[timdev2]

I think option 2 is a non-starter. If you're going have newspaper-like liability, I don't think anyone can afford to do that.

That leaves option 1. I suppose such a thing could exist, but it would be very different from social media as it exists. It sounds like a mash-up of twitter (accounts, follows, retweets) and 4chan (minimal moderation). Which would be interesting.

But you're still talking about basically making anything resembling current social media sites illegal.

You're also probably making any niche forum illegal too, unless it's niche enough that the operator can reasonably subject every post to prepublication review to try to avoid liability.

[toss1]

For sure, the same rapid-promotion algorithms would not be workable at scale if they were to run at current speeds.

But would it be so bad to have a system that is primarily unmolested by algos (i.e., mostly Opt-1) but with a slower algo that promotes more judiciously might make for a much less toxic SocMed environment?