Social platforms claim to prioritize community building, but their algorithms often penalize the most engaged creators. Here's the paradox: if you're actively growing your audience through consistent interaction—replies, engagement, organic outreach—why would the system suppress that activity?

I'm running a hypothesis test. My daily interaction rate typically hits 1-2k engagements, but I'm cutting it down to 50 for a period to observe the outcome. The question remains: are these platforms actually designed for social growth, or are they optimized for something else entirely? The data will tell us.