Stand Together’s Post

The BBC was the first large news organization to look into decentralized social media by opening their own Mastodon instance at https://bbc.social. They now announced they will continue their trial, even if the adoption *by their own staff* has not been as high as hoped: https://lnkd.in/dVDycgRy The "Fediverse" (as these constellation of distributed networks is called) is still relatively small compared to the likes of Twitter/Facebook/TikTok and I understand that journalists need to follow their audience, but can't we work together to change the default mentality that people *want* to be in the large networks? With so many journalists penning articles describing the problems that arise from the concentration of power by Big Tech, I'd expect at least some of them to be interested in looking for an alternative, no? But outside of the tech beat, it seems that everyone is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and keep pushing for Twitter as their main social media presence. Journalists: it's fine if you keep writing on Twitter because you feel that's where the pulse of the global conversation is, but at least consider setting up an account on an alternative network. There is nothing inherently superior about Twitter that makes it a better platform for content distribution and I'm sure you'd pleasantly surprised by the type of engagement and reach you could get on the Fediverse. News orgs: what is missing for you to follow the BBC's example and set up a server of your own? This is your best opportunity to reclaim control over your online presence. If it just a matter of not having the know-how for it, I can certainly help. Everyone: please share and send this article to your journalist contacts, let them know that we already have the tools in place to get rid of Big Tech platforms.

From The Economist: The weird magic of online social networks was to combine personal interactions with mass communication. Now this amalgam is splitting in two again. Status updates from friends have given way to videos from strangers that resemble a hyperactive #tv. Public posting is increasingly migrating to closed groups, rather like email. What Mr Zuckerberg calls the digital “town square” is being rebuilt—and posing problems. This matters, because social media are how people experience the internet. Facebook itself counts more than 3bn users. Social apps take up nearly half of mobile screen time, which in turn consumes more than a quarter of waking hours. They gobble up 40% more time than they did in 2020, as the world has gone online. As well as being fun, social media are the crucible of online debate and a catapult for political campaigns. The striking feature of the new social media is that they are no longer very social. Inspired by TikTok, apps like Facebook increasingly serve a diet of clips selected by artificial intelligence according to a user’s viewing behaviour, not their social connections. Meanwhile, people are posting less. The share of Americans who say they enjoy documenting their life online has fallen from 40% to 28% since 2020. Debate is moving to closed platforms, such as WhatsApp and Telegram. The lights have gone out in the town square. #Socialmedia have always been opaque, since every feed is different. Some of the consequences of this are welcome. Political campaigners say they have to tone down their messages to win over private groups. In the hyperactive half of social #media, behaviour-based algorithms will bring you posts from beyond your community. Social networks can still act as “echo chambers” of self-reinforcing material. But a feed that takes content from anywhere at least has the potential to spread the best ideas farthest. Yet this new world of social-media brings its own problems. Messaging apps are largely unmoderated. What’s more, the open-network algorithms driven by users’ behaviour seem primed to spread the spiciest videos. For something to go viral on a social network, people had to choose to share it. Now they endorse it simply by watching, as the algorithm rewards content that attracts the most engagement. Deliberate curation has been replaced by a system that taps straight into the id. More urgent even than the rise of fake news is a lack of the real sort. Mr Zuckerberg once said he wanted Facebook to be like a personalised newspaper. But since the network’s pivot to #entertainment, news makes up only 3% of what people see on it. 

I like reading Om Malik's writing. He's a tech journalist turned VC, and his insights have generally been prescient. In this article, he argues the social internet as we knew it is dead, replaced by an algorithm-driven landscape focused on maximizing revenue rather than fostering genuine human connections. He states the shift from a utopian space to a profit-centric model has been gradual but decisive, with platforms like Facebook and Twitter prioritizing engagement and ad sales over social interactions. The result? A diluted experience where the line between genuine content and marketing blur, and where misinformation spreads like wildfire. Malik suggests that as we navigate this new reality, it's time to question what "social" really means in the context of today's internet. https://lnkd.in/gH687pzB

Do Social Media Algorithms Balance Free Speech with Protecting Users? Social media algorithms are a double-edged sword, folks. They can provide us with a personalized online experience tailored to our interests and preferences, but they can also create echo chambers and inadvertently promote harmful content. Striking a balance between free speech and user protection is a tightrope walk that every platform must navigate. Transparency and accountability are key, ensuring that users understand how these algorithms work and can provide feedback. By staying informed, engaging responsibly, and demanding transparency, we can shape a digital landscape that values authenticity and integrity. Remember, folks, your online experience is in your hands - use it wisely. https://lnkd.in/gZXUmUUk

Ever wonder who keeps the internet a friendly place? That's right, social media moderators! They work behind the scenes to ensure a positive online experience for all. read the full blog below to learn more. https://lnkd.in/gnd_vJxb #onlinecommunity #contentmoderation #moderator

Social media used to be more of a place for conversation and reciprocity. Now conversation isn’t strictly necessary, only watching and listening. The social-media Web as we knew it, a place where we consumed the posts of our fellow-humans and posted in return, appears to be over. Remember having fun online? It meant stumbling onto a Web site you’d never imagined existed, receiving a meme you hadn’t already seen regurgitated a dozen times, and maybe even playing a little video game in your browser. These experiences don’t seem as readily available now as they were a decade ago. In large part, this is because a handful of giant social networks have taken over the open space of the Internet, centralizing and homogenizing our experiences through their own opaque and shifting content-sorting systems. Algorithmic recommendations make already popular accounts and subjects even more so, shutting out the smaller, more magpie-ish voices that made the old version of Twitter such a lively destination. Elsewhere online, things are similarly bleak. Instagram’s feed pushes months-old posts and product ads instead of photos from friends. Google search is cluttered with junky results, and S.E.O. hackers have ruined the trick of adding “Reddit” to searches to find human-generated answers. Meanwhile, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, in its latest bid for relevance, is reportedly developing artificial-intelligence chatbots with various “sassy” personalities including a role-playing D. & D. Dungeon Master based on Snoop Dogg. The Internet today feels emptier, like an echoing hallway, even as it is filled with more content than ever. Part of the problem is that social media is more hierarchical than it used to be. There’s now this divide that wasn’t there before, between audiences and creators. The platforms that have the most traction with young users today—YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch—function like broadcast stations, with one creator posting a video for her millions of followers; what the followers have to say to one another doesn’t matter the way it did. Posting on social media might be a less casual act these days, as well, because we’ve seen the ramifications of blurring the border between physical and digital lives. Instagram ushered in the age of self-commodification online—it was the platform of the selfie—but TikTok and Twitch have turbocharged it. Selfies are no longer enough; video-based platforms showcase your body, your speech and mannerisms, and the room you’re in, perhaps even in real time. Everyone is forced to perform the role of an influencer. It’s no surprise, in this environment, that fewer people take the risk of posting and more settle into roles as passive consumers. #socialmedia #Internet https://lnkd.in/dvJBeJha?

Do Social Media Algorithms Balance Free Speech with Protecting Users? Social media algorithms are a double-edged sword, folks. They can provide us with a personalized online experience tailored to our interests and preferences, but they can also create echo chambers and inadvertently promote harmful content. Striking a balance between free speech and user protection is a tightrope walk that every platform must navigate. Transparency and accountability are key, ensuring that users understand how these algorithms work and can provide feedback. By staying informed, engaging responsibly, and demanding transparency, we can shape a digital landscape that values authenticity and integrity. Remember, folks, your online experience is in your hands - use it wisely. https://lnkd.in/g-v4Q2Zt

Do Social Media Algorithms Balance Free Speech with Protecting Users? Social media algorithms are a double-edged sword, folks. They can provide us with a personalized online experience tailored to our interests and preferences, but they can also create echo chambers and inadvertently promote harmful content. Striking a balance between free speech and user protection is a tightrope walk that every platform must navigate. Transparency and accountability are key, ensuring that users understand how these algorithms work and can provide feedback. By staying informed, engaging responsibly, and demanding transparency, we can shape a digital landscape that values authenticity and integrity. Remember, folks, your online experience is in your hands - use it wisely. https://lnkd.in/gYzeMQDt

I also find it interesting that the space for "public comments" over social media, whether it be positive or negative can be somehow manipulated by some because they do not agree or like the negative. The negative as they see it can be actually fact and truth. I guess if someone is guilty of something and wanting to protect their facade, they could abuse systems such as agencies designed to uphold the truth and law and attack and silence the truth and facts. So I Googled what the comment space on social media is for and found this: What are social media comments? A comment is a form of engagement in which a user replies to your social media post. Comments can offer praise, ask a question, express disagreement, and otherwise contribute to the online conversation about your social content. Comments can include text, hashtags, @ mentions, and emojis. 🤔 Please leave reply with the good, the bad or the ugly.

The 'Fediverse', a collection of social media applications linked together by common protocols, has been drawing interest from some household names as of late. The BBC, for example, has established its presence on Mastodon, a federated social network that allows anyone to run their own server and connect with others – akin to an email provider. Using the Mastodon platform, the BBC is running an experimental Mastodon server, where users can follow various BBC social media accounts. Despite its similarities to Twitter (X) and Threads, Mastodon frees users from the interests of any individual entity – which means saying goodbye to the all-knowing algorithms we've come to expect. According to the BBC, "The principles of the Fediverse, with its emphasis on local control, quality content and social value, are far more aligned with our public purposes than those of avowedly commercial networks like Threads or Twitter." This model does, however, present challenges when it comes to content ownership, as the use of multiple servers means that content becomes almost omnipresent, existing in a space in-between. Moderation also becomes complicated: how can a company like the BBC police this content, when its ownership exists in a kind of grey area? How much of a risk are businesses willing to take? As more and more companies experiment with the Fediverse, it's important to watch this space. Read more below👇 https://buff.ly/3QlOHTM #SocialMedia #Fediverse #SocialMediaStrategy