One of the most popular cures for an ailing computer, or Hollywood movie franchise, is often a reboot. Some people hope a reset could also be a remedy to fix toxic social media.
That's what the Institute for Rebooting Social Media proposes to do over the next three years.
The academic institute, a new initiative from Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society (BKCIS), is being funded with $2m (1.5m) from the John S. and John L. Knight Foundation, as well as Craig Newmark Philanthropies.
"While the identification of problems may vary, it's hard to find anyone defending the current environment of social media," says BKCIS co-founder Jonathan Zittrain.
"It's important to better assess (and make known) how social media is evolving," he says, in order understand how it might be possible to reconfigure it.
According to BKCIS analysis, social media is no longer fit for purpose - the platforms, initially perceived as engines for democracy and truth, appear to have instead facilitated the spread and acceptance of lies, division, and physical harm.
In one recent example, social media was used to fuel the use of ivermectin, (a drug used to deworm livestock which the FDA warns can be very dangerous to humans,) as a Covid-19 treatment.
Worryingly, the BKCIS experts also suggest that social media has contributed to the decay in confidence in institutions, elections, and collective truth and the growth of racial, ethnic, political, religious, and gender-based...
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