We is everyone that isn’t those companies and is impacted by social media.
The only power you or I have is local, and this is a national problem.
We do have little power on a national level, but that doesn’t mean the only power we have is local.
Sure, we can’t flip a switch tell the engineers to program a switch and flip it for us like Musk and Zuckerberg can, but that’s not the only power that matters.
We can build and support alternatives to addictive, enshittified centralized tech (like the Fediverse). I was offered the “choice” of accepting a degraded Twitter experience or paying for Twitter premium. I chose to check out Mastodon.
We can use the parental controls we do have, both inside the ecosystem and in the real world. No screens in the bedroom or at the dinner table. No smartphone until you’re 16. Schools that ban phones in the classroom. Venues that ban phones during shows.
Edit: Another option is educating ourselves and our children to be safe on the internet. I had to learn that the correct response to “what are you wearing” is “a robe and wizard hat” and then blocking the pedophile all on my own because my parents didn’t know those threats even existed. I do. Most parents in 2026 do.
I’m not imaginative, but we have a lot more power than just choosing between “let it suck forever” and “give up even more of your privacy and I’ll pretend to fix the problems I created/encouraged because I make more money that way.”
We is everyone that isn’t those companies and is impacted by social media.
We do have little power on a national level, but that doesn’t mean the only power we have is local.
Sure, we can’t
flip a switchtell the engineers to program a switch and flip it for us like Musk and Zuckerberg can, but that’s not the only power that matters.We can build and support alternatives to addictive, enshittified centralized tech (like the Fediverse). I was offered the “choice” of accepting a degraded Twitter experience or paying for Twitter premium. I chose to check out Mastodon.
We can use the parental controls we do have, both inside the ecosystem and in the real world. No screens in the bedroom or at the dinner table. No smartphone until you’re 16. Schools that ban phones in the classroom. Venues that ban phones during shows.
Edit: Another option is educating ourselves and our children to be safe on the internet. I had to learn that the correct response to “what are you wearing” is “a robe and wizard hat” and then blocking the pedophile all on my own because my parents didn’t know those threats even existed. I do. Most parents in 2026 do.
I’m not imaginative, but we have a lot more power than just choosing between “let it suck forever” and “give up even more of your privacy and I’ll pretend to fix the problems I created/encouraged because I make more money that way.”