Ideally, I'd like a vaccine for the Marburg virus so being exposed isn't a big deal. I think the analogy is obvious enough from there.

I agree! Since Hacker News could also potentially be such a way to disseminate bad information we should remove all comments here too.

See the problem? That's basically what you're justifying.

This comment breaks the site guidelines—in particular this one:

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."

You also got into some pretty flamey discussions elsewhere, e.g. the religious flamebait in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19275923—not cool on Hacker News.

If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and refrain from doing those things here, we'd be grateful.

Hi dang, I’m given to understand that you’re one of the moderators here. I’ve tried to contact you three times in theee weeks through email, and this is my third time trying to get your attention in the comments, so far without a response. Is there a better way to contact you? I don’t feel good about inserting my comment in an unrelated post like this, but I’m unsure what else to do.

I've had good results sending messages to mailbox named "hn" in the "ycombinator" domain, in "com" TLD.

I’ve tried that for three weeks without a response.

I would assume your email address is mistakenly flagged by anti-spam system, and proceed accordingly.

This is me proceeding accordingly, short of making a bunch of email accounts on different services, which seems a bit shady.

I understand your frustration, but please stop effectively spamming HN with these requests.

Ok, what should I do then?

There are logical stopping points on the way from "all comments should be allowed" to "no comments should be allowed."

One such stopping point could be "no comments should be allowed on media with certain features that overwhelmingly tend to attract morally reprehensible comments." Another such stopping point could be "all comments should be allowed, except those which the community has decided have no merit."

In fact, (almost?) all worthwhile online communities are somewhere between the two extremes you seem to advocate. They don't always call it "deplatforming," which may be where you're getting hung up, but comment moderation is everywhere, and it does work.

Now, if you want to say that Youtube could handle this particular type of comment moderation in a better way, I think there are plenty of arguments to be made. But the choice isn't "all comments" or "no comments."

You may see logical stopping points, but I see a slippery slope. And at each such stopping points there will be someone having good arguments for going down just a little bit further. Interestingly, starting down that path always seems to start with something relating to pedophilia. It's unfortunate that one always has to defend scoundrels in the first stages of what will otherwise naturally snowball into something nobody at the starting line ever intended for.

I think HN is actually a poster child of strong moderation on social media, because it remains relevant by being one of the most regulated platforms. There is a reason this place hasn’t devolved into complete and utter uselessness as well as why you rarely see any form of political debate, and it’s exactly because this places isn’t liberatarian in its approach to free speech.

Free speech comes with responsibility, and part of that responsibility is to make sure people aren’t legally monetising videos of children for pedofiles.

I know it’s not always a popular opinion, but I think social media has been hiding from its responsibility for far too long, and I’m personally happy the EU is stepping in to regulate it.

Big tech companies shouldn’t be able to get away with things no one else could simply by being big. Especially not when it’s used to undermine the foundation of our society. If someone uses your platform for a network of pedos, or to commit genocide then you are also responsible for enabling it in my opinion.

HN is self selecting a higher quality audience. The content is interesting to an educated audience, the website contains very little fluff/idle entertainment and the ui is ugly to the average user.

While true, the moderation system also tends to discourage the snarky or ad hominem attack that at least some of us might otherwise be attempted to make from time to time.

I'd say the one down side to HN is the moderation and I don't think social media has any responsibility to moderate comments.

Readers of NN comments are free to ignore any content they wish to ignore.

I find the trend of individuals demanding organizations and governments protect them from content they may find distasteful or content they don't agree with to very disturbing.

Is your reasoning invariant across different moral systems (like Iran, China)?

IGNORE ME!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMNJuSl91qY