South Africa, March 25 -- The debate around social media moderation has been ongoing since the rise of platforms like Facebook and Twitter (now X), but recent developments have intensified discussions about the balance between free speech and content regulation.

Two converging trends shaping the debate

The first trend is the growing pushback against perceived censorship by platform owners and users as well as US President Donald Trump.

Following concerns about electoral manipulation and pandemic-related disinformation a few years ago, it seemed as if platforms would err on the side of caution in content moderation decisions to stay on the side of government regulators.

But the light touch X is taking to content moderation since Elon M...