> The internet connects more than 3 billion people 
    > and enables a grand diversity among them to speak,
    > if not yet to be heard. “Republics,” said the late
    > Columbia University professor James Carey, “require
    > conversation, often cacophonous conversation, for 
    > they should be noisy places.” That sound you hear,
    > which sometimes grates, is the racket of society
    > negotiating its norms and standards, its future.
    > It is the messy sound of democracy.

Nope, you have trolls and extremist groups gleefully spraying toxic garbage over everything, until decent, mature people abandon the site. Sane people don't post on Youtube. Some sane people post on Twitter, etc... but they eventually give up. If graffiti on a toilet stall is the standard for online "democracy," we'll never solve any problems, and only the worst people among us will actually benefit from freedom of expression.

Any site today that doesn't have iron-clad moderation (like this one!) devolves into an inhumane freak show.