[Bedon292]

Do you not expect people to self select into the same divisive social networks no matter the communication platform that they are using? How does offering yet another platform for them to do so undo any of the harm already caused?

[elviejo]

Social networks most important metric is "engagement" number of minutes spent on the site. And turns out that it is human nature to engage with content that it's "dangerous" so the social networks have optimized to show divisive content.

A free social network, will work to improve the happiness of their users... Which will include measures like limit the amount of hours you want to spend on the site itself. (Like HN does by the way)

Or like I'm in NYC today, who wants to meet? Let's have a real interaction

[twiceaday]

This sounds like "people eat too much fast food so we will invent vegetables." Surely better but most people wont care. The hard part is gamifying what is good.

[grishka]

Problem #1 with modern social media is pervasive recommendations. You can't just follow a bunch of people you already know and be done with it. With a few exceptions, the platform itself will incessantly try its damnest to expose you to content from outside of your network because that's what drives metrics.

People can't be harmed by seeing updates from their friends and from communities they deliberately chose to follow. It's very important that every single post you see in your feed is a direct consequence of your informed decision to follow its author.

[loudmax]

I don't think there's much hope for people that go out of their way to insulate themselves into echo chambers. The key is removing the economic incentive for corporations to deliberately build these echo chambers and set them against one another. It's not that open federated systems will solve all problems, it's that a number of these problems will cease to be exacerbated. This may sound like a small thing, but at scale, the impact is enormous.

[yobbo]

One problem with the walled gardens is they allowed themselves to be influenced/controlled by politics and public opinion "campaigners".

The harm thus far caused can of course not be undone.