“ The problem is this applies to any social media website with algorithmic recommendations.”

I genuinely see no problem with this. Mass scale so-called-social media increasingly overwhelmingly has no genuine value.

“How do you scale to a billion users?”

How about - don’t? Taking this as some obvious good reeks of Zuckerbergian “we’re connecting the globe.” Yeah, connecting, say, Jihadists around the globe. Facilitating Russian psyop units connecting to Joe 6-Pack in middle America. Connecting billions of $ in advertising to the hyper-specific data of users, to better sell them shit they overwhelmingly don’t need and would never want without being convinced their insufficient without it.

Is it fair to judge a system only by listing its cons? How do you come to the conclusion that the attention-inducing burden of supposedly meaningless content pushed by social media outweighs the benefits of letting Indians, Pakistanis, Israelis, Americans and Australians all chat on the same forum? Or read news instantly from any corner of the world - for the sole reason that an algorithm realised people found it interesting. How do you weigh the benefit of a platform that can raise global attention to a regional problem?

I think that your first example has much, much less value than we typically ascribe it. It would be far more beneficial if we (collectively) started to spend more time talking to/interacting with our neighbors and local community.

In terms of news that an algorithm realizes people find interesting — yeah, overwhelming the most “interesting” news is, if not outright fake or totally misleading, then highly incendiary. Regional issues have been covered for 100+ years by journalists in responsible and nuanced ways. Social media is not required and, I’d assert once more, actively harmful.