“Again, Twitter’s interface was very intentionally designed to maximize the amount of time per day a person spends online. The Fediverse really doesn’t need that, but it has it anyway. That’s why I’m proposing that we reevaluate the way we design Fediverse interfaces and clients in light of how we can best strike a balance between creating a positive experience and one that puts the well-being of the person using your product first.”
Another really critical consideration is the perception gap. That is when groups believe their opponents hold more extreme views than they really do. e.g. Some respondents reported that they believe as many as 50% of their political opponents feel political violence is justified, in reality fewer than 5% of Democrats and Republicans feel political violence is justified.
All major social media sites have a hyper-polarizing affect on users, and this is achieved by grossly distorting reality by presenting the most sensational bad-faith content.
Sending out surveys to gauge perception gap in a community can be a good metric for determining whether a platform is promoting harmful or inaccurate perspectives. I don’t know if Lemmy or the Fediverse is large enough, or cohesive enough yet to properly survey, but I think that eventually monitoring user’s beliefs about other user’s beliefs will be useful in guiding content policies / moderation practices that foster constructive discussion.
I think such a survey is a very interesting idea, I would love to see one about Lemmy and the fediverse.