Digital Duplicity: The Social Media Purge Exposes Net Neutrality's True Goal .
The blocking and throttling never came to pass. Not political or otherwise. Without net neutrality rules, ISPs still committed to fair treatment. And today the U.S. generates and consumes more Internet traffic than any nation, two to three times more, in fact, than many of our large peers.
Then a funny thing happened. Social media firms themselves began blocking and throttling at the content layer. In the name of rooting out “hate” and “misinformation,” they started suspending, demonetizing, deboosting, and shadowbanning. They cited terms of service and moderation principles. The rationales were usually vague, however, and their targets nearly always political enemies or free thinkers who complicated the official narrative. There were few standards, merely caprice.
In 2020, they accelerated moderation efforts, placing warning labels on supposedly false views on Covid-19 and climate, two of...