Social media was never really “social” in my opinion. Reading updates from hundreds of people you have shallow interactions with offers the illusion of having a social life. So I’m not sure if this change to “fads” makes it meaningfully less social than it already was.

Social media is now exactly what cable television used to be, but worse; it exists solely to coerce you. You make you feel insecure, you leverage your emotions for someone else's aims.

Due to the changes in technology, social media is far more effective at this than cable TV ever could be, but the concept is the same. It's some remote person attempting to manipulate you by also packaging something enticing along with that manipulation. It's long past time to leave it permanently.

And no, HN is not social media in any normal sense of the word. The pedantry involved in that comparison is extremely tiresome.

Given that even reaction videos from modern Jerry Springer figures with 20 million subscribers can attract 20,000 comments that all parrot their guru and demand doxxing of the target or worse, it is no longer a mystery how totalitarian states form.

Maybe that is unfair to Jerry Springer. He at least heard both sides of a story.

I (mostly) stopped looking at Facebook around 2016. It just wasn't fun anymore; and at least for me, my feed was all political nonsense trying to manipulate me.

And this is a revelation to the BBC? Who doesn't know this?