“The fight to preserve speech online is a microcosm of the larger war to rescue civic life from the worst people in society.”

Sure, in the golden age of the internet, “Nazi guy” was there to torment “progressive gal,” and “own the libs” guy was there as well. In reality, “progressive gal” was mostly a silent minority online, so “Nazi guy” and “own the libs” did not have the convenient foils that make their internet personae possible. It turns out that “Nazi guy” and “own the libs” guy grow only in the salty tears of “progressive gal” online.

This is a lesson from the meatspace. In daily life, no one likes the woman who is always creating drama. People organize their lives to limit their exposure to that person and anyone who enjoys her drama. Further, the guy who keeps talking about Hitler or how much he hates the left gets ignored. They keep this stuff to themselves so they can be included in the community. Social pressure works.

That would be the first way for Musk and the rest of the public platforms to discourage the sorts of behavior that are at the root of the problem. Removing all of the mechanism to report other users takes away the appeal to the scolds and busybodies. If they are stripped of their ability to rat out fellow users, most of the fun of the platform goes away for them, as well as the people who enjoy taunting them.

Similarly, down-voting is a powerful weapon against troublemakers. No one likes to be told they are the problem. It is why booing at public events remains popular. It works, and the down vote works the same way. The reason YouTube removed down-voting is they hated being booed by their own user base. Social pressure is the best way to compel conformity in a community, digital or analog.

A $50 billion tech company should be able to replace these harpies with software to enforce a minimal number of clear rules. A searchable database of banned words and topics would make the rules clear, and the software engineers should have little difficulty coding those into the regulatory system. The culture inside the company improves because the scolds and busybodies have been removed.

It also could spill into the real world. When groups like the ADL and SPLC can no longer weaponize their weirdos and misfits to harass people online, their position as the tone police quickly erodes. When these sorts of people are remarginalized online, they will start to be remarginalized in real life. Public discourse needs to be fumigated to remove these vermin from the public square.