the latter 🙂 my thinking (which I don't mind sharing) is that companies will get flooded with spam no matter what they post. People can just lie to get the gig, ruining the scene for everyone else. So I would validate freelancers against factual, checkable things like legal papertrail, github contributions, etc. There are a bunch of 'filter-heavy' platforms but I think they don't have the right focus. Also I would encourage that projects are developed in the open (FOSS), even if paid and for private purposes. It would help unlocking the current deadlock (few trusted freelancers -> no gigs -> fewer trusted freelancers)

(for making sense of what I say, bear in mind that freelancer != remote worker, whatever the contract says)