Thing is we understand at an academic level that this is a platform design issue not some abstract problem about free speech or personal responsibility.
The solution is to demand governments force social media companies to implement algorithmic friction coefficients.
It’s simply that the economic incentives involved mean there is no political will to make it happen.
The ruling class benefits from the chaos, division and confusion as perpetuated by social media in its current form. They like it just fine the way it is now.
Some Research:
Aral & Eckles (MIT, 2019): Introducing friction reduces misinformation spread without limiting freedom of expression.
• Mozilla & Stanford Studies (2020–2022): Friction (such as unsharing prompts) reduces fake news virality by up to 50%.
• Twitter’s 2021 experiments: Users changed or deleted tweets 25% of the time when shown fact-check prompts before posting.
The solution is to demand governments force social media companies to implement algorithmic friction coefficients.
It’s simply that the economic incentives involved mean there is no political will to make it happen.
The ruling class benefits from the chaos, division and confusion as perpetuated by social media in its current form. They like it just fine the way it is now.
Some Research:
Aral & Eckles (MIT, 2019): Introducing friction reduces misinformation spread without limiting freedom of expression. • Mozilla & Stanford Studies (2020–2022): Friction (such as unsharing prompts) reduces fake news virality by up to 50%. • Twitter’s 2021 experiments: Users changed or deleted tweets 25% of the time when shown fact-check prompts before posting.