Yeah, the formulation is a bit off here. With opt-out, you have no way to measure consent, because you can’t discern between people who actually consent and those who just haven’t opted out, for lack of knowledge or other reasons.
These societies have simply weighed up the two options and decided that saving lives is more important than leaving personal freedom intact at all costs.
I stopped using Reddit a few years before the whole stupidity, because the culture was fucking with my head.
Then I did the Mastodons for two years or so, with Lemmy eventually entering the mix. And then as Lemmy got more users and content, it took over as my preferred platform.