8 Simple Changes That Would Totally Fix The Internet

 

How It Works: After clicking on a link, you have the option to "Unclick" it, and the post/article does not receive credit for your click.

How It's Used: Now you can finally click on super-baity headlines or really angering obviously-trolly articles without giving that author or the website the attention & ad-revenue it so desperately craves. Also useful for posts with only one piece of information, like "You Won't Believe This One Tweet..." or "Wow, WHAT State Has The Highest Rate of Incest???" so you can click, see the one thing, and unclick.

Result: Over time, this will de-emphasize websites' need to grab everyone's attention with overly sensationalized or troll-ey or entirely inaccurate titles for things, and no more websites benefit from hate-clicks or by hiding crucial information in the title so you HAVE to click. People can leave the 'clicks' on posts they like.

Of course, this will lead to the instant financial ruin of every online enterprise, but hey, at least I can finally click on that "Why Game of Thrones is actually the worst thing ever recorded, you pieces of shit" post without benefitting the author.

How It Works: When someone's livetweeting something you're not interested in, or likely to post a spoiler about a show or sporting event you haven't watched yet, you can click this to simply mute them on Twitter/FB for a 24 hour period without then having to remember to re-follow them the next day.

How It's Used: This has been suggested so many times by so many different people, I actually had to double-check to make sure it wasn't already a feature. But now when someone starts posting really specific angry tweets about a college football game they're watching, you don't have to either suck it up or completely cut them off.

Result: Everyone feels freer to post about specific non-universal events without rapidly losing followers or pissing everyone off. (Think: Norm MacDonald livetweeting The Masters)

How It Works: Whenever someone posts an Instagram or Facebook pic of a meal, you can click on that pic and have the restaurant immediately deliver you that item. Or, if the restaurant is nowhere near you, it'll geo-target the closest approximation in your area and have that restaurant attempt to send you the same dish or something as close as possible. Or if it's something way too unique, it just sends you a burrito.

How It's Used: Complaining about pics of food is stupid and passe. Food is delicious, and pictures of food are excellent, but they trigger an angering response on social media for one obvious reason: you're JEALOUS you're not eating the thing in the photo that very second. One-Click Photo Food Delivery lets you SHARE THE EXPERIENCE (approximately).

Result: Now when someone posts a pic of moules frites on a dock in the South of France, instead of being jealous of their vacation, you simply click and in MINUTES you're eating some too! It might be fish & chips from a close-ish sports pub, but whatever, it's delicious. Eat it, stupid France friend.

How It Works: When someone posts an article or a news story that they strongly disagree with and accompany it with an explanation of why the thing is wrong and bad, you sometimes want to 'like' that person's argument, but you can't do it without making it look like you're 'liking' the bad thing they posted, not their status that's ripping on it.

How It's Used: Now when you 'like' something, it'll clearly be attached to the status, not directly underneath the image of the dumb thing you're very specifically not actually liking. Or the likes can still stay there, but it'll say "[Person] likes your post about the thing, not the thing itself. The thing itself is bad, for reasons you have laid out and explained clearly. Anyway thanks for posting the thing!" all in one giant button. That works too.

Result: Way more likes and way less "wait, shit, I didn't mean I 'like' this thing, I like your sentence about it, but the thing is, I mean, well, dammit..."

 

How It Works: A setting for Twitter & Instagram in between "Follow" and "Mute/Unfollow". You still see posts from the person, but a reduced fraction of them, which you can set beforehand based on percentage (50%? 25%?) or "Only ones over a certain number of Faves / Likes".

How It's Used: When you don't hate someone's Tweets enough to totally mute them, but they post WAY too much and you need them to tone it down (without, you know, having to message them "hey, tone it down!" and being the asshole, even though you're correct.)

Result: You can streamline your feeds with a lot more precision and without rolling your eyes bitterly every time that one friend posts like 9 photos in a row from the same vacation and you have to go through that process of wondering "CAN I unfollow this person without them noticing? Ehhh better not risk the friendship..."

How It Works: Pick a certain word or phrase and you'll stop seeing Facebook Posts or Tweets about that topic for as long as the Stopper is in place.

How It's Used: When you're sick of a particular story, or tired of everyone making "pumpkin spiced" jokes, simply add a Topic Stopper for "pumpkin" and/or "spiced" and now you can relax as all the people raving about pumpkin stuff, people complaining about pumpkin stuff, and people making ironic pumpkin-stuff-related jokes about those other people all instantly vanish!

Result: Now instead of needing to bitterly complain "we're STILL talking about THIS??" and sounding like an idiot who doesn't fundamentally understand how social media works (we are ALWAYS still talking about EVERYTHING), you can preserve your sanity by simply typing in a word or two

How It Works: Every commenter (on Facebook, Youtube, or other websites) can rate each others' "reasonable-ness", and frequent users eventually develop a "Reasonable Rating" between 1 and 10, based on that person's willingness to listen to facts, form thoughts, and respond cogently and without slurs & rampant misogyny. You can then calibrate your settings so you only see comments from people that are above a certain 'reasonableness' level.

How It's Used: It's really tempting to block infuriatingly stupid commenters, but you also don't want to totally wipe out people who disagree with you respectfully and can actually hold a rational conversation of differing opinions (if such a thing online exists).

Result: Now you can filter out completely insane whackos who think every NFL coach is a "clown" / "joke" / "joke-clown" who needs to be fired after every loss, or who believe Obama is a secret Socialist Nazi Muslim Robot who will literally detonate on his last day in office, but without totally ignoring anyone who disagrees with you and therefore sealing yourself in a dumb echo chamber where you're never exposed to new opinions. Plus if you want, you're more than welcome to leave 'Nazi Muslim Robot' commenter guy visible. Your call!

How It Works: Just press this button and you will instantly unfriend/unfollow everyone who's posted a link to The Daily Currant or The National News Report (or any other one of those fake shitty Onion knock-offs that don't actually attempt humor) thinking it was real.

How It's Used: The button keeps a record of every seemingly-sane friend of yours who posts an article like "Sarah Palin says black people shouldn't be allowed on 'The Planet Moon'" with a genuine snarky comment like "What an ignorant moron!!!". By pressing the button, you will never have to interact with these people ever again.

Result: Everybody wins.