The concept of Free Speech in the Internet Age is little more than a Tuna! Scheme. More specifically, the monetization of content on the social platforms has driven content creators to invent statements with the sole intent of earning clicks in the pay-per-click economy. Being seen and inducing engagement rises above the veracity of the claim to free speech and railing against censorship. The buying and selling of misinformation is the essence of Tuna!
The advent of AI image generation and manipulation of otherwise true imagery has only added to the debate on what is actually protected free speech. Yelling "fire" on a crowded theater has never been interpreted as a right someone has pursuant to the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution. Claiming that this {Democrat} politician is {a pedophile/eats babies/engages in human trafficking} without any proof or even evidence by a victim is not much different than the yelling of Fire as cited above.
Making claims of Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Ohio has resulted in bomb threats and death threats to local residents and their schools. For some people who echo the original messages it may be a matter of perverted fun. For others, such as a certain President and Vice President candidate, it accrues political value. The other part of the Tuna! Scheme is the neglecting of the consequences.
In the months ahead of US elections distortions of reality and outright lies by candidates and people who support them becomes mot du jour. With the multitude of people piling on the message gets passed along to a far wider audience. That viral phenomenon is driven by the monetization of the content. To be sure, very few sentiments grow organically on their own. Potential viral content is picked by the platform algorithms and pushed to an audience which is more likely to engage with it. The actual content is not important. Only its relentless repetition via the Internet matters.
Instead of crafting an important message and putting out for the world to see, the messages are more than likely negatives or fake emotional calls to action. After every tragic event in the country, thoughts and prayers get sent to the victims and their families. Images of children in peril and pets being lost get huge followings. Claims of vaccine injuries proliferate while posts attesting to how they were spared the suffering and death from the virus itself die on the vine. The injury type posts are exactly as difficult to prove as the ones about being spared. The spread of messaging about thoughts and prayers ever saving someone are similarly undocumentable but mostly off-limits to criticism due to their Deep Faith nature.
The content of a message may be a matter of free speech but the repeating of it is only a matter of how loud the message becomes. Platforms curtailing the number of times it does not push out a message is not censorship. They "censor" every message which doesn’t reach the status of "viral". Most people posting on social media platforms do not have large audiences to spread their messages to. Those who do obtained their followings via the "push" the platforms previously made. Either way, the spread of the message is machine driven rather than interest or veracity driven.
Then there is the motivations. So much of the misinformation is driven by an agenda. The intent is to subvert the truth and replace it with "alternative facts" and false narratives.
The platforms sell advertising and make money. The creators receive a share for their efforts. Lies and inflammatory rhetoric sell better. After a short interval the messages enter the public consciousness and that is where the damage gets done. It is all for the money which can be made. The messages may do harm, but never mind, it earned fame and fortune for the person who said it.
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