Imagine if Elon's goal with Twitter wasn't to unfetter everyone to turn it into another 4chan of "free speech absolutism" but instead had a plan to help make social media LESS toxic to everyone including those posting (and... himself since he's clearly not his best when on Twitter vs in person)?
Social media can be made less toxic but rules are required.
I have participated in such attempts several years ago. AKASHA was a trial attempt at a decentralized social network that is still trying.
I abandoned it when it seemed to become yet another gateway for crypto scamming and still allowed anonymous posting.
To really fix social networks requires addressing the biological component. This is the 3rd rail not to be touched since the internet early days. This would remove the brain reaction that is a kind of addiction cycle.
Andy Grove referred to it as a war for eyeballs. Addiction design is a tool in this war. EM has the appearance IMO of being in denial of such addiction.
One of the basic rules required is that there can be no hiding in anonymous posting. This is unpopular.
Most of the required rules for a less toxic social network are unpopular. Unpopular to EM himself in his addiction even.
Then the rules themselves diminish the likelihood of financial success.
So a structure that delivers the goal of a less toxic social network also dampens any chance of financial success. This is pretty well understood and has been confirmed IMO in many attempts over years of experiments.
Each rule that removes toxicity also removes what is of interest to humans. So no one is much interested in a less toxic network.
We would allow our own children to be harmed rather than fix our cultural addiction to toxic social networks. The entrepreneurs that build these toxic social networks know this. History will be very unkind to them.
There is interest in topic specific forums such as this one where anonymous personas are permitted but attempts strong moderation. We are paid to be here with topic specific information that has utility or can be monetized derivatively in the case of investing. It is a workable compromise but imperfect.
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