Large social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok have billions of users across the globe,

and the decisions those companies make about privacy, content moderation, and misinformation can impact people's social lives and mental health.

Judy Woodruff reports on how a different kind of social network, one grown locally, might hold lessons for another way forward IRL or in real life.

It's part of her ongoing series, America at a crossroads.

On a recent Tuesday evening in the chapel of St. Michael's College in Colchester, Vermont, the Freedom

and Unity Chorus, a nod to the state's motto, is rehearsing for its upcoming concert

at a nearby home hospice care.

The chorus is led by Maria Rinaldi, works at St. Michael's, but lives 20 minutes away in the

small town of Jericho.

To build the chorus, she went online, recruiting nearly every member through Vermont's most popular

social media network, Front Porch Forum.

I would ask people in my chorus who lived in different towns like Burlington to advertise

on their front porch

forum or Essex or Colchester or whatnot.

And so that's really how we started to build a larger chorus.

Rick Pyser and Betsy Evans both joined the chorus after seeing posts on their local forums.

It's like a community bulletin board.

I mean, people sell everything from chickens to tires, you know, but it's more than selling

things.

If you need something or you even want to talk about something, there's discussions there.

I mean, I see baby items, sports gear.

Somebody wants to talk about an old church pew, someone's doing political

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