I didn’t get the sense that they were implying chat messengers should cease to exist. While they certainly could have been more explicit, I think that’s a rather uncharitable interpretation.

The larger conversation seems to be revolving around the question of “While we continue to build these infrastructures, are we currently—in a serious way— searching for ways to mitigate against these types of things from happening? And if not, why not?”

Which, from what we’re seeing— with how vulnerable many segments of populations seem to be, with misinformation and these types of mob behaviors—this is a timely and important question.

There are multiple organizations trying to find ways to stop misinformation but it seems next to impossible. What is the truth? Who gets to decide what is and isn't the truth? No doubt Google will come up with some API that reports if a statement is true or not and all algorithms will use it to hide any information google says is false.