A government which mandates what people are allowed to say and think is not a democracy of any kind, of course.
Good thing Obama specifically said that he doesn't want that in his speech: "No Democratic government can or should do what China, for example, is doing, simply telling people what they can and cannot say or publish while trying to control what others say about their country abroad. And I don’t have a lot of confidence that any single individual or organization, private or public, should be charged or do a good job at determining who gets to hear what."
That quote is a perfect lead in for what they are saying: we need to be able to regulate so that "any single individual [read: Musk] or organization [read: Twitter]..." isn't "determining who gets to hear what". Certainly not just that platform, but all forums.
Notice something peculiar about the way it's phrased?
Who gets to hear what.
Of all the ways to define or reflect on free speech, that is the way they view this predicament. Think on that for a second.
Let's all be realistic and own this moment.
I don't want to be rude, but have you even read the article? Because you're not engaging with the actual content at all and I found it considerably more nuanced and thoughtful that it's being given credit for.
"With that power comes accountability, and in democracies like ours, at least, the need for some democratic oversight."
"...these big platforms need to be subject to some level of public oversight and regulation."
"...we have a long history of regulating new technologies in the name of public safety..."
"A regulatory structure, a smart one, needs to be in place... regulation has to be part of the answer."
"...regulation... will make democracy stronger"
Even before that, we have stuff like Watchmen and V for Vendetta from Alan Moore that predicts the slip into authoritarianism, but depicts it coming from the right.
And then either in response or just because they were not in the spotlight, the Left came in and completely abandoned norms and decided that they could just do whatever, from never accepting Trump's win (I don't like Trump, but the point is that shouldn't be required to accept someone's winning), to all the covid stuff, to misinformation, to what's going on now with the courts (I support abortion access, not protesting the supreme court).
You watch your back but you're best to watch your front
-GZA“ Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. “
You and I live in different realities
democrats didn’t storm congress that was trump supporters when they refused to accept his loss.
There is nothing wrong with protesting the Supreme Court decisions, that’s called freedom of speech. Aka something valued in non-authoritian value systems.
Covid misinformation like ivermectin? Or that it’s just flu? That’s not the left spreading those.
Hacker news isn’t a good place for political debates but the views you expressed have serious flaws/skews and do not reflect a factual/neutral observer. Take your rebuttal reply if you will but I’m not going to continue after this because hacker news shouldn’t be for political wars like your post is designed to bring on. In fact the HN guidelines ask people not to post like your comment.
The right will never stop because the survival of their traditions depend on it. The left will never stop because they know what's best for us.
The central idea of Liberalism is that societies grow best when their citizens have enough calm space to figure out their own lives. The internet constantly shows us lives we find heretical, and without conscious effort to calm ourselves down and let go, that calm is gone.
I guess we just mob up and go to war now.
EDIT:
In a sense, the internet has crashed hundreds of millions of people into the same village. We're still working out how to live with one another.
In practice it's people screaming for leaders to make sweeping rules to fight against the corrupting influence of whatever force they don't like in their mega-village, taking turns in an escalating battle.
Until then, I could see it getting worse - people from one state marching in another to protest their ways of life for example.
The bigger problems require all the more calm and collective action.