I've long wanted to build social media which is focused on correct information rather than marketing. The main problem of existing social media is that the environment encourages the spread of
- novel sounding (interesting) or emotionally triggering, and
- poorly checked information
Regardless of algorithm, Twitter promotes fast re-sharing without thought (retweet is easy), short messages which make it difficult to explain a nuanced position. Even without an algorithm, this produces a Darwinian environment which favors replication (retweeting) of certain types of tweets over others.
I suspect a lot can be changed by changing the base environment. For example, retweeting could become "intent to retweet", which isn't applied until information gets a peer review. Peers can be calculated via a per-topic reputation system + reference users (examplars). Automatic reviews could at least check that you've included references...
- novel sounding (interesting) or emotionally triggering, and - poorly checked information
(see https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559).
Regardless of algorithm, Twitter promotes fast re-sharing without thought (retweet is easy), short messages which make it difficult to explain a nuanced position. Even without an algorithm, this produces a Darwinian environment which favors replication (retweeting) of certain types of tweets over others.
I suspect a lot can be changed by changing the base environment. For example, retweeting could become "intent to retweet", which isn't applied until information gets a peer review. Peers can be calculated via a per-topic reputation system + reference users (examplars). Automatic reviews could at least check that you've included references...