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I think distasteful nonsense gets deprioritized in all public squares as a natural consequence of our social mores.

Not really. Look at pretty much any reality TV show, or the magazines at any checkout line. Nonsense and drama is big business from an attention and advertising standpoint.

Plus, you can look at most biased news sources and see the drama that they selectively cover under the guise of news. "1 person did a bad thing" and "here's another reason why this entire group is conspiring against you" are not uncommon tropes.

My reference to distasteful was meant to reference a much more vile flavor of speech than gossip and celeb junk news.

Fair enough, but that’s also why it’s so hard to define your content moderation policy, because the definition of “distasteful”, etc. varies between people and over time.

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