I get what you're saying, but I just don't agree. They're only different in the abstract. At some point an incredibly noxious (but legal) video gets posted, complaints pour in, and you are either continuing to host it or you aren't. That's a decision and having a policy of "we never remove legal videos" doesn't absolve you.

Anyway, a social platform that only removes illegal content (not even spam?) sounds absolutely dreadful and I would not use it and no one would pay to advertise on it.

On a social platform where I'm only seeing content posted by my friends (or maybe content my friends interact with), anything dreadful I see is brought to me by my friends.

If my friends bring me dreadful content that I don't like, I'm not sure we'll stay friends. If my friends are spamming, I'll ask them to stop and if they continue, I'm not going to stay friends (or at least I'll unfollow them where they're spamming).

If people post garbage to my posts, I'll delete their garbage and restrict access to my posts.

There's no need for the social platform to do moderation, until it starts putting unrelated people's content in front of me; which is something I don't really want from a social platform.

Have you read the HN guidelines? Most rules have nothing to do with legality, and @dang moderates HN on a best-effort basis to ensure quality discussion.

Presumably, you don’t notice you’re on a moderated platform, but HN is very much not an unmoderated free-for-all.

HN isn't really a social platform, IMHO. I'm not connecting with my friends here, I'm talking with all sorts of random people. I absolutely notice it's moderated, and I wouldn't be here if it wasn't.

If this is your “line in the sand”, why are we arguing about YouTube? I cannot believe you connect with your friends there…

I mean sure, but I don't see how that concept maps to YouTube.

It would be interesting to have a social platform where you can only see mutual connections. I imagine it'd have a hard time competing with email and group texts and all the other ways people who already know each other can stay in touch.

Well, in my head (which I'll admit doesn't really match reality), YouTube is a video hoster only, it's not social at all. If something I'm reading or someone I'm talking with links to a video, it's likely there. I might watch that video, but I certainly don't read the comments and I try not to look at the recommendations because both of those areas are a cesspool.

If I'm searching for a video, I try to do it in a web search, and likely it'll lead to YouTube, and hopefully it'll actually be useful content (or Rick Astley, I actually like that song).

Anyway, if I were YouTube, I would turn off comments everywhere, and review videos before including them in recommendations (which would leave a lot of videos out of that section) and probably have a lot lower views.