I just read "A Lesson From 1930s Germany: Beware State Control of Social Media". Unfortunately that article comes to an uncertain conclusion: "It is time for politicians to take the regulation of social media seriously. In the long run, however, they must be careful not to undermine the freedoms and the political system that they seek to protect." If the politicians are to take the regulation of social media seriously, what should they do about it? The example of Weimar is interesting, but it does not seem to prove much either way. Certainly the Streisand Effect is clear enough, but in that simple case it merely called attention to her house. I would not want to be a politician called on to try to suppress QAnon by means of censorship, but that still does not guarantee that such an attempt would be of no use. Maybe the Weimar censorship made the situation worse rather than better, but we cannot really know whether it did or not. Likewise maybe Twitter's action to ban Donald Trump made the situation worse -- something like imprisoning Nelson Mandela during Apartheid -- but can we be sure of any of this? There is no way to do a prospective controlled experiment!
I just read "A Lesson From 1930s Germany: Beware State Control of Social Media". Unfortunately that article comes to an uncertain conclusion: "It is time for politicians to take the regulation of social media seriously. In the long run, however, they must be careful not to undermine the freedoms and the political system that they seek to protect." If the politicians are to take the regulation of social media seriously, what should they do about it? The example of Weimar is interesting, but it does not seem to prove much either way. Certainly the Streisand Effect is clear enough, but in that simple case it merely called attention to her house. I would not want to be a politician called on to try to suppress QAnon by means of censorship, but that still does not guarantee that such an attempt would be of no use. Maybe the Weimar censorship made the situation worse rather than better, but we cannot really know whether it did or not. Likewise maybe Twitter's action to ban Donald Trump made the situation worse -- something like imprisoning Nelson Mandela during Apartheid -- but can we be sure of any of this? There is no way to do a prospective controlled experiment!