The solution, pretty far down in the story: > The solution is straightforward: Companies that deploy personalized algorithmic amplification should be liable fo

The solution, pretty far down in the story: > The solution is straightforward: Companies that deploy personalized algorithmic amplification should be liable for the content these algorithms promote. This can be done through a narrow change to Section 230, the 1996 law that lets social media companies host user-generated content without fear of lawsuits for libelous speech and illegal content posted by those users. So basically just ban an algorithmic feed by opening it up to endless lawsuits: > There is no A.I. system that could identify every possible instance of illegal content. Faced with potential liability for every amplified post, these companies would most likely be forced to scrap algorithmic feeds altogether. > Social media companies can be successful and profitable under such a regime. Twitter adopted an algorithmic feed only in 2015. Facebook grew significantly in its first two years, when it hosted user profiles without a personalized News Feed. Both platforms already offer nonalgorithmic, chronological versions of their content feeds. Notably Twitter was (AFAICT) losing money in 2015 and only started turning a profit 2-3 years later. Facebook grew in its first two years when it was a new hip young social network aimed at an exclusive group. > This solution would also address concerns over political bias and free speech. Social media feeds would be free of the unavoidable biases that A.I.-based systems often introduce. Any algorithmic ranking of user-generated content could be limited to nonpersonalized features like “most popular” lists or simply be customized for particular geographies or languages. Fringe content would again be banished to the fringe, leading to fewer user complaints and putting less pressure on platforms to call balls and strikes on the speech of their users. The top lists would no longer be personally customizable, but would still offer the same incentives to get to the top that would drive outrage-engagement anyway. Presumably the content that gets boosted would include Fox News (the top rated cable news network), Trump's twitter (when it existed), at least in Georgia Marjorie Taylor Greene (the sitting congresswomen that is an QAnon aficionado), etc. It's trading one algorithm that rewards engagement with another dumber more general one, that I believe would just be mostly the same content anyway. During the Rohingya genocide, the state armed forces were the ones committing genocide on behalf of the majority population, wouldn't the simple nonpersonalized "most popular" list for that geographic region just end up being the same thing?