What about conspiracy theories that spread through WhatsApp? A lot of the harm of social media is because some people spread harmful things and now it's easier for them to do so.
Indeed. I think algorithmic social feeds are such a popular scapegoat simply because people don't understand them (since they're black-boxes and the tech is new).
The common rhetoric that "harmful messages which trigger engagement are amplified by social media algorithms" is probably correct, but to think this is anything close to the root cause of the spread of "harmful ideas" on social media is ignoring the reality of social networks before algorithmic feeds.
Notably, the most popular current examples of places where harmful ideas are spread (4chan, Gab, Parler,
...) are platorms that eschew algorithmic curation entirely. I don't believe hyperlinks to those platforms are being promoted by the mainstream platforms' algorithmic feeds, people find these places by themselves.
Social media can be harmful mostly because it facilitates mob mentality once again. Centralized idea distribution platforms (newspapers, television) gave society a rest from undesired mob mentality, but now we have more freedom of association than ever. I suspect the best way to avoid it is to add more artificial curation in between human interactions, not less.
