Social media removed the corrective elements of previous mechanisms. There's no longer a "trusted party" who helps you when you're in the wrong, there are "enemies" who "dunk on you."

The purpose of broadcasting isn't the same as conversation. People want the result of a positive interaction, but they do that by chasing hundreds of negative ones.

The negative interactions are actually better for the platform as they are (in some studies) almost 10x as effective at driving engagement. So the companies looking for "the most engaging" communities, drive more negative interactions.

The people looking for the most clicks, chase the "dunking" and "counter dunking" interactions, and it becomes at best 90% of the platform, at in reality like 99% of what you see while you're doom scrolling.

Social media is awful, and draws out our worst impulses as a business model.