Social media lockstep

I'm ok with social media, in theory. It's the only way I have of keeping up with some people I otherwise would have completely lost touch with. I'm a social person, so this works for me. In the beginning, though, it was all chronological. You'd see people's posts / tweets / whatever in the order they were created. It made sense, it formed a unique narrative to your feed.

Then, one by one, they all switched to a curated feed based on what they think you want. Even if you switch it back to chronological, things are still missing. You'd have to go on a hunt to see everything you actually said you wanted to see.

From the start of it I knew it was a way to control what people saw on the platform. Nobody wanted it, everyone hated it, but since we're A) Not paying for it, and B) Not being paid for it, that means the answer is C) We're the product being sold. So our opinion doesn't matter.

Now there's another presidential election, and news stories are dropping about either side constantly. People squawk about media biases, censorship, blah blah blah. What concerns me is when, suddenly, every social media outlet simultaneously blocks something. Links to articles are immediately deleted, people sharing information find their posts / tweets deleted, others outright banned.

I know they're privately owned, but it's almost frightening to see how much influence they've acquired.