Solarpunk

I think it's important to distinguish between social media in general and specific platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Don't say things like "social media is designed to " when you really mean "Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit are designed to ".

The first step to fixing a problem is to identify it clearly and accurately.

The problems with social media in practice have little to do with the general concept of social media. There are ways we could regulate our way to a better internet, by heavily disincentivizing dark patterns, and still have thriving social media platforms.

IMHO, there are a couple things to focus on:

1. Restrict or outright ban data collection, sale, and sharing. Targeted advertising is not necessary for a healthy internet. It's gotten completely out of control. Fuck you and your 872 closest partners.

2. Mandate transparency in algorithms. Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc. have all manipulated their users by gaming their algorithms to maximize engagement, promote political ideas, or even outright conduct psychological experiments on unwitting users. There's no need for a sorting algorithm to be opaque to the user. It's feasible for it to be user-customizable to one degree or another.