Social Media: How to fix them before they become the biggest news platform

post by Sam G (sam-g) · 2025-03-13T07:28:51.487Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

Contents

  Design
    News Analysis forum
    Dynamic user posts using structured citations
None
2 comments

The underlying design goal of modern social media is to make money, regardless of the real value they generate. Their customers are advertisers and data brokers, and their product is their users. By design and in practice, social media maximize the amount of time that users are on the application. The real-world effects of social media time-maximizing algorithms on the information space are sensationalism^[1], and atomization via pockets of radicalizing media that are not in contact with dissenting views. 

This media design is something like the default state that one would expect, when imagining all the possibilities that the internet could facilitate: forums that have algorithms to keep people entertained with a 'feed'. From the point of view of someone in 1989 speculating on the new democratic possibilities of the internet, I’m sure they would be disappointed to find that the money-grubbing default remains the state-of-the-art, and confused at how information has never been more available yet more chaotic and contradictory. This apparent chaos and contradiction, after all, is resolvable to a large degree with logic and empiricism. This task is too big for one person, but solvable if only haphazard discourse generated by current social media sites is productively channeled. Social media are an increasingly large platform for news^[2], and moving forward, people should not be content with adopting a dysfunctional system as the forum of the future.

This negative state of affairs shouldn't overshadow the huge positives innovations that social media has, which be carried over when designing new forums. Social media gives a voice to people in an incredible way, and can connecting those who otherwise wouldn’t be. How can we extend these social benefits to information sharing? How do we make social media a place where people can learn, hear counterpoints, grow, and quickly take in the state of a subject from all sides, instead of being blasted by theatrical talking heads? 

Design

News Analysis forum

Everybody everywhere criticizes the news coming from at least some sources, and for good reason. Not only is reporting sometimes incorrect, but the mode of reporting can often exclude details, put a political spin on something, or simply leave out half the story. It takes a critical and well read eye to take in news. But there's no reason that people should need to individually criticize and come up with their own take on news. There's no such thing as perfect news reporting, but people can collectively correct for the flaws, if only they had the forum to do so. Current social media has a comments section, but that is not often a constructive logical environment. Moreover, these comments are not meant to be read and catalogued as a resource, so they are not incentivized to give a responsible take. Often, comments are removed altogether for certain posts. 

If instead, a medium had page dedicated to news stories that was meant to be a community grounding to an article, story or wire report, this would become the best source for reading news, since diverse criticism and fact-checking comes with the story^[3]. On the comment-writer's side, it would elevate an atomized individual's criticism into a community service. These news analysis forum pages would act as a jumping-off point for the second, more important feature that I'm proposing. 

In practice, a user would find or search for a news story on this new website/app, which is posted by users in the form of an article, or single-subject video on a topic, like those posted on social media by news organizations. If they couldn't find it, like a Wikipedia article that isn't written, they can easily post the source, which creates its forum for discussion. In the forum, people could discuss the validity of the news source, and suggesting other news coverage on the same story, which links to that corresponding analysis forum page. There should also be an option for users to write more detailed investigations or opinions on the news source, which are also subject to the same forum of criticism as the story itself. These modular units of news source and analysis posts will be a good way for readers to dig into a topic without needing to do the investigation themselves, and can be used as hyperlinked sources for the next feature. 

Dynamic user posts using structured citations

With a posting system that dynamically pulls from the news analysis pages, and other forms of citations that are necessarily subject to that same level of scrutiny, users write with a level of factual rigor that is rare even in professional journalism. This overt structure incentivizing clarity and quality can correct for the fact that users often make mistakes: they'll have the readers to check them on their facts, and their logic. With the user feedback on the sources and their arguments modularly, they'll then be able to modify their posts to represent the truth, in a sort of community editorial process. 

With this kind of structured discourse, it will be easy for writers to generate new ideas and explore otherwise provocative subjects without compromising their factual grounding or communicability to readers, regardless of their preconceived notions.  

 

I believe this is the foundation of a design that can improve the information space dramatically. Check out publicsphere.fyi if you're interested in supporting the project to create a medium that streamlines the ever-continuing process societal discourse. 
 

1. ^{^}

   This sensationalism often takes the form of personality news commentators: “Ask someone in your life under 40 where they get the news. Odds are they’ll mention a non-newsroom podcaster or YouTuber.”
   Julia Munslow Senior Platform Editor on the Social Visuals Team at The Wall Street Journal
   https://www.twipemobile.com/what-will-the-news-media-industry-look-like-in-2025/

2. ^{^}

   Pew RS Poll on media platforms shows younger people tend to use social media as a news source more: 
   https://www.pewresearch.org/journalism/fact-sheet/news-platform-fact-sheet/

3. ^{^}

    “Shifting attention to accuracy can reduce misinformation online,”   
    Why do Americans share so much fake news? One big reason is they aren’t paying attention, new research suggests
   https://www.niemanlab.org/2021/03/why-do-americans-share-so-much-fake-news-one-big-reason-is-they-arent-paying-attention-new-research-suggests/

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