I agree, you're absolutely right. Still, I claim it should be done, and maybe the content you listed should also be disallowed.
I'm not saying these videos and discussions shouldn't exist, I'm suggesting that perhaps it's time we dispelled the idea of a global Town Square - one platform for all content. It's a recipe for disaster. We've seen what can happen and what will continue to happen. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - how many times do we have to watch a global town square devolve into shit flinging, disinformation, and hate?
Let's stop pretending that there can be a global free speech forum and that we can have some fair minimum ruleset to moderate all content on that forum.
We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms that appeal to different interests and are regulated in proportion to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith information in that interest.
The entertainment that dominates Youtube is minimally severe if incorrect or bad faith, so YouTube would have minimal regulation.
Content on personal health and experiences could go into HealthTube, where moderation exists to prevent making strong medical claims or pushing bullshit (the "pay an influencer to say that ElaMexaTrin cured my covid" problem), but people are otherwise allowed to post what they want about their personal experiences.
Content with strong scientific claims on health would go into MedicalTube, which is regulated and heavily moderated to prevent commercial interests and disinformation.
Really, if YouTube was forward thinking, all of these could be different subsets of the same platform. But instead we have one platform with the same erratic hand of moderation slapping things down left and right based on whatever changing ruleset seems convenient today.
I fully agree. Even though the debate around centralization is a separate debate, it's not at all orthogonal. I still feel that federation is the way. Open standards and platforms that anyone with the capital can spin up on their own boxes.
The quacks do need to be out in the open facing ridicule. I think it gets worse if they are pushed to a telegram channel where they have no opposition.
I find it hilarious that people think they are informed on all the topics they consider themselves informed on. There is simply way too much information out there to be well-informed on all of it.
I can't be an infectious disease expert. I can't even be reasonably informed on all the stuff that goes on surrounding it. I need a sieve. I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results. And that's not you or other randos on the internet.
And that's what we've actually lost. We've lost all the filters and firewalls that stopped the majority of misinformation. With everyone having a global megaphone to broadcast their every thought, it's become harder to discern between those who are informed on a topic and those who aren't.
The world's signal to noise ratio is weighted too heavily towards noise.
How can you rely on this approach when some of them or some of their sources are censored?
Even 20 years ago, we just did not have the scope of information that we do now. Those sources you fear are getting censored, we'd never even know they exist before. It just wouldn't reach us.
Domain experts would hash out the wheat from the chaff. The plausible from the bunk.
Now people are getting their information from Joe Fucking Rogan of all people.
Are you saying that using our own limited understanding of the vast array of domains to process the impossible amount of information out there is a better system than deferring to various domain experts?
Because, just no. That would not be better. It would be worse. It is worse.
And I'm not saying deferring to domain experts is perfect. It is not. But it's better than expecting everyone to become domain experts in everything.
There are groupmind tendencies and competing groupthinks, as well as industrial corruption, in all of our scientific enterprises that I'm aware of. For me this is a serious issue, since I saw first-hand how pusillanimous scientists can become when their livelihoods or grants are endangered.
There is a war on for our minds. I think we each have to decide who we trust and don't trust. For many of us there is also a crisis of trust in our scientific institutions now.
The degree how people defer decisions and whom they trust is personal. Cannot change that anyway.
As it is YouTube is becoming a (mostly unidirectional) public commons that is captured by a single profit-seeking corporation.