And Hacker News comments are any better? The core issue becomes: who do you trust? If you read the comment and blithely accept what it says without thinking about it, you'll fall for any scam that comes along. You need to examine the ideas within the comment, compare it with other information (from hopefully different sources) and then come to a conclusion as to it's veracity. It's part of being in a society where freedom of speech is a right (a US centric viewpoint, since that's where I'm from).
I never said that anywhere was any better. I'd like to think Hacker News is a place where fewer people would be fooled, because this is a place specifically for critical thought and discussion.
YouTube is not. It's a website that everyone uses, and where the most impressionable or least politically aware members of the population are the most numerous, easiest targets.
And most importantly: YouTube lacks a dang. The volume of comments that are processed vastly exceeds what human moderation could possibly do, and community up-or-down-flag moderation of comments has massive known vulnerabilities to sock-puppeteering and signal-jamming. It's an extremely ripe target for this type of manipulation.
If YouTube cared about anything aside from "user engagement", they could quite easily whip their comments into shape. They're not really trying.
> The volume of comments that are processed
> vastly exceeds what human moderation could possibly do
For every 500 comments, there is one video. For every 50 videos, there is one Channel with a Google user behind it. Force creators to handle the complaints about comments on their videos... an order of magnitude less work.
I've gone into this before and there really seems to be total buy-in here to the idea that these companies couldn't possibly manage to weed the toxicity off their platforms. I don't believe it for an instant. It's true only if you refuse to entertain any decrease of "user engagement". If you are willing to lose some eyeballs, the problem is manageable.
And that sacrifice, in the case of YouTube, isn't even a sacrifice! YouTube would wind up with more users if the comments weren't so toxic. Susan et al just don't have the courage to change anything.
The purpose of trolling and fake comments is not always to directly shift anyone's opinion. It can also be about spreading doubt and confusion by constant repetition of falsehoods, until certain topics and positions that previously were completely unacceptable become an ordinary part of discourse and a viable "view". It's about manipulating and eroding social control mechanisms.
For example, that's how it can become possible for a politician to get elected who openly advocates torture or extrajudicial killings.
The most significant difference is that comments on HN tend be intelligent, well-reasoned and courteous, whereas comments on YouTube tend to be the psychotic rantings of paid trolls, foul-mouthed children, and hate groups.
Like you say: I think it's a waste of time to condemn entire platforms - there are really interesting people in these places that can be always discovered. Here and on YouTube. Just be aware that there you might occasionally find yourself in a zone besieged.
