> The argument I would make is not about censorship but preventing people from spreading lies.
Limiting speech is by definition censorship. There's no value judgement required as to the quality or veracity of that speech to determine whether or not restricting it counts as censorship.
> the freedom of speech in the US is strongly correlated with conspiracy theories
...and water is highly correlated with drowning. We don't say 'water bad, less water'. Just because one thing is a prerequisite for something else doesn't mean it is responsible for that other thing. We have to look to, like you point out, the political climate, as well as the lack of trust in institutions, the education system, and many other factors. Taking a complex issue around how information is shared at an unprecedented speed and scale and saying "just ban it" is, I think, a shallow assessment.
But discouraging the spreading of a message at each spreader, for example by letting the spreader know the message is tagged as misleading by some large number of people before they spread it further is not censorship.
That may limit the rate, intensity, and real-world effect of some kinds of information, without fundamentally limiting the right to free speech.
Limiting speech is by definition censorship. There's no value judgement required as to the quality or veracity of that speech to determine whether or not restricting it counts as censorship.
> the freedom of speech in the US is strongly correlated with conspiracy theories
...and water is highly correlated with drowning. We don't say 'water bad, less water'. Just because one thing is a prerequisite for something else doesn't mean it is responsible for that other thing. We have to look to, like you point out, the political climate, as well as the lack of trust in institutions, the education system, and many other factors. Taking a complex issue around how information is shared at an unprecedented speed and scale and saying "just ban it" is, I think, a shallow assessment.