However, some of the things this stuff is being used for isn't so clear cut, maybe even to the people that created it. Sure, a dude with a list of degrees programmed it, but did they understand that you destroy attention spans and create infantile people by feeding them random media that is only seconds long? That's not rocket science either, nor are the mental illnesses created by spending too much time on social media that has basically crippled the Millennials as an entire generation. Like Gen X got that big huge burst of 'computers are the future', Millennials got that big burst of 'influencers are the future'. Guess what? Yeah, but not to the extent that the hype said. As in 'not even close'. We'd all be better off if we'd taken welding in High School, since you can teach the other stuff to a literal doped up monkey. I know that, you know that if you're honest with yourself, and every welder on the planet knows it. See, I've labeled the 2010's the 'Hype Age' or 'Age of Hype' in a past essay. Why? Because that's when all these people that have always pushed their snake water figured out how to push their snake water on the internet. Everything sounded like Trump talking and was 'fabulous' and other such nonsense words meant to dazzle idiots. I won't get into how this appears to be the logical conclusion to the 'keeping up with the Jones' and 'me, me, me' attitudes that have carried over from the 50s and 60s. The overall failed experiment has lasted decades, not a single decade, and it's dying in a pit of drug use (legal and illegal) dug into a pile of unpayable debt those who engaged have racked up.

Wanna start fixing it? Ban all social media. Start with Tik Tok and use it as a model to ban the rest. You can't mod it, because people cry about their rights, and people will do that anyway, but their opinion doesn't matter with the correct backup. People are literally going out and killing, bombing, and doing other horrible stuff because of stuff they've seen on social media. That's in addition to feeding them nonsensical, fake information, no matter the origin. It only matters it's being fed. It's our own fault for not noticing, or perhaps for wanting to stick to our ways and ignore, but there's a point at which you either get it or you don't. There's a point that you either support the dumbing down of humanity through fake messages, including that drugs bought from X people are good, or you don't. By supporting social media, you are supporting the mental illness being dumped at the doorstep of every person with a social media account. Lizard people. Flat Earth. Oil companies care about the environment. Rare Earth metals going into EVs don't use child labor. Covid vaccines work and won't kill you. Greta Goddamn Thunburg. You can't block this garbage, because the algorithms just feed you more garbage if you block one piece of garbage. But I've gone WAY down that rabbit hole and you just churn through the same rubbish from a different page. These corporations are making money off creating division, spreading lies, and getting people killed. If nothing else was a decent excuse to ban social media, those things are. China does not allow Facebook and other social media. Why? Because a bunch of people got on there years ago before they banned it, seen some stuff they didn't like, then went out and rioted, burning a bunch of stuff. 20/20 vision indicates that China had the longview and was roughly 15 years ahead of what is now becoming a more common thought: social media is evil. Or, if you don't believe in that kind of evil like I don't, social media companies are basically Umbrella feeding on the chaos they cause in society, like a parasite that couldn't and wouldn't exist without its host. Mainstream news media are also. They preached hate against the Asians and then made money off people clicking on 'Asian Hate Crime' stories, causing some people who seen their nonsense on social media to go out and commit crimes, since people on the whole aren't very smart. Legally, the person that encourages someone to commit a crime is partially responsible, so social media companies are at least partially responsible for every crime committed due to a story pushed through an ad or suggestion. Once you step outside the insanity that is being broadcast to the masses and see it for what it is, you can never step back inside. Like the Matrix, you can never go back.

One last word on the Tik Tok ban and, hopefully, the future collapse/ban of other social media to the people crying about their 'right to free speech'. YOU don't understand it if you think your free speech is affected by any type of social media ban. You just THINK or what to ARGUE it is. You're free to stand on a street corner and yell your absurdities. You're free to speak your absurdities to your family and friends. You're free to post your absurdities in forums, in comments sections, personal websites, essays, books, audio recordings, and other such media. If you think the eraser of Tik Tok, or any and all other social media, affects your 'free speech' in a real way, not just an argumentative way, you don't actually understand your right to 'free speech'. You don't understand that everyone else also has the right to not listen to, see, or be bothered by your absurdities, which is part of free speech. Everyone has the right to tell anyone else to screw off, with or without logical reason. Your right to 'free speech' doesn't trump someone elses right to tell you to screw off, which equates to the rights to privacy and freedom from solicitation. And here's the thing. Once you can't hide/block the garbage on your feed, your right to tell people to screw off, and therefore your rights, have been violated. Therefore, my ultimate argument for social media to be banned isn't even the chaos that it has caused and continues to cause, but the fact that their algorithms are violating basic privacy and freedom from solicitation rights, causing the chaos by purposely pushing stuff in front of people who otherwise may not have seen it.