gameboi_playboi

Nobody pays for social media, so revenue for social media companies primarily comes from maximizing impressions and views (ex. why LinkedIn changed their app to be more like other social media because they want everyone to check it once a week instead of twice a year which is easier than multiplying their userbase by 20). Data algorithms are then built to maximize views (ie profit) which ends up meaning that the losers who use it all day are elevated by the algorithm, especially when they have followings of more losers that use it every day and their posts generate arguments from lots of "normal people" who are more and more tired of seeing it. This also goes for other far right-wing stuff not just Tumblr/Twitter/etc. Covid and quarantine made a lot of normal people have to stare at this shit for quite some time so now everyone's at least a spectator of the topic. And traditional media is riding the waves of this topic because it generates views/impressions for them too, but I don't think traditional media was involved in starting the big push.

When Jack Dorsey (co-founder/former ceo of twitter) said that he doesn't think one person should be in charge of twitter, but the primary problem is that it is a company and he trusts elon to be able to fix that, I think that this was kind of what he was getting at. The money needs to be driven from something other than quantity of views.