The natural inclination in responding to Facebook's amplification of hate and disinformation is to propose to censor specific forms of hate and disinformation. However, that is a bad approach, because it would bring the government into regulating which opinions are acceptable.

I suspect it would also fail to eliminate the opinions it is intended to eliminate. As long as Facebook continues with its business model which specifically favors provoking hostility, it will design its algorithm to promote hatred-provoking postings as much as it can get away with. It will encourage people to probe the official limits on how to present hate. They will find ways, just as they have in the past.

Frances Haugen's testimony confirms my earlier conclusion that the wrong of Facebook is not in specific nasty statements posted there, but in the algorithm that promotes statements for being nasty. That algorithm is what it is because of the fact that spreading nasty statements is profitable for Facebook.

So let's regulate that algorithm, not the kinds of points people can post on Facebook.