I want you to imagine for a second a conversation between two people, one that goes something like this:

Person A: "I really don't think weed should be illegal."

Person B: "Oh yeah, so what about raping rural villagers to death? I guess you think that should be legal too huh?"

This is how ridiculous you sound.

You’re making up something that person didn’t say (or even imply, really). That’s not ok.

I want you to imagine for a second that someone makes the claim that blocking links for COVID misinformation is setting a precedent. An obvious follow up in order to have a constructive discussion is to establish where the line is, ie whether the debate is a) whether blocking of any kind or b) what content warrants blocking. This is specifically relevant to Facebook since Whatsapp has been used in the past to coordinate/incite violence and genocide.

So maybe stop and think for one second before commenting?

There was already a consensus on where the line should be, it's people making arguments like the one you're making that are muddying the waters so they can "clarify" as you're doing and suppress speech. We already know where the line is.

The line is here: in a private communication between people anything can be said, nothing should be censored. if someone gets caught planning or doing something illegal they go to jail.

That was never the consensus or the “line,” because major chat providers never behaved in the way you suggest. They have always had rules that were codified in their Terms of Use, and have enforced them through various means.

Your absolutist position is interesting, but don’t make it sound like private carriers have ever been held to this standard.

Wait you started this thread making it seem like it was ridiculous to equate covid misinformation and other forms of objectional content (such as calls for violence), implying that you felt it obvious that allowing the former would not mean also allowing the latter. Is that not your position?

Yes, I would say so.

TBH that absolutist position feels untenable. Unmoderated platforms are quickly overrun by objectionable content, and easily usurped by moderated competitors. The only way to force this would be through legislation, and I just think there is no way that the majority of people can be convinced to support/vote for that position.

That's true of communities involving large groups of people; this is Facebook Messenger, which is mostly used for one-on-one or small-group chat, like SMS. SMS is not generally overrun with objectionable content, even though it is mostly unmoderated.