Is it time to take an ethical stand against Elon Musk’s X policies — and maybe ditch the platform altogether? Bloomberg Opinion ’s US tech columnist Dave Lee suggests the answer may be yes. X’s algorithms and several policy decisions, such as disabling the misinformation button on content ahead of a handful of elections around the world, are encouraging and promoting the circulation of “abhorrent content,” Lee writes. The platform has also taken a turn for the worse, Lee says, after the introduction of creator payments, which has encouraged users to post content that will get high levels of engagement — a phenomenon known as “engagement farming.” The biggest problem: The more violent, hateful, or controversial the content, the more likely it will spread like wildfire.

It doesn’t have to be this way: Under its former management, X — then known as Twitter — rolled out a feature that encouraged users to read articles before retweeting them to avoid the rapid spread of misinformation or a misguided narrative. Co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey had also been working on an experiment to hide the number of likes, retweets, and replies on tweets to override the desire “for the dopamine hit we get from social engagement,” Lee writes. Altogether, “social networks are molded by the incentives presented to users,” and while what people decide to post can’t be controlled, “sites can try to nudge them toward behaving in a certain manner, whether through design choices or reward mechanisms,” he argues.

Ever walked into your living room and wondered why and how you got there? Now amplify this feeling tenfold in order to understand the very real — albeit extremely rare — medical condition whereby people with dissociative disorders “freeze” or “shut down and [...] kind of go away,” the New York Times writes, citing clinical psychiatrist Dr. Frank W. Putnam.

Dissociating isn’t merely “zoning out”: These episodes are often triggered when people undergo tremendous amounts of stress induced by trauma. While — like all cerebral defense mechanisms — this reaction has certain merits, it becomes seriously problematic when it begins to interfere with people’s lives even in non-threatening scenarios. This disruptive form of coping can obstruct the lives of those who suffer from it to the point of upending their very identities, the New York Times notes.

The pitfalls of social media: Sensationalizing illness. While terms like “multiple personality disorders” have garnered immense attention with bns of views online, they are frowned upon by medical professionals who rely instead on more precise terminology such as dissociative identity disorder, depersonalization/derealization disorder, and dissociative amnesia. Rather than delving into amateurish self-diagnosis, psychiatrists encourage people to seek out evidence-based knowledge on the topic to avoid more social fragmentation, Stanford University professor David Spiegel is quoted as saying.

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