Someone made the observation that the problems started when things changed from social networking (family/friend) to social media. From actually keeping up with people to 'keeping up' with content.
I'm sure I could (indeed, I do) get pertinent updates from actual friends and family with <10 minutes of checking messages, voicemails, and emails per day. I wouldn't mind increasing that to 15 minutes if it meant I got a few less relevant but still interesting updates about their lives.
But that's way, way under the daily minutes spent by most people on TikTok. And if I wanted/my addiction demanded another hit of that "Oh, neat!" buzz when I'd just put my phone down 10 minutes ago, there's little chance that anyone in my small circle would have posted a single thing in the interval.
I don't spend nearly enough time in my group chats to justify Facebook's valuation. And there are no ads (yet, I'm sure they're working on it) in those chats.
Social sites used that power to publish their own stuff under the same protection.
That has broken the system. Social media sites are 100% responsible for all the misinformation, scams, and hate that they publish or promote. And they should be legally accountable for it.
"We are not accountable because the users are the ones posting the media"... but we post and promote whatever we want is a terrible way for the world to work.