This conversation will definitely be easier to follow if you get up to speed first:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_20... Where is the evidence that the level of misinformation is any higher now than in the past,
See the above overview for a start.
History has shown that we didn't need to censor and oppress Communist
thought in the US during the Cold War because of its alleged threat,
and even because Communist thought was being supported by foreign actors
The simalarities to today's situation are easy to see, but they are dwarfed by the differences.
1. "Communists" had no way to create and disseminate information on such a massive scale, in a manner that is nearly indistinguishable from good-faith actors. There's no analog for that in the Cold War's "Red Scare".
2. During the Red Scare, the possibility of Russia infiltrating and influencing the US to any real degree was laughable. It's not laughable now. It demonstrably happened and is happening.
3. "Censorship" is when a person is not allowed to express their views. That is not what is being proposed here. This is about refusing to hand a megaphone to bad actors.
Reality does not conform to your ideals of an egalitarian marketplace of ideas. Content farms with modest funding and modest staffs can outproduce and out-influence millions of regular voices. Relying upon the populace to suddenly become savvy is not realistic. Either we need to turn this into a full-scale information war of competing content farms and state-scale misinformation campaigns, or platform providers need to combat things at that level.
And yet, presumably you were able to employ critical thinking, see past
all this, and vote the "right" way despite an alleged deluge of hateful
misinformation, as were 48%, a majority, of your fellow voters.
Sure, yeah.
I also have an IQ in the 90-99th percentile range, a degree in computer science and have been immersed in online culture since before web browsers existed.
The vast majority of the human race does not have those sorts of advantages. Realize that the HN demographic is not representative of the entire human race.