… is from page 217 of Roger Koppl’s important – and today especially relevant – 2018 book, Expert Failure:
The liberal defense of free speech is not based on any claim that the market for ideas somehow eliminates errors or erases human folly. It is based on a comparative institutional analysis in which most state interventions make a bad situation worse.
DBx: Yes. This reality is either forgotten or mistakenly discounted by the many conservatives, and also by not a few libertarians, who now call for measures to deny private companies such as Facebook and Google the right to determine the content of what is and isn’t said on their properties.
I agree that Facebook, Google, Twitter, and many other private companies today behave abominably. But abominable behavior isn’t necessarily unlawful. A terrible can of worms – many of these slimy creatures, beware, Woke – will be opened by obstructing the contents decisions of these private companies.
