I think part of the issue is the power of comments like yours that pretends there's a simple solution.

In some conversations bad actors can gain more power in a debate using misleading information than a good actor can by using the truth.

Most conversations, such as this one about free speech, are so complex that it's tough for a 'good actor' to offer solutions. They may discuss the pros / cons of each side, talk about where further research is needed, talk about experts that are more informed, etc. They can still offer solutions but they shouldn't be pretending an unconfident solution is complete if they really are a good actor.

Bad actors, on the other hand, can simplify the complexities. They can provide confident solutions to complex problems and do so without worrying about the information they don't know or about misleading others.

Fortunately bad actors are often weeded out in discussions, but in conversations that abuse humans fear we become more demanding of answers. Explaining to fearful people "it's complex" isn't satisfying so we become more susceptible to lies / misinformation spread by bad actors. Conversations abusing this fear / anger is where there is an argument about whether misinformation should be limited.

Sadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.

No. The great opening of the Internet brought points of view onto the internet at scales that hitherto were unknown. There are so many asshats on the Internet that old tactics of manual moderation do not work anymore. Doing nothing is a pathetic excuse for a solution.

What were those clear rules we apparently abandoned for no reason?

"Hate speech" was only ever a tool of political control. It's contemporary usage is no accident.

Those rules applied today would result in indecipherable cesspools of memes at best or a community of authoritarian sympathizers at worst, who would be oh-so-happy to start conditioning their like-minded members to force undesirables away, either explicitly through bans or implicitly through non-stop hatred and coordinated harassment.

Neither one is the type of community I have any interest in participating in, and if some sort of mandate came down enforcing it on any of the large social networks I would no longer participate in them.

What if moderation of hate speech is part of the product?

That's belittling a very serious issue. A lot of these recent anti-lockdown protests have been fueled out of social media by actors peddling extremely questionable narratives.

Holocaust denial has seen a massive revival in Germany, to such a degree that sentiments like that are intermixing with conspiracy theories about the "NWO" supposedly using COVID-19 to finalize their "2000 years old rule", with the help of Bill Gates who apparently wants to microchip everybody on the planet to "depopulate" it.

Trump is supposedly the last and only defense against this take-over by the "deep state", and will soon end it all when he reveals "Obamagate", he apparently also federalized the FED. Tho none of these people could even tell me when that supposedly happened.

While individually these ideas and movements have been floating around the web for quite a while, it's absolutely scary how they are now merging together [0] and being chanted by people in the streets after they got their "Information on the Internet" which regularly means: Facebook groups, YouTube channels and now even Twitch streams, places they usually arrive at after using search engines in the most misleading way possible.

It's like peak Eternal September where people will just believe the most obscure sources when they confirm their already established beliefs, over well-established data, and factual reality, which apparently is all controlled and manipulated by "dark powers behind the scenes". It's depressing and scary because so far I thought rationality will pull trough, people will learn to properly parse information for its validity and sources for their credibility.

That did not happen, the bad actors are now taking over to a point where they stage events in the meat world, openly threatening democratic institutions. I do not know how to stop this, but this can't keep on going like this, it will take us no place good.

[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazis-qanon-nuts-and-hardc...