Americans can be so short sighted. Banning speech about election results is fine, because it's the "other" side that lost ...this time. It doesn't occur to people that the wheel turns, and next time youtube and facebook might side with the others...then what?

Overrun hospitals. Ballooning medical bills. Attack on congress. Over 600,000 dead from COVID. High vaccine hesitancy. States enacting voting restrictions to discourage voter participation. Growing social discontent, division and distrust in institutions and democracy.

Your response? Government needs to step in and force YouTube to distribute election lies and COVID misinformation.

The growing "social discontent, division, and distrust in institutions and democracy" is fueled by the over zealous authoritarian push by certain elements of society to stamp out any disagreement or discord as "misinformation". The more one side doubles down on control from the top the more distrust in institutions will grow.

We've abundant historical examples of this occurring, and we're busy repeating the same mistakes and causing fundamental mistrust across a broad spectrum of society.

There are always crises. The current ones are not even that great compared to historical problems. Fixing crises should not mean that you can erode democracy for the sake of fixing said crises. That is literally how totalitarian regimes start: by swift action needed to fix the current "insurmountable" issues. I am not saying that the US will become totalitarian, but taking steps in the wrong direction does not bode well.

And to address some of your points,

> voting restrictions

When people say this, it's usually about voter ID laws, which are the norm in most of the developed world, all of Europe has this, with the exception of UK. There might be some issues with voter discouraging, but it's not as big of a deal as some make it seem.

> division and distrust in institutions and democracy.

Well, the entire pandemic handling was rife with things that caused this mistrust in institutions. From the masks (e.g. Fauci, the surgeon general and others lying about them not being needed, and then Trump going against them anyway for political reasons) to vaccines where even the top democrats were saying all over the place they won't take them because they were rushed under Trump. Well, what do you know? They are still rushed, under Trump, but now we try to convince everyone they are perfectly safe (while Trump not pushing for them anymore). WHO covering for China's role in the initial spread. Democrats acting all high and mighty in regards to masks and public gatherings, only to be maskless themselves [1][2][3], sometimes in large gatherings[4]. Or like Pelosi, which personally called the beauty salon to have a special appointment, even though all the salons were closed. The republicans were at least consistently against science on this: both in front and behind cameras.

If the authorities cannot convince people about COVID truths, that is on them, not on the people talking freely about how they mistrust the government and their solutions.

Distrust in democracy will grow even larger with every censorship action.

As a disclaimer, I made my own masks and wore them in shops even before they were recommended, it was pretty obvious that an airborne disease is slowed by a mask. I was the only one in store with a mask, early on. I got my vaccine as soon as I could, driving half a day to get it. Throughout the pandemic I kept my social distancing to maybe extreme measures.

What is happening now is dangerous for democracy and society, we're handing over way too much power to the government, mass media and social apps. The government should make sure there are no monopolies, but if there are (like youtube, twitter, facebook, google search) they should make sure there is a public open oversight over the rules governing them. This is our standard oil battle but with higher stakes, and most people seem just happy to be boxed in by private corporations, with no recourse in the future.

https://www.kusi.com/photos-emerge-of-mask-less-gavin-newsom...

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1605383471858/andrew-cuomo-sl...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-san-francisco-hair-s...

https://nypost.com/2021/08/09/private-jets-and-no-masks-how-...

Clearly you are in an information bubble, I would encourage you to extract yourself from it because most of what you just listed is either a out right fabrication or at best a distortion from reality

Facebook has the right to limit content on their platform as much as you have the right to talk about it. Comparing this to being totalitarianism is ridiculous. No one is banning them from going elsewhere and spouting their drivel, but accepting it on a mainstream platform is just stupid.

> coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a totalitarian Russia

> Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also bans users who doubt the official election results. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?!

So YouTube has no rights and must distribute all speech? Who is going to compel them? Government?

You can't have your cake and eat it. Which way is it?

YouTube is a de-facto monopoly (a fact further complicated that it seems to be closely aligned with the current ruling party).

Monopolies have a more or less successful history of being regulated. In other words, governments limiting their exploitation of their market position.

I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily basis. Your point about "alignment" applies to power in general. Be it political power, money or influence and following.

How is YouTube exploiting their market position? Last time I checked it cost literally 0$ to use their video platform. What do you think government should do?

Twitter banning and censoring Trump was an extremely outrageous action. Only very short-sighted and brainwashed people cheer for it because they are unable to imagine whom this playform with enormous reach would ban next. What if it'll be your favourite candidate?

Of course, you'll say that your candidate will never break ToSs, but we've seen just today that these terms are rather random and can change on a whim.

Think just one step further into the future.

It was only because Trump worked really hard to earn that banning with his false claims about an election being stolen. It's not something Twitter wanted to have to do. But Trump was acting in a very dangerous manner concerning the democratic outcome of an election which he refused to accept.

> I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily basis.

They actually rewrote their ToS specifically to excuse not sanctioning his violations while continuing to sanction others without his institutional position for the same violations.