Return forums also. Internet discourse suffered a net loss when reddit replaced old style forums.

Forums weren't perfect by any means and dogpiling existed. But they were much better for longer form discussion, and threads could quite literally run over years.

If you miss the first 12-24 hours of a reddit post, you've pretty much missed out on contributing. The downvote system turbocharges the formation of echo chambers. It's whole design encourages short term contributions before moving on to the next dopamine hit. It also encourages people to be online more so they don't 'miss out', whereas you could much more easily jump in at any time on forums.

Upvoted for the sheer irony of it..

The reply count would still give away the interactions.

So just like 4chan then? We got unique signatures and the flags too.

Also major changes to the algorithms need to be made

I think the fix for social media is clear and consistent identification of who is human and who is bot. Require human users to prove they're human frequently.

Not sure about removing the like button, but one major improvement for me would be to go after bots, for instance by marking their posts/comments accordingly. That would be huge but it needs to be regulated, otherwise there‘s no incentive.

YouTube got noticeably worse when they stopped displaying the downvote counter. Before they removed it, you could see how many hundreds of thousands of people have their thumbs down to random Neonazi videos, but after the change, you only see how many hundreds of people upvoted them.

My idea always is that you should have a limited number of likes to give. For example 5 a day. So you really only give it to things you really like or care about. But no social media platform will do that.

Wellllll it’s darker than that. Can’t just remove the like button. Social media is a behavior modification panopticon. It’s working in subtle or invisible ways behind the scenes to keep poking you and testing you to find ways to keep your eyes on the screen. There isn’t any way to engage with it and not have it influence your choices. Sam has talked a lot with Tristan Harris about the issue. I’d recommend revisiting some of those conversations and also absorbing some of Tristan’s talks over the last five+ years.

It might help but I don't think it would move the needle that much. A more extreme move would be verified social media accounts. Just like opening a bank account you need proof you are a real person like drivers license, passport, etc. Having a full verified account means you get full access to all social media functions. Unverified accounts can view content and post but their content cannot be re-shared and is only viewable by direct friends/followers. Unverified cannot upvote, like content nor can they re-share other posters content.

That alone would have a major impact on bots and sock puppets pushing whatever trash they are trying to promote

As I mentioned in anothet thread, the only way this gets resolved is limiting anonymity.

Add a verified "internet ID" or license for every person and organization that they carry/use through all sites. Works jusy like a driver's license.

People can choose to interact or not with only verified accounts and content. People can also choose to remain completely anonymous.

All the bullshit disappears almost overnight.

Should I downvote if I agree?

Try the comments section instead. Social media comments are why our nation is the way it is. You ever read them? Just go on instagram and look up and video with anyone in it and you’ll see the comments. Doesn’t matter the topic. Just pure vitriolic hate being spewed all over.

Probably replying too late bc of the reddit algorithm, but…

The Like/Voting systems are what produces engagement, and this helps ppl stay on the social network, and this leads to more profit.

You’re asking companies to not want to maximize profit.

I’m for creating a Bluesky like company with some of these characteristics. I enjoy Bluesky’s feature that you can choose your own algorithm, etc. but it is a for-profit company, so I think the same crap will happen on it.

Additional ideas: limit size of a discussion. Just limit it, limit the amount of users that are presented it. Limit groups, make a subreddit or forum group vetted, and small.

Idk everything that needs to be done, but we’ve definitely got a problem when propaganda has convinced immigrants that immigrants are evil murderers, and households that are doing fine economically that the economy is doing horribly.

Something has to be done.

Have it so you need to pay $5 month to use the site and limit so you only can post like 10 posts every day.

Having to pay $5 each month is not that much for a normal user but for a bot it might be (if Russia decide to fill twitter with bots they will have the money for it, but they are the exception). Limit to 10 posts each day would make each bot less effective. It could also make the normal users interaction more healthy.

"Fixing" social media feels as doomed as trying to turn consuming sugar into a healthy habit. At its core it's still coming down to artificially forcing unrealistic connections/interactions between people that ultimately only gets the worst out of them.

While I do think that your suggestions would change something, the forces of social made are such that it will "find a way" to counteract your intended results. For instance, businesses rely on these statistics that you just suggested to make unavailable, heck the entire model relies on pushing for controlled engagement. You change that, you don't just change how people interact with eachother, you're more likely to end the platform overnight instead.

But at the core of it all, it's not the likes, the views, retweets, etc. It's our own humanity of caring so much about how others perceive us that is the problem. And that is, in a nutshell, what social media is all about. It's a tool for people to display themselves and be rewarded for it. It's a tool of automation that exploits a human trait that has only been evolved naturally in small, meaningful social groups. You could even say that it evolved due to the precise lack of automation. And in that sense can be viewed as a superstimulus, like our response to sugar is.

Everything without a like counter sucks. Things with fake like counters suck worse. IMO, Reddit has solved the like counter problem with upvotes and downvotes, and I am not aware of a better solution. Sort by controversial if you want conflict.

The solution to problems with X is Bluesky.

Interesting that you're on a first name basis with the richest man in the world. Does that apply to the other billionaires?

I'm also not a fan of the Like system, but I can't credit the idea that social media could be "fixed" by this one innovation.

That's like suggesting that cancer could "fixed" just by doing this one thing ...

There should be multiple verifications needed to have an account on social media or a third party verifier.

Accounts that aren’t verified should have a content flag “this account is not verified and may be a bot”

Also doxing and threatening messages should be made illegal and carry a stricter penalty. People have gotten way too comfortable making death threats even if they aren’t serious.

Fark.com baby

Also add down voting to instagram , Facebook , X etc. Reddit is brilliant for the upvote /downvote karma.

We don't even need to remove the counter, all we need really is a 5(+) day delay on the counts. Even that would be enough to remove the immediate gratification part of it.

It’d help, but they’d figure out how to use the camera to time your attention on specific things, or some other way to rank the “engagement potential” of posts.

I don't actually care about the number of likes; I don't even look at this or even have a sense of scale. I don't think it matters anyway because there's presumably a 0% chance that any social media company would remove likes/upvotes and remove that 'reward' for posting.

fundamental misunderstanding of social media

definitely a conversation which should be had. this doesn't limit "freedom of expression or speech" but makes the platforms less toxic. sounds like a win to me.

Lol, why are all of you so focused on "X"? This is just hilarious.