Yes I think the "social platforms in general" part is key. It's hard to imagine what a social platform would look like that wasn't harmful in this way. Maybe chat apps I suppose, since 1-on-1 interaction is less of a popularity contest.

But anyway, I think the reason that facebook is aware of the problem but doing nothing is not that they are cynically exploiting people, and it's rather that they don't know how to solve it.

> Facebook and social platforms in general are just very efficient in amplifying all these <insert adjective here> elements of our culture

Is it as good at amplifying goodwill towards friends and neighbors as it is at amplifying negative sentiments?

I don't think the former scales, whereas the latter lends itself to amplification. Authenticity and community require much more complexity to uphold than anger, anxiety, and resentment.

I do take your point, and think that un-nuanced conversations about the evils of Social Media are unhelpful, but I think the scaling problem is the real danger. Negativity scales globally, positive sentiment and experience is limited to the individual or local level.

What do you think of any of this?

> Is it as good at amplifying goodwill towards friends and neighbors as it is at amplifying negative sentiments?

Probably, but because of salience asymmetry, we don't realise it. Like the good stuff is often more local as you say, and more distributed, while the bad stuff makes the news.

Yes with that I agree. But we are already toxic, let's not blame Facebook for all our problems. And I just don't see how Twitter, TikTok or anything similar is better; maybe we should just say teens can't be on social media ? Unlikely to pass.

Not all algorithms are created equal. TikTok's for instance seems to be biased to make weirdos find their niche, as opposed to the more binary steamrollers coming from Silicon Valley's monoculture.