The Platform That AI Built Is Now the Platform Nobody Trusts

Social platforms made a specific bet: that algorithmic optimization would produce engagement, and engagement would produce loyalty. The bet is failing. Users returning after years away find automated systems that ban accounts without human review and offer no meaningful path to appeal ^[3]. Users already present describe platforms as 'riddled with AI and targeted attacks' ^[5] — language that frames the platform environment itself as the threat, not any individual actor within it. The shift from social communication to passive entertainment consumption is the downstream consequence of this optimization logic:…