> What it sounds like Obama is really pushing for here is government/totalitarian control over what speech should be permitted, the exact opposite of free speec

> What it sounds like Obama is really pushing for here is government/totalitarian control over what speech should be permitted, the exact opposite of free speech. You make it sound like there is zero nuance to permitted speech as it is today in the US. You can't shout fire in a theater, you can't post spam on Facebook and expect it to stick, and right now, certain kinds of hate or expression are also banned by virtually every common space's TOS. Social media is an invention of the past 20 years. It's entirely factual that how we communicate and consume information is changing, and it's also factual that our news sources are in danger from two ends: from bias by the platform owners, and from manipulation from outside forces (e.g. foreign propoganda / misinformation). It's pretty naive to advocate for unfiltered social media. If you want that, there are certainly some venues for it (e.g. 4chan). Facebook and Twitter have huge problems relating to hate speech, misinformation, and misinformation. Doesn't it seem problematic to you that huge swaths of people are bandwagoning onto unscientific / insane conspiracy theories like QAnon? This sort of behavior could not have existed without modern social media, and I find it pretty sad that anyone would say this is desirable. > The reason Democracy is “weakening” is because people have been lied to by elected representatives in both parties as well as institutions and traditional media outlets for decades. Democracy is weakening because people like Trump enter office and act like they are above the law -- refusing to cooperate with the other elected bodies, refusing to provide financial transparency, trading on insider information, directly using their positions to enrich themselves and their families, trying to coerce civil servants to abandon their responsibilities in favor of whatever is politically expedient (e.g. declaring voter fraud where there is none, eschewing public health guidance advocated by scientists and public health experts, etc). Democracy is weakening because media outlets are being purchased by billionaires in an environment with increasing wealth disparity. Democracy is weakening because foreign adversaries are leveraging social media to spread misinformation and conspiracy theories are being perpetuated via new memetic and contrarian tendencies. All of this could be improved with the help of responsible moderation to decrease sockpuppet accounts and misinformation, as well as regulated standards for acceptable behavior in the commons. If you want totally unfettered speech, nobody is stopping you from starting your own private discord server or website. But you can't just say whatever in public commons.