[aiilns]

Facebook, twitter, etc left-leaning in the US sense where left is right and right is near the edge of the right spectrum I get.

But people-empowering? These large platforms are very much anti-democratic and anti-empowering people. Even more, subverting peoples wills about what they buy by managing what they see and algorithmically trying to guide what they should think is very much anti people.

Any people empowering is merely a side effect and not at all the purpose

[dane-pgp]

I see what you're saying, and there's definitely reason to question which entities have gained the most influence from social media (out of corporations, governments, or activists).

As for "the purpose" of social media, I suppose a simple reductive answer would be "to make money", but there were (and I think still are) people who are idealistic about social media giving a voice to the voiceless, even if you think that, in practice, commercial messages and misinformation end up having a bigger and more negative effect.

A thought experiment I think is useful is to imagine how Western political discourse could have been shaped (by politicians and the traditional media) if grassroots movements couldn't form and raise awareness through things like "hashtag activism".[0] The fact that authoritarian countries invest resources in censoring or banning social media also seems to confirm that they see it as a threat rather than a harmless distraction.

[0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism