[nikitaga]

The main reason for populism is that the incumbent governments do a consistently poor job satisfying their constituents' preferences and interests, so people get desperate to find something / someone different that might work better. Always has been, always will be, social media or not.

Example: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4230288

We haven't invented a governance structure yet that would be immune to this, although some are better than others. I'm sure the current social media algorithms are harmful as well. You can ban viral algorithms, but the hostile actors whose literal job it is to drive polarization / populism will just find other strategies to effectively deliver their message.

"Education" is nice and all, but millions of people keep smoking despite the obvious harm and decades of education, not to mention the many limitations, taxes, and bans. I mention smoking as an obviously-bad-thing that everyone knows is bad. Education succeeded, and yet, here we are, still puffing poison. But you can also look already-polarized political topics. There's been no shortage of education on those topics either, but if that worked well enough, we wouldn't be decrying populism right now.

[lovlar]

> "Education" is nice and all, but millions of people keep smoking despite the obvious harm and decades of education

I think there’s a missed opportunity for media to make it explicit that by giving their time and attention to these platforms, people are directly generating profit. Way too many assume their involvement has no real effect, but it does. I suspect people would be far less willing to log in if it were clear that each session generates, on average, X dollars in revenue. It’s a business model most people still haven’t fully digested.

[whattheheckheck]

It needs to be looked at holistically.

Daniel Schmattenberger said one kpi for good society is the inverse of addiction behaviors.

Maybe a 5 why's (and beyond) on people's addictions can help get to the root cause.

It's usually structural and systemic and not a moral failing on the individual choice problem

[nikitaga]

I know all about their business models, yet I couldn't care less how much money Facebook gets from ad clicks. Them making a profit is not directly harming me.

The things that are harming me are a lot more complicated than that, but people don't have the attention span to be educated about such complex issues. It's easier than ever to spread "education" now. The fact that it doesn't stick is not some grand conspiracy – most people simply don't care.