What I meant was an algorithm adding posts in your feed from other users you “might” like. Such an algorithm will likely spawn accounts and businesses focussed on targeting as many people as possible. I fully agree with just showing a page with messages/posts from people/communities you choose!
No algorithms optimized to keep you on the platform.
The Always Free tier is also very powerful in my opinion. You get 24GB RAM and 4 OCPU’s for Ampere (Arm) architecture VMs. You can run Oracle Linux or just plain old Ubuntu on it!
Censorship like that was introduced to make the platform appealing to advertisers. I’d say just don’t give power over how to run the platform to advertisers.
Here in the Netherlands the government gave the strong advice to schools to ban the use of phones in classrooms. They did not go as far to make it a law, but schools are free to enforce the rule however they want. Some ask that students have to put their phones in their lockers. I believe this is a good step by the government, being someone who grew up in the starting era of mobile phones during high school. I for sure think it has rotted my brain, as I find it hard to stay away from my phone if I am even slightly bored.