The case against social media is stronger than you think

Reactions to the Essay Itself

• Many commenters bounced off the piece due to its extreme length, academic tone, and self-conscious “long essay” framing.
• Some criticized jargon (“epistemic”, “putative”) and “X-is-worse-than-you-think” clickbait style.
• Others argued that long-form argument is appropriate for a complex topic, but still wanted tighter editing.

Algorithmic Engagement vs. “Social Media”

• A recurring theme: the real problem is algorithmic, engagement-maximizing feeds, not online discussion per se.
• Engagement optimization is seen as inevitably favoring outrage, extremism, and “trash” over nuance and sanity.
• Several contrast this with older models: chronological feeds, forums, mailing lists, and HN-style sites where everyone sees roughly the same thing.

Polarization, Racism, and Historical Context

• Strong disagreement over whether social media meaningfully increased polarization or merely exposes long-standing divides.
• One camp: racism, propaganda, and political hatred long predate social media (Jim Crow, Willie Horton, RTLM in Rwanda, Nazi/Soviet propaganda); social media is just another channel.
• The other camp: algorithmic feeds add “fuel to the fire,” accelerate radicalization, and create echo chambers, even if they didn’t create the underlying animus.
• Some argue social media also breaks mainstream-media monopolies and surfaces suppressed viewpoints (e.g., Gaza coverage), so it both amplifies propaganda and counters it.

Anonymity, Identity, and Responsibility

• One side: full anonymity is “a weight society cannot bear,” enabling harassment, bots, and extremism at massive scale.
• Others counter that plenty of abuse happens under real names, and anonymity is crucial for dissenters, vulnerable groups, and whistleblowers.
• Several suggest the core harm is less anonymity than recommender systems and the permanence/indexing of everything said.

Evidence, Regulation, and Moral Framing

• Some distrust “social media panic,” seeing cherry-picked studies and status-quo shilling; they want clearer causal evidence, noting mixed or context-dependent research results.
• Others say the research is already overwhelmingly negative, especially for youth, and compare platforms to cigarettes or pollution.
• Proposed interventions include: banning or sharply restricting ads, especially political; liability for algorithmic promotion of harmful content; age limits; open, auditable recommendation algorithms; or even treating social media access like a regulated vice.

Individual Experiences and Alternatives

• Multiple people report feeling dramatically better after quitting or severely limiting mainstream social platforms.
• Smaller, topic-focused, or federated spaces (forums, Mastodon, curated Discords, HN) are often perceived as healthier, though some warn they can become echo chambers.