Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

I think this is going to be a discussion thread that is almost inevitably going to be a shitshow, but anyway:

There are people who advocate the idea that private companies should be compelled to distribute hate speech, dangerously factually incorrect information and harassment under the concept that free speech is should be applied universally rather than just to government. I don't agree, I think it's a vast over-reach and almost unachievable to have both perfect free speech on these platforms and actually run them as a viable business.

But let's lay that aside, those people who make the argument claim to be adhering to an even stronger dedication to free speech. Surely, it's clear here that having the actual head of the US government threatening to shut down private companies for how they choose to manage their platforms is a far more disturbing and direct threat against free speech even in the narrowest sense.

I think it's even more concerning than that.

Threatening to shut down private companies -- not for limiting speech, not for refusing to distribute speech -- but for exercising their own right to free speech alongside the free speech of others (in this case the president).

There is no right to unchallenged or un-responded-to speech, regardless of how you interpret the right to free speech.

Attaching a disclaimer to the speech of another though is not straightforward. Will they get into the business of fact checking everyone over certain number of followers? Will they do it impartially world-wide? How can they even be impartial world wide given the different contradictory points of view, valid from both sides? Cyprus? What’s the take there?

I love the theoretical situation that doesn't exist as a justification for not doing the right thing. This isn't a "different points of view" - this is the leader of the United States LYING on their platform, and them choosing to provide a link to FACTUAL INFORMATION. There is no "contradictory point of view" - he claimed there was massive voter fraud and there's literally 0 proof to back up his claim and mountains of evidence to counter it.

Is Trump lying though? Here’s a list of tons of convictions on fraudulent use of absentee ballots (and other forms of voter fraud): https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

> Here’s a list of tons of convictions on fraudulent use of absentee ballots (and other forms of voter fraud): https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p....

wait, 938 convictions over what looks like is over two decades? Just in the presidential election years that's something like 625 million votes. That's very little fraud.

(and there's some nonsense in there if it's trying to present itself as voter fraud...like the California cases of candidates misrepresenting their home address. What does that have to do with any voters?)

As a US citizen, I would prefer to have 0 such convictions. I would not belittle these results, as these may not be all convictions, and these are just the ones that got caught.

And of course even if the sheer number of votes is not on the same order of magnitude as all votes cast, we should still worry because a relatively small number of votes can have an outsized effect when placed appropriately.

Edit: as the first page states, this is not a comprehensive list, but a ‘sampling’.