Tim Wu makes the argument in today’s NYT that leaving content moderation in semi-public spaces such as Facebook and X to billionaires who answer to hardly anyone presents a danger to the public. He’s right; the situation is clearly suboptimal. But the alternative–letting Trump, Abbott, and DeSantis control content on the internet–is far worse. The right has guns and an intense desire to stifle opposing viewpoints; the billionaires don’t.
In a better world (it wouldn’t even have to be ideal), there would be something like a consensus on what speech is totally unacceptable and what isn’t, so it would be safe to let the government set the rules. We don’t have that in America today, so leaving content moderation to Musk and Zuckerberg is the best we can do.