Are you trying to say that biology is the root cause? The content is successful as it emits a reaction from us. Whether a good reaction or a bad one, we still engage with it. Whether you're binge watching a TV show you love or hate scrolling a subreddit that makes you angry, the content is designed to elicit some form of reaction that keeps you coming back or memetically passing it on.

However that is not a new development in our biology, we've always been that way. It's just that we're exploiting those aspects of ourselves more and more. Weaponising it to extract as much profit as possible.

You could go another way, I guess, and say that capitalism is the root cause as "profit at any cost" allows the justification of these actions.

There are two aspects to the root cause. You mentioned the first part, basic human biology pushes us towards content that elicits a reaction. The second part is that lies inherently have an advantage over the truth to elicit a reaction because they are only limited by human imagination while the truth is limited obviously by the truth.

As long as humans have the free will to engage with whatever content they choose, there is a natural human reaction to engage with lies. Therefore, the idea that truth eventually wins out over lies is inherently flawed. It isn't the fault of capitalism or algorithms. The problem is human nature doesn't respond properly to bad speech. We can't change human nature, so the only option left is stopping bad speech.

We haven't recently invented the concept of a lie, so the idea of "that's just how we are" rings hollow. People are being radicalised by qanon, incels, redpill, the alt-right, <insert the group you dislike> at an increased rate because they're being force fed this content on a daily basis, and they're being siloed into custom fit echochambers by algorithms optimising for their engagement.

Which brings us back to my original point. Algorithms are just a multiplier.

If you give people two history books, one with actual history and one with interesting conspiracy theories sprinkled throughout, most people are going to find the one with the conspiracies more interesting. Stopping people from photocopying the book will help slow the spread of the false information in the book, but it does nothing to stop the underlying problem that people are writing fake history books.

It's a multiplier sure, but this is a completely new issue we're having (at least on this scale). It's caused by social media, that's not really up for debate.

You cannot prevent lies or deception, that's not within the realm of what we're capable of. Don't let good be the enemy of perfect.

This isn't a new issue created by either social media or the internet. It is an innate problem with absolute free speech and has directly led to the US entering multiple wars over the last 125 years. It doesn't matter if the lies are disseminated through newspapers, cable TV, or Twitter. Mass media is just an amplification device. That has been true for centuries. The only new aspect is that the rate of amplification is increasing which leads to the underlying issue becoming even more problematic.

I don't blame you for having a US centric view point but I will say that this issue is affecting far more countries than just the US.

[edit] Sorry, to directly reply: I'm unsure what it is that you would prefer happen? Nothing? It's just the done thing?

I would argue that the reason this is becoming a bigger problem across the world is because the US is exporting its ideas of free speech through the internet, tech companies, and social media in a way that wasn't done in prior generations of mass media.

I think we need to change the way we think about free speech. We already have laws that restrict free speech when that speech it defrauds or defames an individual. We need more general laws when it is society at large that is defrauded or defamed.

Would Chinas inability to contain conversations give you pause as to how achievable that goal is?

Would you be looking at criminalising lies and the spreading of them, even without knowing its a lie? If so, how many people would be prosecuted? If not, how will it help?

China is trying to control conversations as a means of controlling the population. That comes with its own problems that are unrelated to regulating speech.

>Would you be looking at criminalising lies and the spreading of them, even without knowing its a lie?

I don't know what you mean by this. We don't know whether a potentially defamatory statement is a lie or not until there is a trial. This would be no different. We don't need a Federal Truth Commission or anything. American society already seems satisfied letting a jury decide what is or is not a lie today.

So in effect you don't care about the issue and are content with how things are? I'm sorry, I'm not sure that I understand what stance you're taking. Misinformation is not an issue to you, would that be correct?

Requiring a trial to do anything about a lie on social media would mean that there would be no change. By the time the trial comes, the lie is old news and there is some new conspiracy taking grip.

That would be, essentially, meaningless. Not in any way, shape, or form preventative.

If we lower the speed limit of every road in the country, the average speed of cars would drop even if we didn't increase the number of people we ticket for speeding.

We should change our laws to allow for more restrictions on purposeful lies that damage society. We shouldn't allow ExxonMobil to spend decades researching carbon emissions while knowingly lying about the conclusions of that research to the public. They should face repercussions for that as well as the people who knowingly spread that misinformation. I think that would be more effective than what you seem to be proposing which appears to be either limitations on recommendation algorithms or ad supported content.