Of course, Wong is right that some amount of moderation is necessary; if platforms didn’t control spam, doxxing, defamation, pornography and violent imagery, users would leave, or sue. But it does not therefore follow that they must also crack down on vaccine skepticism, people who think that trans women aren’t really women, or media stories about Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings, to name just a few of the viewpoints Twitter has at some point deemed verboten.

Those latter policies weren’t necessary to keep the platform usable for everyone; they were a choice to make the platform more comfortable for certain users, and views. That this was the effect is obvious from the lopsided reaction to the prospect of less moderation. If things were really so evenhanded, the left would not be freaking out, while the right celebrates.

(If you are tempted to suggest that the right just breaks the rules more, well, that’s sort of the point; of course conservatives will end up breaking the rules more if left-wing moderators are writing them according to their own dogma — and making all the close calls in favor of the home team.)