism has never worked well and it is juvenile to pretend that the choice is between "sacrificing all your personal freedom" or taking an absolutist approach to free speech.