By “worst”, I mean most toxic, most misinformed, most discriminatory, etc (not related to the owners of the site, e.g. Elon throwing out the trash by adding ratelimits).
Doesn’t get much worse than 4chan.
Yeah 4chan is pretty much the end of the rope when it comes to racist shithole social media that’s accessible by clearnet. You can’t really get worse than it until you start getting into the dark net, closed-room extremist echochambers that don’t count as social media at that point.
It sucks too because they have one of the only interfaces that hasn’t been modernized and enshittified to death…
4chan, Facebook, Twitter
Facebook is my least favorite. Used to be a feed of all my friends and family. Now it’s all reposts, sharing shitty misinformed click bait and ads everywhere. Every week I have to explain to my grandma that the video she saw about smartphones causing ovarian cancer in men isn’t real
I judge social media sites in terms of their effects on users mental health and their effects on society. Here’s my ranking in order of worst to best:
- Facebook, because of the way it algorithmically encourages political division and spreads misinformation, and also because it makes you feel worse about your life by comparing yourself to others.
- Twitter, for the same reasons as Facebook.
- Instagram, for making users feel shitty about themselves via social comparison. (Especially for making young girls feel bad about their bodies.)
- YouTube, for spreading conspiracy theories and recommending unhealthy “rabbit hole” type content to kids, like incel stuff.
Tik Tok is probably the least problematic out of the social media platforms IMO, although that might be because it’s still relatively new, so we don’t know how it’s going to end up affecting society yet.
Of the ones I visit at least somewhat regularly, Twitter has always seemed the worst for me. Every thread (at least on political topics) is just a stream of toxicity and misinformation.
Twitter is definitely flaming garbage. Then TikTok, then YouTube
Youtube is simultaneously the worst and the absolute best
The best parts of youtube are simply unmatched online in terms of quality content
Yeah it’s kinda replaced tv for me
It’s really hard to rank them… Facebook is awful for spreading misinformation and it’s echo chamber effect. I give it bonus shit points for being the turning point for social media - it got almost everyone to use it and everything went down here from there. On the positive side it truly brought people together and it was a great tool for sharing your life with friends and family you might not see or speak to regularly. At least to begin with.
YouTube is shit for giving wackos a platform and it’s alt-right pipeline. How many young men have been influenced by Andrew rate type videos? Joe rogan and he’s ilk are straight up cancer. BUT there are tonnes of really really useful tutorials etc that you couldn’t find before.
TikTok is trash for turning people’s brains to mush, pushing the “main character” narrative and encouraging young people to do all kinds of dangerous, stupid shit. But I think it’s fairly benign compared to the others.
Twitter is just a terrible place. Just a toxic, bullying hellhole. Any redeeming qualities (allowing people living under a dictatorship access to news and to broadcast what’s really going on there, for example) have long been lost since Elon arrived to make everyone’s life worse.
The concept of Reddit is better than the others - you can find your own little community dedicated to the most niche interests. It was pretty easy to just lurk and to block people/subs you didn’t want to see, and I think it helped a lot of people. Reddit the company are shit, but aren’t all companies bastards?
Special shout out to Instagram. It’s seems benign on the surface but I’d be a mistake to underestimate the devastating impact it had on young people’s self esteem. The unrealistic body expectations pushed on young people is awful. But it’s the trad wife/evangelical Christian/quiverful type communities which worry me the most. I can’t begin to imagine how many women and babies have died thanks to the no-contraception, home-birth, no vaccine bullshit. It’s not limited to Instagram of course, but it does seem particularly prevalent there.
They’re the only social media sites I’ve used, so based on my experience I’d say worst to best is:
Twitter Instagram Facebook TikTok YouTube Reddit
But honestly they’re all toxic and this was a depressing exercise.
