it is clear to me that no mechanical change to social media will reduce the toxicity. people will always try: they've tried changing the algorithm, using "AI", changing the gamification... and it doesn't work
and it doesn't work because there's only one real answer and it's an answer none of the people running these sites want to hear. you just have to ban the people who cause trouble. there's people out there who simply want to cause trouble, hurt people, and fuck things up, and they will stop at nothing to do it. no mechanic will get in their way because they will try their best to work around it.
...Jack Dorsey's run as CEO of twitter was characterised by this ignorant sense of optimism that everyone on the site was interested in approaching it with good faith and posting only the truth, and he seemed to believe that the only reason "bad" posts would appear is because someone with good in their heart had simply been misled, or misunderstood the site's rules.
...this eventually lead to him, in his ignorance, once the toxic posts started coming without end, to assume that the neo-nazi point of view was "winning" in the public sphere because it was the viewpoint that was argued the best. "if you disagree with it," he would say, "why don't you make a counter-argument?" but it doesn't work that way, because trolls on the internet, as I already said, don't like rationality. they don't like arguing. they like to come in and destroy things and the thing that pisses them off most is barriers that stand between them and destruction. they don't want to make friends and they don't want to help the site run smoothly. and if a site admin doesn't get that, then I just assume they're probably one of them
I also know now that this same rule applies to war. when I was growing up, I figured that all the people rooting and cheering for war were simply misled. they simply needed to be got through to, and convinced, that invading iraq was a bad idea, and then they'd see the light.
but I know now that war is not done as a mistake, it's not done because someone doesn't realise there are more productive and diplomatic ways to solve the problem. they do it because they are morons who simply prefer to cause destruction and will stop at nothing to get past any barrier between them and destruction. this has become ever clearer to me in the way that their speech gradually breaks down as they get their way. the way that trump would just yell "FIRE AND FURY!" and the way that israel's minister said "JERICHO MISSILE! DOOMSDAY WEAPON!" just listing off the names of weapons
...there is no thought put into war and there's no making an argument to convince them. people who do wars just do it because they love to do wars.