The norms on social media and speech need a principled approach. The PM earlier this week defended fellow MPs for spreading election conspiracy theories by evoking "free speech" whilst his proposed Online Safety Act emboldens enforcement on online speech deemed harmful. /1

Then you've got the flip side of progressives appealing to "they're a private company, they can do what they want" but when social media decides to crackdown on sex worker accounts, activists or artists due to perceived harm - they appeal to a norm of free expression. /2

I don't think the standard liberal legal norms are helpful in this context. The US constitutional approach is inconsistent and emboldens some forms of harassment. I find it more helpful to value dissenting thought / obscenity *because* they transgress social norms. /3

We need to defend shocking and challenging speech without incidentally defending harassment and violence. This is really pretentious, but it's almost like we need a new found appreciation of libertine speech, moral transgression as constructive. Anyway random thoughts /fin

This being a good example of how this can go wrong. The creation of seperate social media "hubs" where groups develop echo chambers of facts and argument just seems like a recipe for radicalism and violence.