I’d be OK if twitter and Facebook just died out and nothing replaces them. I left FB in 2012 because of its toxicity. Twitter was working great until they started pushing stuff that my connections like. The whole tower needs to come down and we really need to consider what a healthy information network looks like - because this ain’t it.
"We’re only allowing trusted journalists to post, blocking disinformation before it has a chance to root itself in our systems."<p>Sure.<p>Perhaps that's why Google shut it's RSS Reader down, too expensive to moderate.
So the latest fake news is that everyone is being told to shut off operating system updates permanently on their devices to "block apple and google". ::slams head into desk::<p>We're already seen that censoring fake news on vaccine safety only has fanned the flames because the perpetrators point out "they wouldn't censor us if it wasn't true!". So yeah, while these platforms have the right to do so, when you have a monopoly, it's probably the worst option for society.<p>Not only that, but as the conversations disappear from public view, they move underground... and I have no doubts this will be used to justify the next surveillance bill.
I am thinking that social media is inherently bad.<p>Let's say I subscribe to RSS feeds. Maybe I subscribe to a few dozen sites. With multiple writers, I might exposed to the stupidity of maybe a few hundred people.<p>With social media, I am in a sense subscribed to the stupidest, or most outrageous posts of tens or millions of people. Stupidity sells. Outrage sells.