Day: June 25, 2025

Tori Tinsley’s recent essay, “When Social Media Obscures Truth,” laments the state of public discourse, warns against government overreach, and celebrates John Stuart Mill’s faith in the individual reader. But in drawing a direct line from Mill’s nineteenth-century critique of mass media to today’s content moderation debates, the piece blurs critical distinctions—chief among them, the difference between moderation and censorship—and misrepresents how modern information systems actually work.

At the heart of Tinsley’s argument is the claim that “government and private entities” have become modern-day “super-regulators” of speech, threatening the intellectual autonomy of the individual. She invokes Mill to argue that truth should be determined by individuals, not institutions. But her framing then conflates very different actions within today’s social media infrastructure—removing content, choosing not to promote it, and selecting what to surface. It misunderstands who the First Amendment protects in the content moderation debates and equates moderation with telling the public what is true. And it misrepresents my own work, turning a defense of editorial freedom and a call for increased user agency into a strawman for top-down control.

Let’s begin with the basics. Moderation is not censorship. As law professor Kate Klonick details in her foundational article “The New Governors,” content moderation refers to the suite of policies and enforcement practices that online platforms use to shape the user experience of their services. Some are straightforward: removing illegal material like child sexual abuse content or explicit incitement to violence. Others involve value judgements: rules for addressing “lawful but awful” content such as spam (which, yes, is technically “speech”), harassment, hate speech, and viral hoaxes and misinformation. Platforms set their rules based on a mix of their own individual business incentives, community norms, and moral priorities. Rumble, for example—a video platform that brands itself as a free speech alternative to YouTube—uniquely prohibits content that promotes or supports Antifa. It is rare to find an online community ecosystem that does not have some speech guidelines against bullying and harassment; most people do not actually find free-for-alls pleasant to spend time in.

Moderation is not a binary between removing content or leaving it up. Enforcement typically falls into three buckets: remove, reduce, or inform. “Remove” is most akin to censorship (for those who apply the term to private companies enforcing their own rules); the content or account under question is deleted. “Reduce” throttles distribution; the content stays up, but may be shown to fewer users. “Inform” refers to labels or pop-ups placed atop a post to let users know the content is disputed in some way. This is adding more speech, or context, to the conversation.

The First Amendment protects the platforms’ right to set these rules. It protects Rumble’s Antifa rule. It protects YouTube’s choice not to promote videos claiming that vaccines cause autism. It protected Old Twitter’s right to label President Trump’s tweets alleging election fraud, offering a link that users could click to visit a third-party site with facts about mail-in ballots. Platforms have editorial and associational discretion—the government cannot force them to host or amplify speech that they don’t want to carry. They choose when and how they use that discretion; the growing number of platforms in the market, ranging from Bluesky to Truth Social, make distinctly different choices.

Separate from moderation rules are curation decisions—what platforms choose to amplify, recommend, or highlight on their front pages or within algorithmically-ranked feeds. Platforms are not neutral conduits. Their choices—whether determined by recommender systems or editorial teams—shape what people see. Here, too, the First Amendment applies. Platforms cannot be compelled to promote particular content any more than newspapers can be told what to print on their front pages.

That said, both moderation and curation represent significant concentrations of private power. And they are opaque. I study these systems; it is often extraordinarily difficult to determine why particular content decisions were made, or how recommendation algorithms are shaping what we see. Platforms exert real control over what information rises to the surface. When Mill wrote about the risks of public opinion overwhelming individual reasoning, he could not have imagined the automated and attention-optimized information systems we contend with today. But his concern remains relevant—perhaps even more so now.

This context helps clarify the difference between editorial judgment and suppression. Tinsley, however, collapses that distinction in her treatment of my work. She cites a single fragment of a sentence from my book Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality—that platforms have no obligation “to promote false content on all surfaces, or recommend it to potential new followers, or run ads against it”—and claims this means that I “want social media companies to limit the reach of false speech on their sites.” But those are not the same thing.

That sentence appears in a section laying out the principle of “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach”: the idea that platforms can enable expression by hosting and allowing access to controversial content, without being required to amplify it or accept money to promote it. It is a defense of editorial discretion with a nod to ethics: a platform does not have to accept ad dollars to promote claims that juice cures pediatric cancer, or weight a recommender system to boost sensationalism. It may choose to—and again, different platforms make different choices, as they appeal to different segments of the market—but liberty means it doesn’t have to. Any given content producer is not entitled to an algorithmic boost. This principle, which social media ethicist Aza Raskin and I first laid out in 2018, has become X’s moderation policy.

Tinsley reinterprets this argument as a prescriptive call for suppression and frames it as incompatible with Mill’s view that even falsehoods can illuminate truth. In reality, my position keeps ideas on the table while insisting that platforms are not compelled to place every idea at the top of the stack in modern communication architecture. It is precisely because platforms enjoy First Amendment protections—and because, as I emphasize in the section she selectively quotes, governments have no business writing content policies—that they are free to exercise discretion. Flattening my distinction is not analysis. It’s misdirection.

Tinsley’s confusion about how infrastructure shapes discernment continues in her next claim: “Some platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, took action to combat fake news by installing misinformation features, perhaps to DiResta’s partial satisfaction. X, formerly known as Twitter, has a ‘Community Notes’ feature on its platform, and now other companies, like TikTok, have adopted similar features.” I’m not sure what “[my] partial satisfaction” is meant to imply—it’s a vague dig masquerading as insight—for user-controlled tools that promote discernment. Community Notes is exactly that. Although the platform rolled it out, it enables users to collectively flag misleading content, contribute context, and see that context surfaced transparently to others. It’s individually- and community-led deliberative infrastructure—precisely the kind of human-centered judgment Mill called for.

Community Notes complements other labeling systems that fall under the “inform” category. These are not coercive tools. They are interventions designed to support users in forming their own judgments, rather than leaving them entirely at the mercy of virality and opaque algorithmic decisions.

Indeed, just a few lines after the fragment Tinsley quotes, Invisible Rulers includes a section titled “Put More Control in the Hands of Users.” That’s a throughline of my work. If we want to solve the “indolent man” problem Mill identified—and that Tinsley rightly raises—we need to equip individuals to think for themselves within the structure of modern media. That means, for example, developing middleware: tools that give users more control over what they see. It means pushing platforms to offer transparency, choice, and appeals. And yes, it also means investing in facilitating an informed public. Invisible Rulers additionally explores ways we might learn from the historical efforts like the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, which emerged at a time when the mass media disruption was influencer-propagandists on the radio.

Tinsley and I agree: we don’t want the government—or platforms, for that matter—to declare what is true. But we must also recognize that the infrastructure of amplification has changed. Any serious defense of free speech today must contend not only with the law but with the architecture that determines which speech is seen.

The unitary executive is one legitimate answer to a fundamental challenge of American republicanism: How do we protect liberty and popular sovereignty while giving the state sufficient authority and efficiency to govern well? There are illegitimate answers, like contemporary federal arrangements that allow for a collection of muscular, independent agencies that sit above or between the branches. That approach violates republicanism by expanding government authority and efficiency at the expense of a limited state and democratic control.

A more interesting question, in my view, is whether there are other legitimate systems that are as good or even better than the unitary executive at responding to America’s unique characteristics. I think there may be. This is why I see the unitary executive as an answer, not the answer, to shaping the executive branch in a democratic republic.

Designing a Republic

Imagine you’re entirely new to issues of governing. If your instinctual priority was the preservation of liberty, and your only knowledge of political theory came from some of the most famous Federalist Papers (say #37, #39, #47, #48, #51), you would likely want to maximize the separation of powers and ensure all state authority could be checked by the people. Unaware of the possibility of a bill of rights, you’d believe that democracy and the wide distribution of power are the keys to maintaining freedom.

If you were then shown the structure of state governments today, you’d be optimistic about the state of liberty. Government authority is allocated among a variety of officials directly elected by the people, preventing a single demagogue with authoritarian proclivities from consolidating power. Depending on the state, the list could include legislators, governors, judges (including state supreme court justices), attorneys general, treasurers, state superintendents, agriculture commissioners, state board of education members, secretaries of state, comptrollers, insurance commissioners, public university regents, and more. Moreover, states’ use of initiative, referendum, and recall further democratizes and distributes authority. And in many states, executive-branch regulations (a way authority could be centralized and insulated from democratic forces) are subject to legislative oversight. State governments, you’d conclude, must take liberty seriously because they sure take the separation of powers and democracy seriously.

But if you were then shown the US Constitution, you’d probably conclude that liberty was constantly threatened by Uncle Sam. The federal government’s authorities, by comparison, are barely separated, and democratic control is attenuated. Members of one house of Congress get six-year terms. Federal judges aren’t elected; they’re appointed and confirmed through an insulated process. A single president (a “unitary executive”) has all of the executive-branch authority, potentially enabling the rise of a demagogue. Moreover, the president is picked indirectly by a curious electoral college. There’s no initiative, referendum, or recall, and there’s no requirement of legislative approval of agency rules.

After considering the enormous powers of the federal government, you’d probably start to imagine all of the ways federal authority could have—actually, should have—been further separated and democratized. That is, Washington has powers that states don’t, especially those related to war, treaties, international trade, interstate commerce, and currency. And Washington, thanks to the Supremacy Clause, the Commerce Clause, and the Necessary and Proper Clause, would be able to constantly expand its reach. You might find yourself in favor of adding new houses to Congress, for instance, to focus solely on international matters or appropriations. You might argue for electing federal appeals court judges or Supreme Court justices; maybe splitting Article III into multiple independent court systems, for example, demarcating different verticals responsible for civil, criminal, original-jurisdiction cases, appellate cases, state-originated cases, and so on. And you might believe that the US attorney general, secretary of state, and secretary of the treasury should be elected. 

This list of structural changes is the way, you’d probably reason, to ensure American liberty at the federal level: Maintain the three-branch structure but distribute authority among a wider array of entities controlled by the people.

Lastly, imagine you were told that during the Progressive-New Deal era, federal arrangements had, in fact, been altered via statute. You’d probably smile and wonder which of the reforms you’d envisioned had been adopted. Think of your shock when told that, no, Uncle Sam had gone in an entirely different direction: He created a genus of entities floating between the branches and insulated from democratic control. 

It would be nearly impossible to understand how this happened. Unless you then learned something about republicanism and technocracy.

Reifying Republicanism

The framers of state constitutions and the US Constitution were not just liberals. They were republicans. They believed in preserving freedom, of course. But they also understood that the common good of the people required entrusting democratically legitimate officials with public duties and meaningful public authority. This is made clear, as Professor Rogers notes in his very good essay, across the Federalist Papers; those statesmen, Hamilton in particular, were aware of the need for governing energy. Harm would be done by the state’s doing too much and too little. As such, constitutions were not merely a list of limits on governmental power; they also included lists and assignments of responsibilities and authorities. Individual liberty could be protected largely, they believed, by smartly arranging strong institutions.

In this context, we can see that the difference between the high level of democracy and power-separation in state constitutions and the lower level in the federal constitution is a simple matter of reifying republicanism in different ways. Both wanted governments strong enough to accomplish public goals. State constitutions were willing to give governing power to a wider variety of entities (including via a “plural executive” model), believing the fragmentation of authority, plus the direct democratic power of the people, would prevent despotism. Rogers aptly describes this as “horizontally” partitioning executive power. The federal constitution was structured with fewer loci of power, but these strong branches would check each other and could directly or indirectly be checked by the people.

Said another way, there is not a single “republican” method of arranging governing institutions. But republicanism does require that institutions check one another and that the governed are in control. As such, American republicanism, I believe, would not be violated by a constitutional amendment that allowed the people to recall the president, or one that subjected US Supreme Court justices to retention elections, or one that made the US attorney general an elected position. Those may not be wise, but they are not anti-republican. 

What is anti-republican, however, are democratically unaccountable governing entities that sit above or between our branches of government. Here, I believe Rogers and I are simpatico.

Technocracy’s Cure

The Progressive-New Deal period was America’s least republican era. For a host of political, cultural, and technological reasons, many leaders soured on democracy and political experience and became enamored with an elite understanding of education and expertise. This turn to technocracy wasn’t limited to installing a different type of official inside our existing system. It aspired to change the system itself. Indeed, the creation of that era’s independent agencies can’t be understood in republican terms. They weren’t devised to protect liberty or strengthen popular control. Quite the opposite. They were designed to enable ostensible experts to lead swaths of public life independent of the voters and often the president. (Rogers, I think, would agree with this assessment, and I think we both believe this turn was bad for America.)

For these reasons, the application of the unitary executive theory to today’s federal government should be seen as a practical, republican response to the misguided technocratic impulses of a century ago. My assessment here is meant as a two-cheers endorsement of that theory. It addresses two major problems. It properly identifies as unconstitutional Congress’s creation of entities that sit between the branches and exercise quasi-legislative, executive, and judicial powers. Second, it recognizes that the people must be able to hold government entities accountable, and since the president is the electorally accountable official of the executive branch, agencies with executive functions must be accountable to the president. I believe Rogers and I agree on these points; in fact, I share his commitment to democratic accountability, the core of his essay.

I withhold one cheer from the unitary executive theory because while it is an appropriate response to this particular federal problem, I’m not convinced that it should be applied any more broadly. That is, I don’t believe American republicanism requires all executive power to be invested in a single figure. In other words, a unitary executive is a legitimate republican form, not the legitimate republican form. Rogers might disagree. 

However, in full disclosure, as a practical matter, I’m not a big fan of the plural-executive model used by many states—where executive functions are parceled out among an array of elected officials. My experience is that this can hinder, even debilitate, the executive branch. As just one example, an elected state superintendent, an elected governor, and an elected attorney general can take different positions on an education matter, which can confuse educators and families, and worse, end up in a years-long court battle. Rogers may agree. 

Then why would I not, as a practical matter, wholeheartedly support the unitary executive? Because what I see as the plural executive’s messiness and inefficiency might well be a natural antidote to populism. And populism is bedeviling American society and governing.

Populism arises when the people believe that those in power care about their own interests and not those of the public. Populism sustains and grows when the people have limited capacity to set things right. I believe we are in an era of perpetual populism because a suite of factors (changes in the economy, technology, culture, governing, etc.) have caused the people to feel powerless. Rogers and I both see a link between governing arrangements and populism; he writes, “One driver of modern populist politics, particularly on the right, is the feeling that vast sections of the national bureaucracy are immune to electoral outcomes.” 

I’m in favor, at least in this unusual moment, of enabling voters to engage in more debates about more public policies and hold more public officials accountable. So, as it stands today, I would not invoke the unitary executive model at the state level as a way of consolidating power in the hands of fewer state officials and reducing the number of democratically elected state offices. 

I would, however, happily invoke the unitary executive model at the federal level to enable the democratically accountable president to control any currently unelected, unaccountable independent agencies.

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— nigrosiphonaceus (@osint77760) June 25, 2025

Good. Good.

— Steve (@Steve_JFOsint) June 25, 2025