For what's worth, I've actually changed my mind about this. I was originally fine with the government encouraging Twitter to take down pandemic related stuff, but after seeing what Trump has done... well, in hindsight, I think the Biden administration should have stayed out of Twitter moderation, just as the Trump administration should stay out of Facebook moderation.
I still think there is a difference in severity between what Biden did and what Trump is doing, but that's beside the point. The current administration has really demonstrated for me why free speech is so important. We should not compromise on that principle, even when it seems logical in the short term.
In certain contexts, harmful lies can be fraud, defamation, or perjury. It's reasonable for a social media company to have a policy that harmful lies are bad for their site, while still otherwise supporting free speech.
Trump claiming the election was stolen, vaccine disinfo - these are lies, and they're very destructive.
Meanwhile, the takedowns that are happening today are people being punished for stating the truth.
It's also striking to me that these folks cried hard about free speech when being deplatformed for harmful lies, but they're revoking visas for people who didn't show proper remorse for a conservative podcasters murder. Everything this administration and its supporters do is in bad faith. It's exasperating.
For what's worth, I've actually changed my mind about this. I was originally fine with the government encouraging Twitter to take down pandemic related stuff, but after seeing what Trump has done... well, in hindsight, I think the Biden administration should have stayed out of Twitter moderation, just as the Trump administration should stay out of Facebook moderation.
I still think there is a difference in severity between what Biden did and what Trump is doing, but that's beside the point. The current administration has really demonstrated for me why free speech is so important. We should not compromise on that principle, even when it seems logical in the short term.