Right. That people are too stupid to understand the arguments and instead need those advocating for deplatforming to tell them what is and isn't right so they don't need to concern themselves with the arguments. I'm not sure how this doesn't apply to Louis Theroux, though. He rarely offers an actual opinion on any given subject, merely shines a light on it. That's what most documentaries do - they document something, not act as a polemic for the host.
I think in the case of platforms that specifically target children,who,while I think we tend to underestimate the reasoning skills of (some kids these days seem more level-headed than the adults!), are by nature very impressionable and therefore can be easily persuaded by people who want to push toxic ideas on them but otherwise come off as a friendly cartoon character,....in those kind of situations de-platforming is pretty much required. It's no different than the Standards and Practices network television sets up and why you don't see stuff like Real Sex and Breaking Bad on CN or Nick or Disney.
The problem w/ that on the internet is that all of that type of stuff is easily accessible, for free, on any number of places, and while there are ways parents can block that content off for their kids, it requires more technical know-how than the average parent probably has, and none of those standards are universally implemented. That's probably why the push for de-platforming has the support it has, b/c a lot of the people trying to subvert do so by going after the most impressionable, i.e manchildren and actual children.
There's not a lot you can do w/ the former but with the latter, we're presented with two situations: either the entire internet is completely censored by force i.e similar to countries like China, OR networks with platforms that are very popular with children (and, well, all platforms/sites to a degree) come up with a way of implementing some type of system of Standards and Practices that is universal and works. At least w/ the 2nd option, freedom of information is still a thing, even if people have to verify themselves as being age-appropriate for certain things to a degree.
Now, how platforms like Youtube currently handle it is bunked, because they're punishing EVERYONE who even REMOTELY has controversial content, whether that's actually to spread toxicity or educate about the dangers of toxicity, etc. There's no reason a content creator who curses and swears or does inappropriate jokes can't make any money off your platform, when on television mature-rated content brings in advertiser dollars all the time. What
should be implemented, however, is a way to where that type of content creator's stuff is clearly labeled for a mature audience, and to where parents can implement some kind of setting on their kid's device that detects that age-rated content, and blocks its playback on the device. This shouldn't be that difficult to implement on the technological level, but getting all the players to agree on a universal standard protocol and implementing it will require egos to be checked at the door and putting the profit-driven bullshit away for a minute.
Another system that could be implemented alongside that (and this one's a lot wilder) would be maybe establishing some kind of international body with access to name and birth dates of individuals in a system that can automatically add that information to sign-up pages on various websites, but the user still is allowed to choose nick-names and whatever just like today. However, they *have* to have their real names and real birth dates in that aforementioned system, and said system only uses the information registered with the governments themselves (actual legal documents, essentially, like birth certificates or legal name change forms) for this.
All websites would have to honor this system and effectively block content to end users who do not meet the age requirements, but the content itself is still there. Of course you'll have people who try to game this, and I don't see any other hardwired way to prevent that besides issuing some type of mandatory "internet chip" to citizens that stores their information like name and DOB, that needs to be inserted in at least one of their internet-connected devices (the others on the home network can access privileges from the one inserted chip through some kind of password hard-set on the chip itself; passwords can be rewritten as they're stored on EPROM (or EEPROM) but can only be rewritten through a secured site managed by the overseeing body with the names/DOB records registered for the system's implementation).
If that sounds like some sci-fi otherworldly shit, just keep in mind sci-fi of the '80s couldn't even predict some of the crazy shit we have now that is these days considered standard fare. I also understand how it kind of gives some scary power to the government in managing the internet, even tho the government has always had some degree in managing protocol implementation and standards, and the stuff I'm proposing would only take their involvement this much further; from there let the free market do what it does best, and most importantly, no censorship of information (in the purest terms).
Put something like that into practice, and you put the onus on parents to actually be mindful of what their kids are doing online, set restrictions, and still allow crude-but-otherwise-not-toxic people to earn money doing what they do. And along the way you effectively cut out a huge portion of the tools available to alt-right or-whatever sorts to target the most impressionable.
