antisocial media or latent response

Duck Soup directs our attention to an engrossing article that prises open the imagination and invites us to consider a counter-factual situation that does not presently seem so difficult to indulge and undo in questioning the way the dominant social media platforms—outside of China—are presented to us.
Was the shape the platform took inevitable and from an economic stance, the only model that made business sense and was sustainable? A personalised newspaper was foisted on users—the public essentially though I think the interlocutors are giving more credit than is due—that nobody asked for and people disliked but one that was pernicious and easily reinforced. Optimised to peddle advertisements with “connection” management or networking as a vehicle—verses a public entity or subscription service—do we necessarily arrive at manipulation and tribalism? The struggle to be omnipresent means that we can’t even be present much of the time. The interview also presents an interesting juxtaposition in how the unrestrained ambitions of the Western market to surpass relaying messages and allowing users to curate a persona and alter how we interact runs parallel to China’s universal interface and smacks of a weirdly monolithic showdown.