Not saying you're wrong, but I don't know, I was perfectly happy chatting with friends on AIM messenger a decade ago. Myspace was also super spammy, but never became a (literal) news feed. I don't mind stupid pro/anti-Trump memes or whatnot, but giving news distribution companies (from Breitbart to the Economist) a platform on your social network seems like an anti-pattern.
I'd much rather see a news article someone thought was trenchant or interesting than a meme image that serves no purpose but to try and rile people up. Which one is a better basis for conversation?
Let me rephrase: I think it's perfectly fine to share news articles and talk about them, etc. But the distribution of news has become fundamental to FB and Snapchat (and to a lesser extent Twitter and IG) -- see FB's trending stories, or Snapchat's "Discover" tab. It's not at all like "oh Bob thought this Fox News article was interesting" -- although to be honest, I would actively discourage that, too.
I get a lot of news in my feed, but I willingly subscribed to multiple news sources and regularly comment on articles, so I can't comment on the idea of news being foist upon me.
