>> Ideally, we don't allow corporations to control so much of our communications.
> What laws would you propose to actually implement this?
I didn't. Note that I didn't bring up laws until #2 in my previous post.
Programs which educated people on the dangers of social media the same way we educate people around the dangers of drugs and alcohol might go toward changing the way we treat these things in our culture, but on the other hand, there's enough problems with i.e. DARE that they might be counterproductive.
> I like free speech a lot as well, but it seems that boundaries get a bit fuzzy here. E.g. if you were to run your own forum like HN, don't you think you should be allowed to ban material from, say, KKK supporters?
I think if you combine topic-based moderation with a vote system, you don't need to ban KKK supporters. On a system like HN where all posts are in the same data stream, racist posts are going to be downvoted fairly quickly. And if someone posts racist comments on a post that isn't about race, it's off-topic, so topic-based moderation says it's okay to delete it. It's not a restriction on free speech--it's keeping topics organized to maintain the functioning of the forum.
The key exception here is that when the topic is race, then you don't delete racist comments. This is uncomfortable, but racism doesn't simply go away because you censor it--if anything, censoring a racist makes them feel they are a martyr, and strengthens their beliefs. Instead, if you leave the posts up, users will respond to them with the truth. Countering lies with truth is more powerful than countering lies with censorship.
There's a tendency, I think, to see bigotry as a monolithic problem in a person, without any reasoning behind it. But if you actually listen to bigots, you'll often discover that behind the bigotry they have legitimate fears and problems, and they think bigotry is the solution to those problems. Part of the problem we have in the US that those who value equality and acceptance too often see bigots as just bigots, and forget that they are people. If we see them as just bigots, then they can't change, or aren't worth changing, and we can discard them. But that hasn't worked--that's why we have the administration we have now.
Instead, I think we need to see bigots as people, and try to address their fears and problems with facts and truth. (Most) bigots don't benefit from their bigotry--bigotry doesn't solve their problems, and prevents them from seeing the real solutions. So if we can show them the real solutions to their problems, they might see they don't need bigotry any more.
Civil rights leaders of the past understood that a conversation about race had to be an actual conversation, not just shouting your ideals and silencing your opponents. If you refuse to listen to bigots they will refuse to listen to you. It's not us versus them, it's us and them versus ignorance.