Yep, that's the libertarian dream. It makes me nostalgic for the 90's when the web was new.
Now we know that spam and abuse make any large Internet forum suck. Your choice: moderation or cesspool.
Also, getting rid of the really extreme filth on the Internet is no fun and people generally have to be paid to do it, which is one of the things that keeps larger social networks in business.
I'm not convinced. Maybe a lot of people think of 4chan as a "cesspool" but I think it's actually quite functional with minimal moderation. They have a small volunteer staff to delete the absolute worst of the worst and let the rest roam free. The most radical thing they've ever done is made containment boards to keep the noise down.
I think the real problem is that sites like 4chan makes a tiny fraction of what Reddit does.
It works for 4chan's users or they wouldn't hang out there. But the level of moderation is a competitive feature. Users decide where to hang out based on the quality of discussion, and moderation has a direct effect on that (in both directions - too heavy-handed or too hands-off).
Also, in the end, the people who host a forum get to choose whether they really want to host a cesspool or not. If it's not working for them, they can shut it down, or maybe outsource moderation to Facebook or Disqus.
One of the big problems still is brigading. Even creating a containment board doesn't stop that, and I suspect having a board allows bad behavior to be legitimized through peer approval, and snowballs it. Also, it's so much easier to shitpost than generate quality content, just like its easier to lie than to debunk a lie.
In an October 2014 Wired story, Adrian Chen documented the work of front line moderators operating in modern-day sweatshops. In Manila, Chen witnessed a secret "army of workers employed to soak up the worst of humanity in order to protect the rest of us." Media coverage and researchers have compared their work to garbage collection, but the work they perform is critical to preserving any sense of decency and safety online, and literally saves lives — often those of children. For front-line moderators, these jobs can be crippling. Beth Medina, who runs a program called SHIFT (Supporting Heroes in Mental Health Foundational Training), which has provided resilience training to Internet Crimes Against Children teams since 2009, details the severe health costs of sustained exposure to toxic images: isolation, relational difficulties, burnout, depression, substance abuse, and anxiety. "There are inherent difficulties doing this kind of work," Chen said, "because the material is so traumatic."
The whole thing is worth a read, in a couple of sessions if necessary.
But, to be clear, at the moment Reddit is a moderated cesspool. It's neither embracing free-speech, or quality-control... it's managing to irk both sides and remain unsure of what kind of platform it really wants to be when it grows up.
Now we know that spam and abuse make any large Internet forum suck. Your choice: moderation or cesspool.
Also, getting rid of the really extreme filth on the Internet is no fun and people generally have to be paid to do it, which is one of the things that keeps larger social networks in business.