Fixing the problems social networks have unleashed

Since social networks have been criticized a lot lately, and right now again because of Facebook and the Cambridge Analytical scandal which lead many people to delete their account, I wanted to give my opinion here as someone whose been on the internet even before the World Wide Web and has seen how things changed and what changed for the worse, and start a discussion to see what people think could be done to fix the issues with social networks. The information overload, fake news, propaganda, and just so much conflict and hatred in general.

Topics like politics used to be taboo to talk about in the old days on the internet, people noticed pretty early on that some topics like politics and religion, which were the two big ones, are just too divisive. You'd get instantly booted from chat rooms and discussion boards if you started a discussion about it because when it comes to these topics most people just can't tolerate different viewpoints, so you'd inevitably end up with lots of hatred and conflict.

So instead you went to specific chat rooms or boards to talk about these topics. At least then the damage was contained. And you weren't hit over the head with something out of the blue, you were in the right mindset to discuss politics because you chose the time to go to a specific place to talk about it and nothing else, so propaganda has less of an effect because you're expecting to see it.

On today's internet, politics is everywhere. Social networks especially is where people talk about absolutely everything you could imagine, no topics, no filter, you hear about everything even when you don't want to hear 99% of it and we can't handle all that noise it seems, you probably have heard people mention the “information overload”. Humans just weren’t meant to deal with so much information at once. And maybe even worse, if you just want to spend an hour of your day escaping the harsh reality of life and talking about your favorite hobby, someone barges in and talks about politics and makes you angry, because of course you know better than that guy.

Maybe it’s not the best idea for the place where you discuss your new haircut, your newest love interest, your new pet, your diet and who knows what else, to also be the place where you get into heated discussions with strangers about topics where there is no one answer that fits all, like politics, or where a disagreement can quickly lead to people threatening to harm you because by disagreeing you attack their identity, like religion.

So maybe we need to go back to the drawing board, go back to the ideas of topical discussions so people can pick and choose what topics they're interested in hearing about at any point in time. Don't follow people, who are the most complex thing the world has created, follow specific topics.

That also leads to experts being around who frequent these topics. Not everyone is qualified to talk about everything, but social networks make you do it anyhow, because you don't want to be left out, you want to belong, you want to be part of the conversation. And when 100 people who really don't know anything about a topic are talking about it as if they do, and nobody knowledgeable is around to point out why they're wrong (or there is but then they're basically saying hey all your friends are wrong, so they get shouted down because people will protect their tribe), their opinions, as ludicrous as they are, are constantly reinforced and it becomes almost impossible to get rid of them anymore.

When you hear a lie often enough, especially from people close to you like on Facebook, it becomes the truth and everyone who disagrees is the enemy.

I’m not saying we should get rid of social networks completely and go back to chatrooms and discussion boards, I love social networks, but lately I’ve been thinking maybe we should make social networks work more like those tools worked. Have separate streams for separate topics, have separate streams for your friends, your family and strangers. Get rid of the idea of one giant stream for everything at once.

On Steem I've seen a lot less conflict compared to other social networks, so maybe Steem is already a big step in the right direction, by incentivizing people to make friends instead of enemies, and to really think about and work on creating high quality content instead of just instantly writing anything down that comes to your mind. But maybe it's just because Steem is young and so much smaller and sooner or later it will devolve into what Twitter or Facebook have become, when the chance to be rewarded on Steem for your posts becomes so small due to the sheer number of users that it basically is just a gimmick and not an incentive anymore.

What do you think? Do you agree with me, or do you have an even better idea? Or do you think there is nothing wrong with social networks the way they are and it's all blown out of proportion? Whatever you think, I’d love to hear about it!