I don't think fostering calm discussion is a necessary goal for large-scale social media platforms. Some percentage of conversations will get heated--both onlin

I don't think fostering calm discussion is a necessary goal for large-scale social media platforms. Some percentage of conversations will get heated--both online and offline--but that's natural and is something society is able to deal with. The danger of social media is that it fosters radicalization by connecting extremists far more efficiently than is possible offline, and that in creating communities of extremists who give themselves psychological permission to act out their beliefs. The consequences of this spill out into the real world in ways that society is not fully able to manage. People using social media to call each other shitheads for supporting (or not supporting) Joe Biden isn't a problem. No one outside of those involved in the conversation will have any reason to care and the people involved will get over it. Social media connecting unhinged people, however, and helping them create a parallel reality where burning down 5G towers becomes the right thing to do to protect people from autism, is very much a problem. This kind of activity spills over into the real world and does have direct consequences. Regulations of social media platforms ought to be far, far more concerned with mitigating the risks of the latter problem than with maintaining civility.