It used to be that, if you wanted to hear a debate from both sides of a political issue, you had one option of last resort that was always available. You could turn on your television and flip on a cable news channel. For the most part, nothing you’d find would be particularly interesting, but at least they’d make an attempt at presenting a diversity of thought. CNN had “Crossfire” and, for a short period of time, “Parker/Spitzer.” Fox News had “Hannity & Colmes.” For its part, MSNBC aired a program called “The Cycle,” which had at least one token Republican at all times. The point of all these shows was to present two neatly packaged opposing points of view, side-by-side, for mass consumption. That was the business model.
Somewhere along the line, all those networks canceled those shows, and every show that resembled them. They were replaced by productions that didn’t even bother with the pretense of actual debate. And then, coincidentally enough, a short time later *you* weren’t allowed to have an open debate, either. The largest social media companies on the planet, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, began the practice of “content moderation.” If you had a heterodox opinion about mass shootings, or big pharma, or national elections, or gender, then you’d simply vanish, as surely as those cable news shows did.
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