The TikTok ban and Donald Trump's rise to power show how fragile our social media accounts are. We must normalize and invest in decentralized social media.
There’s another alternative, which is no social media at all. There is no particular problem that it solved. If it disappeared, would your quality of life be worse in any way?
I’m actually going to suggest; Yes, possibly. But for a very specific reason.
While much of social media isn’t ultra necessary, federated social media could be quite essential to collectivising and resisting state and corporate manipulation and propaganda. All other forms of media and news are corporate or state controlled, and thus can construct and project false narritives that are beneficial to their aims, much to our collective detriment.
Social media has become the dominant way that many, possibly most people, see the news, discuss such news with eachother from people around the globe, and build a picture of what’s going on outside of their isolated part of the world. I think Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent gives a pretty fantastic argument on the importance of citizen controlled media, and federated social media is about as citizen controlled as it can possibly get. It’s non-corporate self-hosted open source software as far as the eye can see! It’s not perfect, but holy shit this is as powerful as a tool to diseminate ideas and information on a grassroots level that we’ve ever had, and we should not underestimate its usefulness in the coming decade.
Sounds great, but completely unrealistic. People have almost universally embraced social media because we’re social animals. How would it disappear, short of an outright global ban?
I could live without all the news and stuff, and I do just ignore it when it gets too much. The ability to communicate with other people across the entire world however is something I really appreciate.
Sometimes when it gets overwhelming I don’t do any news or social media at all for a few weeks. It seems to help my mental health, particularly when every bit of news suggests that everything is going to shit.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Thing is, I don’t know what to do about this shit (Gestures to world). I used to get involved in a lot of direct action when I was younger but I’m a bit old for that now. And I can’t really say that all the times I got battered by the police, arrested on airbases, shit like that - I’m not sure I made any difference at all. Some of those actions made headlines but those were mostly negative. And I know people say “Vote!” - but I do, and that doesn’t seem to help either.
So yeah, sometimes I just don’t use the stove for a while. I just feel a bit fuckin defeated.
There’s another alternative, which is no social media at all. There is no particular problem that it solved. If it disappeared, would your quality of life be worse in any way?
Forums and communities like these were very important for me growing up in the rural US South
Same here. Forums (about science fiction, aeromodelism, electric vehicles) have been important to me, and continue to be important in some fields.
We wouldn’t be having this conversation though.
I’m actually going to suggest; Yes, possibly. But for a very specific reason.
While much of social media isn’t ultra necessary, federated social media could be quite essential to collectivising and resisting state and corporate manipulation and propaganda. All other forms of media and news are corporate or state controlled, and thus can construct and project false narritives that are beneficial to their aims, much to our collective detriment.
Social media has become the dominant way that many, possibly most people, see the news, discuss such news with eachother from people around the globe, and build a picture of what’s going on outside of their isolated part of the world. I think Noam Chomsky in Manufacturing Consent gives a pretty fantastic argument on the importance of citizen controlled media, and federated social media is about as citizen controlled as it can possibly get. It’s non-corporate self-hosted open source software as far as the eye can see! It’s not perfect, but holy shit this is as powerful as a tool to diseminate ideas and information on a grassroots level that we’ve ever had, and we should not underestimate its usefulness in the coming decade.
Sounds great, but completely unrealistic. People have almost universally embraced social media because we’re social animals. How would it disappear, short of an outright global ban?
I could live without all the news and stuff, and I do just ignore it when it gets too much. The ability to communicate with other people across the entire world however is something I really appreciate.
I do love to crank ma hog with my bröthers, arooooo
Sometimes when it gets overwhelming I don’t do any news or social media at all for a few weeks. It seems to help my mental health, particularly when every bit of news suggests that everything is going to shit.
when you stick your hand on a hot stove and feel pain, it’s so you know to do something about it. you don’t want to shut that off.
Yeah that’s a fair point. Thing is, I don’t know what to do about this shit (Gestures to world). I used to get involved in a lot of direct action when I was younger but I’m a bit old for that now. And I can’t really say that all the times I got battered by the police, arrested on airbases, shit like that - I’m not sure I made any difference at all. Some of those actions made headlines but those were mostly negative. And I know people say “Vote!” - but I do, and that doesn’t seem to help either.
So yeah, sometimes I just don’t use the stove for a while. I just feel a bit fuckin defeated.