If people are no longer able to have good faith, nuanced discussions of evidence in a public forum then I believe it will turn off some otherwise reasonable people and empower conspiracy theorists more than it hurts them.
Much of what’s on YouTube is clearly not in good faith or is so far out there that it needs to get pulled. But let’s say, for example, that early on in the pandemic when Fauci and others were advising against the general public wearing masks, a health researcher on YouTube wanted to make public her legitimate research showing that masks can be helpful. I think that nuanced, good-faith claims do need to be discussed openly for the scientific process to work.
