I think the big issue is that it's hard to determine what falls into that category sometimes. We live in an era where any editorial decision is treated as "cancelling" someone. Even if you get it right 99.9% of the time, the Streisand Effect will catapult the rare mistakes to the forefront and erode any trust in your decisions.

One person's Ponzi-scheme or MLM is another person's crypto-revolution democratizing finance. One person's pump-and-dump is another person's GameStop. One person's irrelevant information is another's call to action.

I think a lot of people also aren't receptive to being told that they're wrong. Lots of people are posting about tech companies doing layoffs while having record profits, but then when I actually look at the profits, they're actually down. Is that misinformation? If I'm running a system (either a site where people post or a browser plugin that removes content), I would get roasted for taking that down. If I took down things meant to demean, degrade, or intentionally cause distress, I'd be taking down a lot of Republican content. They'd yell that they aren't demeaning a trans woman by calling her a man and that they're just stating a fact. Which one of us is correct in our judgment?

All that said, I do think there's a ton of value in Seth's idea and his presentation of it. I think he really hits on something important when he talks about things that might be true, but are irrelevant and things that are really just mean. I'd also add that there's a certain kind of post/article that's just meant to produce a visceral emotional reaction (usually anger) without anything really actionable or meaningful - I think that's what he's getting at in other terms. I think there's a lot of value in trying to get that junk out of one's life, but it's hard.

It's also hard for platforms who live and die by engagement. It's not just about the ad views. It's also about being the app/website that people instinctively open constantly. If you widdle down the content to the calm stuff, do you end up as an app that people forget about because the visceral emotional reactions aren't making them think about opening the app again? If they open it and there isn't new stuff, do they go somewhere else to fix their boredom?

All that controversy drives more content. Crazy tweets from Musk lead to lots of people who dislike Musk to quote-tweet him dunking on him. All those dunks drive engagement. A right wing person can say something and that will get so many people agreeing and disagreeing and fighting on a platform.

All that irrelevant stuff like celebrity gossip offers a constant stream of easy to consume bits for people. A good article requires thought, patience, attention, etc. A celebrity gossip pic works well for mindless doom-scrolling.

If a platform doesn't offer that, does it just become too small and end up losing the traffic to competitors who then have a war chest to fight off the "good" platform? To an extent, HN is a counter example. At the same time, would HN have survived if it weren't a bit of a passion project of YC? Competitors aren't looking to "kill" HN because it's clear HN isn't really looking to expand and become a big business. Likewise, HN doesn't have management looking to figure out how to maximize profitability or what the next big thing will be. It might be harder for more commercial platforms where they might start losing engineering talent to competitors whose engagement engines print money which they can use to lure engineers. We've seen many articles talking about tech giants hiring lots of people in part to prevent other companies from having talent.

I think there's lots of value in Seth's proposal. At the same time, I think it's tough.