It's absolutely true that unpopular minorities (of whatever kind) should be able to talk. It's also absolutely true that virality can create dangerous situations which are difficult to control.
Instead of banning, which I agree has problems, I favor putting questionable communities in a 'slow mode' where people need to wait to join them (and maybe communications within the community are delayed). Then, in 5 or 10 or 15 days, you can see if the community is still 'a problem' (whatever that means in this situation) and if greater moderation is required. The idea is to preserve communities that build over time, give admins time to make decisions, and highlight the hard questions that need to be answered by platforms.
Maybe, but this isn't exactly a new fear. Right or wrong a lot of how for example the US constitution was setup was explicitly about limiting the power of a populist.
But also these discussions aren't really about the government. Full stop the government shouldn't be able to shut sites like parlor down, but part of how society works is by consensus forming and in my opinion social networks really have messed this up. FB and the other big players seem to be realizing this and trying to do better (not sure if they're succeeding), but if other players want to make it harder for this breakdown to happen I say all power to them.
It's absolutely true that unpopular minorities (of whatever kind) should be able to talk. It's also absolutely true that virality can create dangerous situations which are difficult to control.
Instead of banning, which I agree has problems, I favor putting questionable communities in a 'slow mode' where people need to wait to join them (and maybe communications within the community are delayed). Then, in 5 or 10 or 15 days, you can see if the community is still 'a problem' (whatever that means in this situation) and if greater moderation is required. The idea is to preserve communities that build over time, give admins time to make decisions, and highlight the hard questions that need to be answered by platforms.