Staying away from the big platforms has worked out well for me. Those are well under the control of corporate interests like TV, but I now have access to several independent journalists from across the world, the ability to fact check a topic within minutes to hours instead of days to never, and a much easier way of organizing with like minded people.
The internet is a tool. It's more full of misinformation, disinformation, useless garbage, and scams now than it was, but it's still useful if you know how to sift through it. We should be educating our youth on how to do that and identifying the list of pitfalls above to help make it even better.