How can we fix social media? Here’s an interesting article by Chris Walts:
The issue that needs to be addressed isn’t freedom of speech that’s we’ve had for decades, it’s freedom of reach.
As Aza Raskin explains, “We are guaranteed the right to freedom of speech. We are not guaranteed the right to freedom of reach. We need amplification liability for internet platforms.”
To fix “social media” I propose we run a test for a month or so: Let’s just get rid of all the like, dislike and follower count buttons from all social media platforms, remove most micro categories for ad targeting, show more random posts and even posts that would be considered contrary to your own believe bubble on everybody’s news feed and drastically limit the amount of posts, image and video uploads to just one per week. Require a minimum of 150 words per post.
Also, news organisations will not be allowed to report tweets as “news”.
Unless it’s some quality show such as “Fear Factor” or “Jersey Shore”. In that case reading tweets out loud is encouraged.
Then, check how quickly all the attention seekers, bored teens, bot farms and impulsive keyboard warriors will quietly disappear.