The obvious answer, though it could be tricky to implement, is to abandon/forbid the advertising model that now funds the social media, and replace it with either sunbscriptions or pay-per-transaction, or maybe a blend of the two.
At a stroke, this would eliminate most spam and bots, and greatly reduce the temptation to go after "eyeballs" instead of offering a quality product that people will pay for, and could discourage the worst mob activity on Twitter. The incumbent firms could do just fine under such a regime, but the attraction of "free" means they will not do it voluntarily as that would concede marketing advantage to their competitors.
FB could charge $10/month for unlimited use, or $5/month and a small cost per transaction. Twitter could do the same, perhaps $5/month plus $0.50 per tweet per recipient, and $.05 per retweet, per follower who will see that retweet. Email could cost $0.50 per email sent to each recipient. Google and other search engines could charge per search (say, $0.10) and then per page of search results opened (maybe $0.02 per page). You simply set up an account with a credit card and get billed weekly or monthly, with detail available.
I may have the pricing wrong, but the principle is sound. The main thing is to outlaw or greatly restrict advertising. Some will say that is a free speech issue but I do not think so, as long as there is no content discrimination and all ads are simply banned. We did it for cigarettes on broadcast, for may years professionals such as medical providers, pharma, and lawyers could not advertise. Via the "Do Not Call" list we have tried to ban robo-calls. There should be a way.
The obvious answer, though it could be tricky to implement, is to abandon/forbid the advertising model that now funds the social media, and replace it with either sunbscriptions or pay-per-transaction, or maybe a blend of the two.
At a stroke, this would eliminate most spam and bots, and greatly reduce the temptation to go after "eyeballs" instead of offering a quality product that people will pay for, and could discourage the worst mob activity on Twitter. The incumbent firms could do just fine under such a regime, but the attraction of "free" means they will not do it voluntarily as that would concede marketing advantage to their competitors.
FB could charge $10/month for unlimited use, or $5/month and a small cost per transaction. Twitter could do the same, perhaps $5/month plus $0.50 per tweet per recipient, and $.05 per retweet, per follower who will see that retweet. Email could cost $0.50 per email sent to each recipient. Google and other search engines could charge per search (say, $0.10) and then per page of search results opened (maybe $0.02 per page). You simply set up an account with a credit card and get billed weekly or monthly, with detail available.
I may have the pricing wrong, but the principle is sound. The main thing is to outlaw or greatly restrict advertising. Some will say that is a free speech issue but I do not think so, as long as there is no content discrimination and all ads are simply banned. We did it for cigarettes on broadcast, for may years professionals such as medical providers, pharma, and lawyers could not advertise. Via the "Do Not Call" list we have tried to ban robo-calls. There should be a way.