I thought this was a very good thread, and I agree with most of his points.
Importantly, think how Reddit itself evolved it's stance against free speech. As Yishan points out, Reddit was pretty much "free speech absolutist" in the early days. They would allow anything that wasn't outright illegal. But then, things changed, and IIRC the first example of this was the ban of r/jailbait. I remember how many of the mainstream media were doing exposés on jailbait, and thinking "if Reddit doesn't ban this, they're toast" - it was a topic that was so universally abhorrent, on both the right and left, that despite being technically legal at the time, you could easily see how governments would either ban it themselves, or remove liability protection for platforms, which is essentially game over for all the platforms.
It's not hard to see how the platforms then carried this stance to ban anything causing "harassment" or "harm" - probably most people wouldn't be against the ban of r/FatPeopleHate, but then what about areas like trying to overturn the election results, which any rational reading of the facts is a clear falsehood (especially given the number of prominent Republicans who agreed there was no evidence of widespread fraud), despite how many people believe it.
So the idea that you can have a viable "absolutist free speech" social platform is just nuts. The ones that have been tried always devolve into a cesspool of racism and QAnon-level conspiracy theories. There is simply no way to run a modern social network without moderation (or censorship as it's called if your posts are the ones removed).
Just look at this site: despite attracting a more "rational" crowd, at this point I think dang's moderation is a critical factor in its success.
* Promising Condé Nast that if they surrendered some equity the tech people would build a big company and then ... delivering as promised? Advance Publications has gotta be pretty happy with where their investment has gone and I think it's credible it wouldn't have happened without the equity changes
Importantly, think how Reddit itself evolved it's stance against free speech. As Yishan points out, Reddit was pretty much "free speech absolutist" in the early days. They would allow anything that wasn't outright illegal. But then, things changed, and IIRC the first example of this was the ban of r/jailbait. I remember how many of the mainstream media were doing exposés on jailbait, and thinking "if Reddit doesn't ban this, they're toast" - it was a topic that was so universally abhorrent, on both the right and left, that despite being technically legal at the time, you could easily see how governments would either ban it themselves, or remove liability protection for platforms, which is essentially game over for all the platforms.
It's not hard to see how the platforms then carried this stance to ban anything causing "harassment" or "harm" - probably most people wouldn't be against the ban of r/FatPeopleHate, but then what about areas like trying to overturn the election results, which any rational reading of the facts is a clear falsehood (especially given the number of prominent Republicans who agreed there was no evidence of widespread fraud), despite how many people believe it.
So the idea that you can have a viable "absolutist free speech" social platform is just nuts. The ones that have been tried always devolve into a cesspool of racism and QAnon-level conspiracy theories. There is simply no way to run a modern social network without moderation (or censorship as it's called if your posts are the ones removed).
Just look at this site: despite attracting a more "rational" crowd, at this point I think dang's moderation is a critical factor in its success.