We are living through a huge social experiment where one voice can easily reach hundreds if not thousands of people in a matter of minutes. It is important to remember that this is unprecedented. Never before have individuals had this power. In the past you could stand on a box with a bullhorn, if you had a permit or the backing of hundreds or thousands of like-minded followers. Or, you could write a letter to the editor, and your editorial might get printed. But only after careful consideration.
The fact that now anyone can speak to a large audience by typing in a few random thoughts with no challenge or editing is a very radical change to public speech. I suspect that there will always need to be some form of “filtering” required even with our new media for speech. I love free speech, but humans are fallible.
The mechanism for editing this new type of speech is a work in progress. I agree that improvements are needed. It’s a big responsibility.
