This time there was valid concern about issues like the lab leak theory being censored on social media, I predict in the next crisis, social media will be useless adjacent for almost everything.
You need to be very clear about what you mean by "lab leak theory" because that term has a number of definitions that are very different.
There's the definition where COVID was the result of gain of function research that leaked from a lab through negligence. There's also a definition that it was an entirely natural virus being studied that was leaked through negligence. Then there's the definition that the virus was "leaked" with malicious intent from the virology lab in Wuhan.
While the definitions are similar they have very different implications. Because social media tends to perform nuance destroying compression of concepts down to sound bites no two individuals using the term "lab leak theory" can be assumed to be using the same definition.
You even have an assumed definition of what you mean when you say "lab leak theory". Of everyone that reads your post your definition doesn't match that of half the audience. Even then, plenty of people claimed to be banned from social media for one reason while the reality they were banned from a network for other (or a combination) of reasons. So even the general statement of people being "social media censoring lab leak theory" elides important information and nuance and derives its validity from third hand accounts.
this is not me saying there's zero benefit to moderated dialogues, but what's better for overall intellectual pursuits? a dialogue that's inviting, or one that always coldly and dismissively rejects all opposing beliefs or understandings?
i have recently learned, that dialogues seem to benefit from communication and spaces that are supportive and empathetic in their approach to first understanding differences in reality and experiences, before entering discussions on truth and objective realities, and therefore confronting and challenging, and at times overcoming what are limiting beliefs -- from the irrational to the rational.
there's empiricism around this as well (SET: a framework for communicating with people who have vastly different experiences than you, including those labeled "delusional") -- it frames Support and Empathy as the necessary foundations in any dialogue, before one can discuss the difference in each party's Truth.
i'm not so sure the whole categorically "you have less right to sit at this table because i've judged your experience as non-real, and therefore less relevant) is compassionate communication, nor productive when systematically, algorithmically applied.