There's a basic economic characteristic I think fringe media gets right: the cost for them being wrong is almost zero, and the benefit of being right first puts them on par with news orgs with hundreds of millions in budget. If you are a reader playing the fast-story slot machine game, it's just noise until you jackpot. The big question is what is the effect of all that noise over time, and what does it make you deaf to?

If the social platforms were just imposing costs on being wrong that would almost be a service, but I get the impression from all the ban stories that they're staffed mostly by people who aren't equipped to be that judicious. The platforms have thrown down their cards and are all in on this election cycle, and by showing what appears to be partisan recklessness, it's going to cost them moral high ground they might have had before all this.

The good news is the people reading this forum can build a platform killer in 6-8months, and there's going to be a bunch of balance sheet cash on the sidelines looking for startups to fund. These social platform companies are all just another Friendster waiting to happen.