Lefty McCommunism goes on JRE and says to 200 million people “Texas has a 97% case rate of Ebola and all goods exported from Texas are poison”. Joe doesn’t object. 30% of the people believe him. 60 million customers abandon Texas and thousands of small businesses close.
Is society better off because joe rogan allowed this deplorable person to enter the marketplace of ideas? Or would it have been better if he had challenged the guest to back up the claim, or simply not had the guest on in the first place?
Being able to discuss ideas is good. But why do you need to be able to discuss your fabricated ideas in front of 200 million people at once?
As a follow-on thought experiment, if 60 million customers stop buying from Texas companies, let’s say, from whom do they now end up buying those products? Possibly from some existing mega-corporations, which probably has a net negative on society as a whole, or possibly from small business owners elsewhere —- maybe mainly those that've been somehow disenfranchised by those Texas-based companies in the past. The latter maybe being a net positive for society as a whole.
Not arguing that you’re wrong; just suggesting that a seemingly simple thought experiment in this case is still very complicated on a societal scale. In general I’d argue that facts and truth are most central to productive and well-balanced societies, and combatting non-truth is therefore the most generally useful approach, but widespread discussion of ideas in general is also central.
I believe our society is better for it than worse. And I think big tech censorship will take us in a negative direction if we allow it to continue.