[zbentley]

Misinformation and mass hysteria suck, I agree. But if the amplification of the sky-is-falling-flavor-of-the-week braindead youtuber take can materially imperil financial markets, the stability of that system was always doomed.

An “SEC for YouTube” can’t prevent shit if the lever of influence is already that long. It might be able to keep a lot of meme investor idiots from losing their shirts, but that has to be weighed against the historically evident risks of having what amounts to a ministry of truth/state propaganda regulator.

[AnimalMuppet]

I remember sky-is-falling-flavor-of-the-week newsletters from the 1970s; they probably go back further than that, but I don't remember firsthand. The difference is that YouTube lets millions of people find this without either having to subscribe to the newsletter, or the newsletter having to figure out who they are and send them a free copy.

In other words, what's different is that the gain is higher. The system was not always doomed, because the gain wasn't this high. Now that it is this high, the system may now be doomed.

[johnvanommen]

Great summary.

Art Bell is another one:

He was on at one in the morning, and a big chunk of his audience was calling in to the show drunk or high. 99% of the audience knew it was fake.

And twenty years later, the conspiracy stories live on, via YouTube, but without the CONTEXT that the Art Bell show was broadcasting to a VERY niche audience.