> The most abhorrent idea of all to me is that there are stupid, weak people that are worse than "us" that we need to shield from bad ideas because they are not smart enough (like we are) to handle them.

Gullible people exist. I mean, it's such a well-known phenomenon that the term "gullible" exists to describe people who fall for what should be obviously false information and lies. We all have our instances of gullibility, and we all have domains that we know nothing about, and there are countless people who prey on people with lack of knowledge in some area.

If people go around in real life deceiving people, someone might step in and tell them to watch out for the scam. There'll be signs in tourist areas where scammers frequent. Banks will send out notices on how to help their customers avoid financial traps. Schools teach kids to look out for bad information and misleading conclusions. Signs are posted in parks warning people not to venture out to certain areas because they're likely unprepared and could die (and people still die anyways).

This is all generally accepted as good.

But flag a post on some social networking site with a "This might be fake. Be careful", and people go wild saying the elite are trying to police us and they're destroying our freedoms.