A major city would have approximately four local TV stations with any kind of news organization and two newspapers. Maybe you'd have CNN if you had cable, which a lot of people didn't have. I could guarantee you right here that none of them would platform extreme viewpoints, and the country was much better off for it. I guess if you lived in NYC you'd have a few more options, but they were still pretty limited. And none of these were interactive in any way we'd recognize: maybe, at the most, you'd get a letter to the editor published if you got lucky.

The idea where anyone could say anything and be given a massive platform on an international social network that most of the population uses is a very, very new development.

Algorithm-driven social media where anyone can post whatever is actively harmful to our country. Right now, if you view any YouTube videos about WW2, you'll start getting videos "explaining" that the Holocaust was a hoax in your recommendations. If you're thinking about getting into hunting, and you look up gun reviews on YouTube, your recommendations are going to fill up with "Stop the Steal" and QAnon and other boogaloo propaganda. This is the kind of behavior that, if allowed to continue, will absolutely and utterly burn down society.

So Parler should be mandated to host democrat/left views, too, right? After all, it'd be egregious to shut down the views of so many people.

Wait, no, Parler openly and happily deletes "non right wing posts, users and forums". My bad.