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But all that spam would come into play with "generic" feeds. You don't expect spam from people, groups and organizations that you subscribe to.

You can think of "discovery feeds" as an addon - and maybe even not provided by the same company providing the social network itself.

Cherry on top? You would have to actively subscribe to those feeds, forcing them to be interesting/relevant.

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But you're back to the problem of breaking the business model of these companies. If everything was opt-in, subscription-only, that would fundamentally change these platforms.

Even then, with zero moderation, feeds that people subscribe to could still get overwhelmed by trolling and vitriol.

I think you're right, they cannot be a "common carrier" because decentralization (in the sense of giving people choice) of the selection algorithm makes them irrelevant. There is no other service they provide (to the end user) other than the content selection.

Consider HN.

What do you think the main feed and discussion might look like if moderation was not allowed?

Likewise for any special-interest sub-reddit you might subscribe to.

I think these things will be very substantially changed, for the worse, if content moderation isn't allowed.

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