The like button or upvote or whatever has the same meaning: the viewer is signalling most of the time "I agree with this". Once you factor in other things like

The like button or upvote or whatever has the same meaning: the viewer is signalling most of the time "I agree with this". Once you factor in other things like quotes and replies you're no longer measuring "engagement". You're measuring and optimizing for "outrage". Thing is, social media didn't invent this. Outrage-as-engagement existed on TV long before social media existed. For decades, local news has pushed the "crime is out of control" narrative because it gets viewers and readers. Car chases, wall-to-wall coverage of violent and property crime, etc. To do this, local news needs to cooperation of the police so the net effect is local news becomes the propaganda arm of the police. Cable news has been on this bandwagon since at least the 1990s. > ... that social media has reprogrammed people to the purpose of speech. I disagree. We have this high-minded view of what speech used to be only because we weren't there. Go back and look at segregregation-era (let alone slavery-era) newspapers, speeches, etc.