Perhaps! Thank you for the kind words; if my comments induce semi-anything panic (I wouldn't want to induce full-on panic; that's too unpleasant and too likely to impede careful thought), I assume that means that I am asking questions that at least sometimes get at difficult aspects of situations that are both somewhat important and somewhat neglected.

The key issue with social media, media in general, and society as a whole is, I think: what are the factors that help them succeed, and what are the factors that lead them to fail? We needn't get overly persnickety about a precise definition of "success" or "failure" here; a vague idea of "people are generally pretty happy and in good condition, doing their peopley things" is good enough for success, and "war, famine, genocide, etc." can stand as exemplars of failure.

The observation throughout history that should concern us is that societies do fail. Whether you pick North Korea or Yemen or Sri Lanka as contemporary examples, or any of a myriad of choices from more distant history, you notice that--perhaps unlike penguins--human society is actually not all that far from disaster a lot of the time. And there are lots of routes to disaster.

So my questions, rhetorical or otherwise, are intended to probe whether some ideas about social media and internet interactions are too naive about actual behavior of actual humans. I love a good principle, myself: it's simple and tidy, and can cut through a lot of distractions that might lead one to make bad decisions (self-centered, short-sighted, etc.).

But if we fail to ask the question, "Can actual humans actually organize a successful society, reliably, given how they naturally interact with common social media like Facebook and Twitter," then we may end up advocating for policies that increase the likelihood of a failure of society.

To me, it seems like the writing is on the wall already that the answer to the above question is, "probably not reliably"; and yet, that others who see the writing have the instinct of jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire by proposing other things that we already know, from bitter experience, also do not work. I view your perspective as, roughly, "Stay in the @#%* pan anyway," which might be the best we can do. But if I can ask uncomfortable questions about how hot the pan is, maybe we can find some improvements--at least get out onto the handle where it's cooler.