Why Speech Platforms Can Never Escape Politics | National Affairs

Second, we must move beyond thinking of platform content moderation policies as “the solution” and prioritize rethinking design. Policy establishes guardrails and provides justification to disrupt certain information cascades, but does so reactively and, presently, based on the message substance. Although policy shapes propagation, it does so

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To optimize for viral growth, today’s social platforms are designed to feature entertainers and sensationalized content in a one-to-many fashion to generate more ad impressions... this is inducing divisiveness and reducing human interaction to just tapping on a like button.

Rather than hold on to technostalgia for a time when it wasn’t this bad, sometimes it is worth asking what it would take to uninvent social media, so that we can chart a course for the web we want—a web that promotes democracy, knowledge, care, and equity. Otherwise, every unexplained decision by tech companies about access to information potential... See more