The realization has been dawning on me that social media "is not real life".
* Governments would greatly benefit from running social media bots -- so, expect their presence.
* Most social media shows you what it thinks you want to see, not what's common -- on those sites (not #Mastodon, thankfully!), expect integrated bias.
This means that:
*You can't safely get a idea of what people think or what's going on in the world by looking at social media.*