The government have the powers to stop social media

Ava said:

Yet the sites that aren’t safe are still there.

I think a key part here is what is considered safe.

We all have our own standards and will not want them infringed by others so you end up having an arguement over our beliefs of what is good and bad which is entirely subjective.

Where things break clear laws or rules it is much easier for the companies to act, however this will depend on who is running the company.

Take X / Twitter - Elon is allowing a lot of stuff to propogate on there because it suits his agendas while shutting down things that do not break the rules for the same reasons - and since it is incredibly hard to police a geo-distributed platform like this then the authorities have little real power over it.

The one way you do have control is whether you chose to use that platform or not. In simple terms if you don't like it, don't use it.

I try to avoid using it as I can clearly see so much rage bait being posted about subjects that I'm interested in and by studying these a bit more you can see they are being actively promoted because they generate an emotional response and are more likely to get you involved even if it is to defend your beliefs.

On balance it is quite toxic.

Ava said:

Yet the sites that aren’t safe are still there.

I think a key part here is what is considered safe.

We all have our own standards and will not want them infringed by others so you end up having an arguement over our beliefs of what is good and bad which is entirely subjective.

Where things break clear laws or rules it is much easier for the companies to act, however this will depend on who is running the company.

Take X / Twitter - Elon is allowing a lot of stuff to propogate on there because it suits his agendas while shutting down things that do not break the rules for the same reasons - and since it is incredibly hard to police a geo-distributed platform like this then the authorities have little real power over it.

The one way you do have control is whether you chose to use that platform or not. In simple terms if you don't like it, don't use it.

I try to avoid using it as I can clearly see so much rage bait being posted about subjects that I'm interested in and by studying these a bit more you can see they are being actively promoted because they generate an emotional response and are more likely to get you involved even if it is to defend your beliefs.

On balance it is quite toxic.