[coldtea]

>My government has been talking for a while making the case that social media use makes us dumber, sadder, and more scared. I believe it's true that they also see that playing out in elections, but that's not where they want to solve a problem.

The governments themselves are "dumber, sadder, and more scared". They are worried because social media puts regular people talking on equal footing to official propagandas (being able to reach everybody else). That's what they fear, because they have the lowest approval ratings and legitimization in over half a century, and they're also making everything shittier and shittier to the benefit of their corporate overlords.

[schubidubiduba]

You couldn't be more wrong. There's no equal footing when propaganda buys you thousands of bots to parrot what you want on every related post. And there is no ability to "reach everyone" when intransparent algorithms decide what reaches who. Moreover, some kind of content is explicitly suppressed and censored.

[zrn900]

Statistics showed that bots don't change opinions. The only reason why certain establishments scream about them is to explain their election losses. People have very deep biases, and 'randos' blabbering online does not change them. It doesn't matter whether those 'randos' are bots or are real.

[coldtea]

All of that is still irrelevant if the people can still express themselves. The truth can rise on top of bots.

The problem is the algorithm and the "explicitly suppressed and censored" and that's on the governments and corporations. So that's the worst argument for giving the government more control.

[delusional]

> All of that is still irrelevant if the people can still express themselves. The truth can rise on top of bots.

That argument seems easily debunked by pointing at the effectiveness of propaganda, which is in its essence indistinguishable from bots.

[phatfish]

I will agree that governments are happy to bend the knee to corporations. But corporations control social media, so why would the corporations themselves not further their agenda using the platforms they control? Be that simply letting chaos ensue (see the UK Southport riots that were sparked by a "news story" from Pakistan) or from tuning the algorithms directly.

People have control over their government, at least in democracies that are functioning to a basic level (see Hungary recently). But they have zero control over social media, in fact the only organisations that can control global billion dollar tech companies are nation state governments...

[CalRobert]

It could be both

[malka1986]

they have the lowest approval ratings and legitimization in over half a century, because they're making everything shittier and shittier to the benefit of their corporate overlords.