Complaining about an open web is just a proxy for complaining about establishment ideas being challenged. You see in Britain with the complaints against the Leave Campaign; you see it in the United States with the rise of Trump; you see it in the European Union with the complaints against far-right candidates. The governing elites don't like it when you challenge their assumptions, and instead of making an argument about their positions or governing better, they complain about Facebook, Google, and Twitter.
I'm American and racists have always been here, Trump isn't new. And in Europe, it isn't insane to want to control your borders and not have rules made in Brussels that you must follow made by bureaucrats that aren't accountable to your nation. It's a crazy idea I know, but politicians have problems with these notions and blame the tools the opposition used to organize instead of being better.
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have problems and they need some reforms, but the rise of companies is not nearly the sinister event people make it out to be.
People seem to be downvoting you without replying, which doesn't seem very helpful.
I'm sure there are some people who fit your first paragraph, but I don't think that's the major issue.
The ideal of free speech is that people can honestly disagree, and state their positions, a discuss the issues. Then the best ideas will win out. But our current social media environment does the exact opposite.
It appears that the way social media now works is that it drives people farther apart. The Red team is moving farther to the right, the Blue team is moving farther to the left, and very little real discussion of issues is happening between them. Much of the cause of that seems to be built into the way our social media is designed.
The "red vs blue team" thing is a US thing, and it is created by the structure of our political (and, especially, our electoral) system. First-past-the-post voting, combined with widely open primaries, result in both parties gradually drifting apart over time, and dragging their constituencies with them. That this erupts into verbal (and, occasionally, non-verbal) violence is not surprising, but what you see on social media is the symptom, not the cause.
I'm American and racists have always been here, Trump isn't new. And in Europe, it isn't insane to want to control your borders and not have rules made in Brussels that you must follow made by bureaucrats that aren't accountable to your nation. It's a crazy idea I know, but politicians have problems with these notions and blame the tools the opposition used to organize instead of being better.
Facebook, Google, and Twitter have problems and they need some reforms, but the rise of companies is not nearly the sinister event people make it out to be.