Platforms

What is a Platform?

Platforms is used as a generalized term to refer to the online information ecosystems created by social media and other tech companies.

This can include operating systems, online games, Virtual Reality worlds with familiar names, messaging systems, email, or any other system that allows large numbers of people to connect and share ideas.

While social media as a concept is likely to be dated within a few years, new platforms will replace them. Therefore, discussions around social media issues, such as Freedom of Speech, will refer to them as Platforms since the same issues around hate speech, trolling, and content moderation that must be addressed.

Lowered Cost of Speech

Lies are Free. The truth costs money. Traditional print and broadcast media had significant production costs. Social media has zero production costs. Very few people would spend money on trolling, but they'll happily spend all day doing it for free.

Newsfeeds

The never-ending scrolling newsfeeds that these platforms offer provide an algorithmically-generated stream of consciousness that supplants your own with the random mix memes, pictures of children, outrage porn, and political hate speech.

The promotion of content via AI algorithms designed to maximize the time you spend scrolling down the endless rabbit hole is inherently antithetical to happiness.