> In a similar vein there’s nothing stopping anybody from finding out what happens if you swallow a D battery but for some reason none of my friends are doing t

> In a similar vein there’s nothing stopping anybody from finding out what happens if you swallow a D battery but for some reason none of my friends are doing that Nice caveat, noting that none of your friends are doing that. But plenty of people do really dangerous, stupid shit and upload it to YouTube for the advertising dollars. Because news media is usually ultimately financed by advertising or partisan donors pushing a specific viewpoint, they're incentivized to publish dangerous stuff - but only the kind people want to see, which is why outlets like the New York Times didn't host video clips showing the outright gore from Charlie Kirk getting shot. The democratic value of an independent media rests on editorial discretion finding content that shocks its audience but not its advertisers.