Here is a point that I think hasn't been raised yet:
You need consent from all parties messaging back and forth.
One party consenting to Netflix/Spotify/etc accessing your chat messages, is not enough.
I would hypothesize, that they didn't only grant access when all sides had consented, as the API was (supposedly) primarily used to share media with your friends, something that's pretty innocuous and shouldn't require "chat message read" access at all.
I disagree, we should always, when available, use our best source of knowledge to argue about issues. Always. I see no reason to say, "hmm let's go and use lesser quality evidence."
I would even say that, if you don't know the science about an issue, it might be the wisest to refrain from having a strong position on a matter, at all.
Sure, many people do not understand statistics, I would dare postulate many many scientists don't properly understand stats ;)
But, if we do away with the science domain, people will resort to another domain, which is normally trumped in debates by scientific arguments. And that is, anecdotal evidence. And people will use it just as much and as falsely to defend their believes.
What do you consider to be the right context for public debates about these thorny issues?
What besides communicating with each other about those issues will move us forward?
I don't think they will go away by themselves and I agree that some cannot be resolved, but then we should politely agree to disagree, after having explained our reasoning for each other's viewpoints, no?
Disclaimer: I work in this space and we get this reaction quite often, so I am happy to read your thoughts on this.
Here is one I participated in about G censoring in CN: https://www.kialo.com/18304/