Corynne McSherry

So I think it's a very dangerous path that unfortunately we're already well along.

I think in moments of crisis, and I think we're in a moment of crisis right now, we look to simple solutions for very complex problems, and we are often sorry.

And I think that is where we are right now.

The internet grew up the way it did for mostly good, I would argue.

because the platforms and the intermediaries mostly stayed neutral.

If we have a world in which Facebook, Twitter, Google, Instagram put themselves in the position of a court and decide what speech should be up, what speech shouldn't, we're going to walk down a dangerous path because those decisions, those tactics,

will inevitably be used against speech that we would support, for one thing.

They will be inevitably used eventually by governments.

Private censorship does not stay private.

It becomes public censorship almost inevitably.

And the third reason is really practical.

They're already doing it, and they're doing it badly.

All kinds of lawful speech is being taken down every day.

Google and Facebook can't save us from the Nazis.

We have to do it.

OK, so the problems here are legion.

And I'm going to start with the ones that I just touched on briefly before.

The reality is that we can all target people that we hate right now.

But if we think that the rules that Twitter and Facebook and all those guys are going to come up with aren't going to be used against speech that we support, we are foolish.

It's already happening.