2. Which of the following is one way that social media companies publicly defend their decision not to take more significant steps to prevent the spread of falsehoods and misinformation online? Unlike traditional newspapers, our role is simply to provide platforms for public discussion, not to ensure that everything said in these discussions is truthful and reliably sourced. We are profit-driven companies, and allowing people to say whatever they want on our platforms—especially extreme comments that provoke shock and controversy—is what’s best for our bottom line. No one is actually gullible enough to believe the falsehoods and misinformation anyway. We’re absolutely committed to free speech and would never agree to censor information, even if some authoritarian government required it as a condition of letting us distribute our products to its population. Correct! Wrong!
