Maybe the “right” grayhat/blackhat way to handle it is to use high-quality, convincing sock puppet accounts to manufacture consensus against the “conspiracy theorists”. It’s not ethical but its the more effective alternative if you’re already at the point of locking threads where people continue to point out that you still haven't fixed the problem.
Great idea. Google could even use their fake AI to respond in real-time to negative YouTube videos and find the hidden positive user sentiment under a cup.