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This seems to have taken one sentence from my comment out of context in order to widely exaggerate and attack it.

All, if not most conspiracy theories have some element of truth to them. That's what makes them so compelling - In a similar fashion to fiction writing. Philosophers like Nietzsche would say “there are no facts, only interpretations”.

Rather than debate semantics. What I was referring to in context was the festering of dangerous conspiracy theories such as 1930's anti-semitism, and yes, hoaxes about inoculation.

Being wrong is acceptable. Purposely seeking to undermine scientific evidence on the bases of small instances which are not sufficient to draw conclusions about the wider point is intentional.

Ironic it's a straw-man itself to suggest the comment was advocating suppression. It wasn't. The point is moderation, and yes that means moderation that can be moderated as necessary. i.e A non-partisan framework that is acceptable regardless of if it is an adversary or it is an ally enforcing it.

Easier said then done, but perhaps this just means a type of Overton window. It's not legally enforced, people just come to learn that being reactionary is faux pas.

Clearly it's not plausible to provide an absolutist definition because things change, setting rules could undermine their original objectives. But for the points raised in my original comment; laissez-faire free speech is also widely open to abuse.

Be cautious, the word "envy" is typically thrown around by folks that want to justify "greed". OC, there are reasonable scales between the two but equating success to having nicer material things is really a subjective value judgement.

In all honesty the salient points in the OP about judging instead of thinking, is a commonly attributed aphorism to Carl Jung yet there is no reference to it. The point about tardiness and drawbacks this apparently has on socialising and career progression comes across as utilitarian to the point of sounding sociopathic.

As a proponent of free speech, I strongly believe that people should be able to express their opinions without fear of censorship or retribution. However, I also think it's important to recognise that there are limits to free speech, and that moderation is necessary in order to protect the rights and safety of others.

For example, it's one thing to express a controversial or unpopular opinion, but it's quite another to engage in hate speech, incite violence, post SPAM, excessive use of straw-man arguments, countering scientific consensus with harmful conspiracy theories, et al. In these cases, allowing such speech to go unchecked can have harmful consequences, and it's important for society to have mechanisms in place to address these issues.

Free speech is important to balance a strong democracy but its not an absolute right. Moderation in free speech is necessary in order to balance the rights of individuals to express themselves with the need to protect the rights and safety of others. Without moderation, the right to free speech can become a license to cause harm and to silence the voices of others.

Am very much surprised to see the backlash against this story, especially given some of the thoughtful comments in an earlier thread "distinction between free speech as a legal right and cultural value" [0].

The government has as much right to report ToS violations as any other user.

Having VIP lanes isn't a great look but it isn't surprising.

The government are in a position were they can force legal changes if it feels corporations are abusing their power. Moderation is important but of course that has to be balanced against the risks of censorship. Of course neither are desirable but we are essentially talking about the reporting of individual tweets, not requests for systemic changes to the platform.

If this story pointed to something more serious like requests to access to the moderation platform or keyword manipulation, of course this would be breaching an entirely different red line.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33823725