There’s a third option though, ignore them. Of course people will say insane shit on the Internet because they’re anonymous, there’s no getting around that, but nobody’s saying you have to take them seriously. Dismiss them, laugh at them, mute/block them if you have to.
That's great advice for the individual, but that doesn't scale to the level of societal discourse. A literal town square doesn't work when people are wearing masks and shouting over each other.
Besides, if you're anonymous and get banned then just create another anonymous account. Who cares?
I think it does work when you're dealing with an online space that functions a lot more like lots of squares in practice to one big square. There are lots of tools you can use on social media to curate what kinds of users and discourse you engage with. Also when we're talking about a platform being
free speech, that doesn't mean it can't have sub-communities with their own user-run moderation standards.
A publicly funded social media might not be the worst idea in the world; I don't want to pretend like I've thought it all through and I have the optimal solution to all these considerations
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Besides, if you're anonymous and get banned then just create another anonymous account. Who cares?
A publicly funded social media might not be the worst idea in the world; I don't want to pretend like I've thought it all through and I have the optimal solution to all these considerations