I don't want Mark Zuckerberg, or the government, deciding what's garbage. If they can empower the user to filter this stuff out on their own accord, that's great.

The second problem is that the medium itself is garbage. Algorithmic feeds strongly encourage clickbait and sensationalism. Removing content does nothing to change the dynamic.

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dlisboa 3 days ago | parent [-]

So, do absolutely nothing is your plan?

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frumplestlatz 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Sometimes doing absolutely nothing is the right thing to do. Not everything can be improved through top-down intervention, and many things can only be made worse.

The comment you’re replying to raised the idea of empowering the users. That’s probably the way to look, but the danger is always if we do that using top down enforcement in a way that promulgates more harm, including stifling vibrant and necessary speech.

My very radical opinion is that section 230 of the CDA was our original sin. The Internet was better when it wasn’t divided into a few centrally managed private social media silos. It’s better to have a vibrant, messy, competitive, and very grass roots public square.

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behringer 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. The internet is awesome and the government will destroy it.

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roguecoder 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ah yes, the genocides, fascists and blackmail are just delightful parts of that awesome internet that any kind of cooperative governance would simply _ruin_

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behringer 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

genocides are happening online? That's pretty remarkable.

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kazen44 3 days ago | parent [-]

no, but incentives to commit genocide are spread through social media. [0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide

	▲	parineum 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I bet people used phones, letters and the pony Express before that.
	▲	behringer 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The government committed that genocide...

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heavyset_go 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

The genocides would have happened with age verification or not, don't conflate the two.

Ironically, the solution to both the proliferation of genocide and social media causing harm to kids is the same, and it's a solution that helps everyone: legislate the source of the problem, the product itself and what we colloquially call "the algorithm".

Algorithmic optimization and manipulation that causes harm needs to be banned wholesale, across the board, from advertising to social media.

Instead, we get legislation that not only makes it easier to identify everyone as verifiably monetizable users to platforms, it also makes it easier to keep the proles in their place.