I'm fairly confident that widespread internet-based multicast communication is almost solely responsible for many of the profoundly weird things that have happe

I'm fairly confident that widespread internet-based multicast communication is almost solely responsible for many of the profoundly weird things that have happened in global politics for the last six years. It's a very powerful new tool for communication that has hit very fast and without enough time for society to adapt to the change. A textbook example of accelerating technological change throwing a monkey wrench into what seemed to be a well-oiled machine. It's fair enough to say that Facebook is only responsible for a significant part of this, as there's also Twitter, YouTube, Instagram (pre-acquisition), Snapchat, TikTok and so on, and there would be others if these did not exist. The root cause is smartphones, the Internet and cheap bandwidth & servers. But in the context of regulation, finding out how to deal with this new weapon of communication, starting with a case study of the biggest seems like an excellent beginning. I honestly think unregulated social media has the potential to do more damage than unregulated tobacco sales, if by regulation we mean "government-enforced rules". But I don't mean to frame it as a context; it seems obvious that both are a good idea.