No Editors

Before social media, most of what the public saw went through a process where it was reviewed for grammar, style and correctness by editors.  This might have viewed as censorship by some, but things which were clearly not true or at least not supportable didn't get into mainstream publications, and were relegated to certain sensational publications.

You might read an article about the possibility of alien life on other planets, but generally not much on actual alien abductions except as an aside if a person used it as an alibi or some other reason.

Now, of course if you believe alien abductions are real and happening all the time, this would be considered censorship but since in general they have no real evidence supporting them they didn't get past the editor.

With the Internet and social media a lot of that filter is disappearing.  Now maybe from a free speech point of view but since Internet sites make money based on how frequently the site is visited (clicks) we have a race on to come out with the most outlandish headlines possible.  Further, site that post false and misleading stories gain a certain credibility because they get a lot of traffic.

Now the amount of bad information on many sites reached a crescendo during the past election.  Unfortunately, most people don't seem to have an internal editor that can filter truth from fiction.  Further, because lies are spread so easily, outlandish things that are true seem more normal.

Take lies concerning the Clinton foundation and allegations that it launders money to the Clinton's.  This is demonstrably false since they publish detailed financial reports and any such action would be easily discovered.  However the lie was persistent and offset the real facts about the Trump foundation which were actual violation if relatively minor.

I am not going to list all the false allegations, it would take too long and is sort of a moot point, but these things were widely available on social media and believed by far too many people.

Lets face it, we as a country are filled with very gullible people who think aliens are coming to take them away and the Government is coming for their guns.