What you are discounting are the bad faith actors that use networks provided by YouTube, FB, Twitter etc to disseminate their message. I think a lot of us belie

What you are discounting are the bad faith actors that use networks provided by YouTube, FB, Twitter etc to disseminate their message. I think a lot of us believe in marketplace of ideas where bad ideas are disproven and people update their beliefs and move on. But we overlook those who are so driven by ideology/emotions that they spread false data willingly to push their agenda. They can recruit like minded and impressionable (often young) people and build nation wide movements if left unchecked. Most of us don't have the time to go and verify every piece of information for ourselves. We are relying instead on our notion of the normalized opinions. This is informed by our cultural norms and media narratives etc. The bad faith actors want to push this moving window of opinion to their end through a constant barrage of gas lighting, straw manning and general FUD. I think rational discourse does not work in such situations. 2 + 2 = 5 does not cleanly translate into our political situation because I think a lot of is driven by more basic emotions (for instance hating a particular group of people intrinsically) rather than something objective like this particular equation. There might be ways of having dialogue even in such situations. But I believe it is not through algorithmically boosted viral videos on YouTube.