And the intent is to capture your gaze for advertising purposes. The results are uniformly both horrible and addictive.

And with the proliferation of online casinos, a generation of compulsive gamblers too.

Now you hear every piece of shit thought from random people. Then you have AI moderating sites like Quora. And people post AI created narrative as their own. Bullet points and all. It's awful.

But the concern is well-founded.

It could be said that social media reflect the society as a whole – good and bad.

Media generates culture and transforms society. We can look back at the printing press, which while transforming society and vastly increasing literacy, also was a major factor in the 150 years of religious conflict that tore apart Europe. Every media technology breakthrough has had enormous and frequently destructive impacts.

from my feed.

But yeah, if you accept/believe everything that pops up, you are in a deep pile of crud. As long as I -- and others that disagree -- can respond to white wing crud, it's OK. Wouldn't use any sites if I couldn't record my opinion.

Why is the House so full of crazy idiots?

Being representative, it's closer to the People.

but I've been using Spoutible. It has a smaller user base, and a lot less negativity of the other apps.

Targeted mass communication gives talking points to the disaffected. Positive feed back for posting those talking points.
Deeper is powerful people purposely spreading chaos because they profit from it.

I'm on Reddit a lot, I never get garbage. Because i don't click o. It.

When there are no cops on the beat, shit goes to hell.

That's much of cyberspace.

Advertising!

Views and clicks over absolutely everything else.

Targeting and "surveillance capitalism" cause monstrous data centers to manage your data (and your life)

Craig's List started out as a server in Craig Newmark's closet. Without the surveillance, life is so simple.

Everything goes, though, until recently. Section 230 was dealt a massive blow

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judges-rule-big-techs-free-ride-on
Algorithm found guilty of editorial influence, not mere pass-through.

This story is gigantic, and of course, neglected, since it would ruin the exception that creates billions at the expense of civility and decency.

peoples minds are swamped with bad data

One of the greatest scince fiction movies from the 50s.

Spoiler

A highly advanced, almost godlike race, the Krell, that was thousands of years ahead of mankind - both technologically and ethically - is destroyed overnight when they put a machine online that can materialize anything a being would want - just by thinking of it. But
the Krell were not able to control their own subconscious desires, and thus the machine created monsters that ended up wiping them out.

Social media has released our Id Monster.

There are subreddits that help people. It has helped me find support in sub groups such as TBI (traumatic brain injury, concussion, etc. I felt all alone and crazy with some of my symptoms. It helped to know I was not alone. It helped to hear what others do to make it through. It helps to know that like me, some people seem to think they will never get better.

Are there sub groups that have bullies? I don’t doubt it, but it has been an invaluable tool for me.

I don’t see any crap on either platform. I know it exists but the algorithm doesn’t show it to me.

the past where being an asshole was met with real and sometimes even physically painful consequences, people can now show just how dumb, rude, selfish, and hateful they really are without the threat of swinging knuckles to deliver them the justice they so deserve.
It gets even worse when things are anonymous.
Hate has consumed this world.