While I agree that one's views on censorship should not be based on whether one agrees or disagrees with the views presently impacted, I don't think your comparisons are reasonable for multiple reasons:
- Stalin and Hitler were _state_ censorship, where the state itself (and its heavy-handed use of force) were used to silence dissent. Meta is not a state, and Meta is not itself using force.
- When Niemöller says "they came for ...", he doesn't mean shadow-banning social media accounts. Silencing accounts on social media isn't _nothing_ but it's also definitely not equivalent to being sent to a prison camp.
- I think there is a legitimate broader question about what "censorship" should mean when talking about companies whose products involve communication. A requirement that user-provided messages should have equal reach irrespective of what they're saying seems to is in tension with the firm having its own freedom to not put certain things on their screens, on pages with their branding.
> One must speak out against censorship and against limiting freedom of speech, whenever it is being limited.
- I also think there's a legitimate question of whether people have a right to spread false information, including deliberate misinformation, irrespective of the platform. Claims that a chemical is medically effective in treating a specific disease need to be backed by clinical evidence. Intentionally lying to harm someone's reputation is defamation. "Censorship" in the form of "you can't criticize The Party" or "you can't publish that novel with its dangerous ideas" seems pretty different from "you can't say that your horse drug treats covid". Perhaps all viewpoints should have the same freedoms of expression, but we don't get to have our own facts. One can have principled reasons for believing that not all speech should be equally free.
I don't think the question will land on the issue if people have a right to spread false information. Instead the big question will be if people have a right to decide which information is false and which is not. If people do not have this right, and we instead want a small elected people to have a exclusive right to define which information is false, then what form of process should those people be elected.
A common argument of anti-censorship advocacy is to only allow censorship if a court of law has agrees to it, and then only if that law is identical in every country. Only then do we have a direct link between elected people who has mandate to define what is true and what is false.
With the covid chemical in question one should ask why the person who suggested horse drugs was not charged and found guilty in the country where they reside. Why did the law allow people to provide harmful medical advice in time of a pandemic?
- Stalin and Hitler were _state_ censorship, where the state itself (and its heavy-handed use of force) were used to silence dissent. Meta is not a state, and Meta is not itself using force.
- When Niemöller says "they came for ...", he doesn't mean shadow-banning social media accounts. Silencing accounts on social media isn't _nothing_ but it's also definitely not equivalent to being sent to a prison camp.
- I think there is a legitimate broader question about what "censorship" should mean when talking about companies whose products involve communication. A requirement that user-provided messages should have equal reach irrespective of what they're saying seems to is in tension with the firm having its own freedom to not put certain things on their screens, on pages with their branding.
> One must speak out against censorship and against limiting freedom of speech, whenever it is being limited.
- I also think there's a legitimate question of whether people have a right to spread false information, including deliberate misinformation, irrespective of the platform. Claims that a chemical is medically effective in treating a specific disease need to be backed by clinical evidence. Intentionally lying to harm someone's reputation is defamation. "Censorship" in the form of "you can't criticize The Party" or "you can't publish that novel with its dangerous ideas" seems pretty different from "you can't say that your horse drug treats covid". Perhaps all viewpoints should have the same freedoms of expression, but we don't get to have our own facts. One can have principled reasons for believing that not all speech should be equally free.