> If a user decides to perform some real-world criminal act based on something he read on Twitter, we already have laws and enforcement mechanisms to deal with that. Morally the individuals themselves are responsible for their actions, not Twitter.
The problem is that the most dangerous content is appealing to people on a very low emotional level, it's called "stochastic terrorism" for a reason. Just take the QAnon crap about children being held hostage and mined for adrenochrome in the basement of a pizza parlor. Yes, the dude deciding to shoot up a pizza parlor [1] should be punished for his actions - but should those who published the crap or hosted the crap be allowed to get off without consequences? What about the baseless claims of a "stolen" election that led to a putsch attempt and the deaths of seven people [2]? Neither of what was published was illegal, even under European laws, but nevertheless real, actual people died.
99.9999999% of people won't fall for QAnon content to the degree they get violent over it, but it only takes one gullible-enough person and suddenly something that most (>50%) of the population would dismiss as crap becomes an actual cause for massive harm. If hundreds are gullible enough, you get a Jan 6th-scale event. And if millions are gullible enough, you get Trump, Orban, Kaczynski or Brexit (as well as, again, an accompanying rise in violence, murder and terrorism based on these people and their ideologies).
In my opinion, actions have to be taken against the peddlers of QAnon, election fraud and other propaganda before the stochastic terrorism principle applies and people get killed as a result. And the worst contributor to that is unmoderated and undermoderated social media, no matter if it's 4chan and the other chans that gave rise to QAnon, Facebook and Twitter that gave rise to Trump or Telegram that gave rise to the corona deniers and anti-5G conspiracy peddlers.
Democracy is not something that is god-given, democracy is something that has to be fought over to obtain it (and in every country, that fight cost millions of deaths) and has to be fought over to keep it alive - sometimes bloody (e.g. in Ukraine), sometimes at the election campaigns, and always at a legislative level. Democracy needs the attention of everyone and the counteraction against threats - including curbing the freedom of speech, where proven to be necessary.
> but should those who published the crap or hosted the crap be allowed to get off without consequences?
YES. The people who published the nonsense are in no way responsible for the actions of the murderer. Neither are the people who manufactured the hardware, mined the raw materials, ran the cabling, or built the datacenter. Responsibility for action must terminate at the actor.
Liberty basically decentralizes power as much as possible. The inevitable consequence of this is that individual people are powerful. And if they happen to be gullible or stupid, they can exercise that power to do stupid things. The alternative is taking away power from individuals and concentrating it in authority. This inescapably carries a much higher risk of the power being corrupted and abused, since there are fewer actors who wield more of it.
I'm glad to suffer the occasional school shooting or laughably ineffective putsch, if it means I will never be subjected to a Kristallnacht.
> actions have to be taken against the peddlers of QAnon, election fraud and other propaganda before the stochastic terrorism principle applies
This is basically precrime/thought crime. I just don't trust any authority with that much power over any period of time. Following Blackstone's formulation, I would rather 10 dangerous lies spread unchecked, than be censored for promoting one truth.
The problem is that the most dangerous content is appealing to people on a very low emotional level, it's called "stochastic terrorism" for a reason. Just take the QAnon crap about children being held hostage and mined for adrenochrome in the basement of a pizza parlor. Yes, the dude deciding to shoot up a pizza parlor [1] should be punished for his actions - but should those who published the crap or hosted the crap be allowed to get off without consequences? What about the baseless claims of a "stolen" election that led to a putsch attempt and the deaths of seven people [2]? Neither of what was published was illegal, even under European laws, but nevertheless real, actual people died.
99.9999999% of people won't fall for QAnon content to the degree they get violent over it, but it only takes one gullible-enough person and suddenly something that most (>50%) of the population would dismiss as crap becomes an actual cause for massive harm. If hundreds are gullible enough, you get a Jan 6th-scale event. And if millions are gullible enough, you get Trump, Orban, Kaczynski or Brexit (as well as, again, an accompanying rise in violence, murder and terrorism based on these people and their ideologies).
In my opinion, actions have to be taken against the peddlers of QAnon, election fraud and other propaganda before the stochastic terrorism principle applies and people get killed as a result. And the worst contributor to that is unmoderated and undermoderated social media, no matter if it's 4chan and the other chans that gave rise to QAnon, Facebook and Twitter that gave rise to Trump or Telegram that gave rise to the corona deniers and anti-5G conspiracy peddlers.
Democracy is not something that is god-given, democracy is something that has to be fought over to obtain it (and in every country, that fight cost millions of deaths) and has to be fought over to keep it alive - sometimes bloody (e.g. in Ukraine), sometimes at the election campaigns, and always at a legislative level. Democracy needs the attention of everyone and the counteraction against threats - including curbing the freedom of speech, where proven to be necessary.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/business/media/comet-ping...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/05/us/politics/jan-6-capitol...