> They can both be checked by everyone and verified.

No, that not what I mean. What you can't check is that they push something to someone specifically to make that person react in a certain way. That is not verifiable.
Regardless of whether the content is true or false (that doesn't matter actually, or should I say it's less important whether it's true or not, obviously fake news are a problem but less important than that).

> Adding new information to your life will modify your view of the world.

Yes. And you should be able to choose what you add to your life, what you watch freely.
Not a recommended algorithm that nobody understand how it works.

> You are just using a feature of content to argue it should be banned.

I'm sorry ? I don't understand what you are saying here. I read it many times, but I just don't understand what you mean.

> But content is not opium

It's debatable. Nearly 100% of TikTok traffic is recommended (it's an estimation) and as or some years ago(2015 ?), about 70% of Youtube was recommended (given by youtube). That mean people do not expressly choose what they watch and particularly, most of the traffic is compulsive. But it's debatable, you are right "content is not opium" but sometime it's consumed as if it were so how to deal with it ?

> and free speech is sacrosanct

Once again, yes. It's not about the content that is on TikTok, sorry if didn't make it clear. It's not about free speech. You can still say what ever you want. It's again too much power of TikTok.

> I am fundamentally against anything whose goal is to avoid "mass manipulation" that is essentially saying we should ban things that get popular which we don't like

That absolutely NOT my point. Effectively, my point promote to be against "mass manipulation" but absolutely not "we should ban things that get popular which we don't like". Remember that I also regret the ban. I think it was justified but I don't think it's a solution.

As a French, I learn early in life « Je ne suis pas d’accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai jusqu’au bout pour que vous puissiez le dire. ». Which can be translated "I don't agree with what you say, but I'll fight for you to be able to say it.".
We both agree on that and as I learned, our definitions of free speech are slightly different but the differences are not relevant here I think.

For example and to finish, a "not so good solution" but something that could have been done to not ban TT is to switch the recommendation algorithm to the one of (the old) Twitter (or the current one of Mastodon), where people could have followers and tweets were shown on a timeline from they followers.

Now, I will again take twitter as example. The fact that Twitter (the new one, X) have an Open-source recommendation algorithm make it not ban-able for example.

Not really, twitter/the-algorithm isn't up-to-date and the models must be shared along with the source code but it's an example. What I say is twitter doesn't have a lot to do to make it any ban unjustified, If someone say "there is too much power from the platform (twitter) and there is manipulation from it", Twitter just have to update the source code (and the models) and it's verifiable (with hard work, but not impossible). That the algorithm is biased is not the point, you have the right to consult media you know the algorithm is biased. The point is that the algorithm must be verifiable.

Thank you for the debate. If I don't respond quickly enough, please send me an e-mail at "ache-hn at ache.one".