what the fuck are we doing anymore (yes this is about social media)
January 10, 2025 2:17 PM Subscribe
Kate Wagner (many prevs), of McMansionHell and many other projects, is not feeling optimistic about the future of journalism. "Really, what other word is there to describe what is coming our way than atavism? I don’t feel like waxing poetic about the good old days of getting work because there is enough of that and those days are over. The only way out of this bind is the hope that such competition does not foreclose us from building together something new, something stable, something that is large-scale rather than a gaggle of one’s old friends; perhaps most importantly, something formally organized. The time is running out for what is left of social media to be utilized to this end."
posted by box at 2:30 PM on January 10 [10 favorites]
We’re all tired. We’re all burnt out. We’re all scared.
Actually, no. Not "all." That trope has been used over and over and over and over for many years.
posted by davidmsc at 2:53 PM on January 10 [9 favorites]
Actually, no. Not "all." That trope has been used over and over and over and over for many years.
posted by davidmsc at 2:53 PM on January 10 [9 favorites]
Actually
If there’s a single word that can sum up the vibe of social media, that must be a strong contender.
posted by Inkslinger at 3:06 PM on January 10 [96 favorites]
If there’s a single word that can sum up the vibe of social media, that must be a strong contender.
posted by Inkslinger at 3:06 PM on January 10 [96 favorites]
This resonated, and so many gems in there:
posted by german_bight at 3:29 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I really didn’t do any of this to be “a writer” or be famous or have power or go to parties I’m too brain-feral to actually enjoy. Those things actually further immiserate rather than empower me and I don’t think it’s copemaxxing to say that.It chimes with my own mounting feeling of our culture(s) having definitively turned a corner--see also this piece Rusty Foster linked in Tabs today. Edit: lol I see he links this Wagner piece a few paras down.
posted by german_bight at 3:29 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
Actually
I love that for you, davidmsc, must be so nice.
posted by german_bight at 3:30 PM on January 10 [19 favorites]
I love that for you, davidmsc, must be so nice.
posted by german_bight at 3:30 PM on January 10 [19 favorites]
As a former journalist, I think one of the problems with the field is that many of us decided around 2009 that our job was posting on Twitter and not doing journalism. Stop providing free content for other people.
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 3:48 PM on January 10 [25 favorites]
posted by Just the one swan, actually at 3:48 PM on January 10 [25 favorites]
Something that's been percolating in my head since Zuckerberg announced Meta was following Musk's playbook for Twitter: social media was an exceptional space for activism and organizing. It helped marginalized people to find others in the same situation, and allowed them to create shared spaces. Yes, it's always been a toxic hellscape, and we're probably years away from finding out just how bad it has been for humanity as a whole, but there were positives from it.
It just feels, very much, like this didn't go unnoticed. So, what happened? Twitter, probably one of the better spaces for dissemination of information and organizing gets gutted and turned into a clearing house for bots, misinformation, and outright racism. That leads to people (rightfully) quitting the platform, which cuts them off from that outlet of organization and the online communities that existed there. It feels like the murder of Twitter is the blueprint Meta is following, making the most effective tools for organizing so distasteful that the left is, well, left with no choice but to walk away, essentially crippling its organizing ability.
I can't really see any way out of it, though. Meta's changes seem to be engineered to target the groups the rules used to protect, and asking people to keep using these sites for the sake of organizing is the same as asking someone to willingly expose themselves to some of the ugliest shit imaginable, and it just feels like anything new that pops up, is successful, and is useful in the same ways will just end up with the same fate, being bought, trashed, and rendered toxic.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:03 PM on January 10 [40 favorites]
It just feels, very much, like this didn't go unnoticed. So, what happened? Twitter, probably one of the better spaces for dissemination of information and organizing gets gutted and turned into a clearing house for bots, misinformation, and outright racism. That leads to people (rightfully) quitting the platform, which cuts them off from that outlet of organization and the online communities that existed there. It feels like the murder of Twitter is the blueprint Meta is following, making the most effective tools for organizing so distasteful that the left is, well, left with no choice but to walk away, essentially crippling its organizing ability.
I can't really see any way out of it, though. Meta's changes seem to be engineered to target the groups the rules used to protect, and asking people to keep using these sites for the sake of organizing is the same as asking someone to willingly expose themselves to some of the ugliest shit imaginable, and it just feels like anything new that pops up, is successful, and is useful in the same ways will just end up with the same fate, being bought, trashed, and rendered toxic.
posted by Ghidorah at 4:03 PM on January 10 [40 favorites]
There's a number of interesting themes in essay, but I like the one from the pull quote about founding something large scale that's more than a gathering place for old friends and is formally organized.
The problem is that the best way to establish something like that is on the edge where young people are and get them used to it first so that they grow up with it being normal and right now they're growing up with influencers and short videos being normal. The other thing is that theoretically there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes with our worlds getting smaller and smaller thanks to the "algorithm" and no longer know how to discover stuff without it being feed to us.
It used to be in a friends groups friends would touch different things and then bring them into the main friends group, hey check out this band, magazine, show that I just found. Now instead of real people its an algorithm and if you don't know what you're doing you can easily fall down the whirlpool and end up somewhere, someone you wouldn't recognize.
posted by Art_Pot at 4:11 PM on January 10 [10 favorites]
The problem is that the best way to establish something like that is on the edge where young people are and get them used to it first so that they grow up with it being normal and right now they're growing up with influencers and short videos being normal. The other thing is that theoretically there is nothing wrong with that. The problem comes with our worlds getting smaller and smaller thanks to the "algorithm" and no longer know how to discover stuff without it being feed to us.
It used to be in a friends groups friends would touch different things and then bring them into the main friends group, hey check out this band, magazine, show that I just found. Now instead of real people its an algorithm and if you don't know what you're doing you can easily fall down the whirlpool and end up somewhere, someone you wouldn't recognize.
posted by Art_Pot at 4:11 PM on January 10 [10 favorites]
> Ghidorah: "it just feels like anything new that pops up, is successful, and is useful in the same ways will just end up with the same fate, being bought, trashed, and rendered toxic."
Sometimes, it just gets banned by the US govt.
posted by mhum at 4:17 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
Sometimes, it just gets banned by the US govt.
posted by mhum at 4:17 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
and asking people to keep using these sites for the sake of organizing is the same as asking someone to willingly expose themselves to some of the ugliest shit imaginable
"Using them for organizing" isn't really an either/or, though. There's no reason why the... less affected by ugly shit members of the group can't maintain a FB page that's fundamentally nothing more than a portal to an organizing space that isn't under Meta's umbrella, and do the vast majority of the work outside the garden of delights that FB is about to become. I don't blame them for wanting to quit FB at all, but like many others have pointed out in other threads, sometimes it's the only "public" square for many smaller communities.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:26 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
"Using them for organizing" isn't really an either/or, though. There's no reason why the... less affected by ugly shit members of the group can't maintain a FB page that's fundamentally nothing more than a portal to an organizing space that isn't under Meta's umbrella, and do the vast majority of the work outside the garden of delights that FB is about to become. I don't blame them for wanting to quit FB at all, but like many others have pointed out in other threads, sometimes it's the only "public" square for many smaller communities.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 4:26 PM on January 10 [2 favorites]
I've moved from X to BlueSky... now I just need to find replacements for Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp...
posted by Panthalassa at 4:46 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
posted by Panthalassa at 4:46 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
Do you though?
posted by gottabefunky at 4:50 PM on January 10 [22 favorites]
posted by gottabefunky at 4:50 PM on January 10 [22 favorites]
There's no reason why the... less affected by ugly shit members of the group can't maintain a FB page that's fundamentally nothing more than a portal to an organizing space
Tiktok, for instance, has completely removed the ability to follow links outside of its built in browser. I haven't touched Facebook in ages but I'd imagine they may steer you in that direction as well. Xitter likes to reduce visibility of posts with off site links (and briefly banned them iirc). All of these are waiting on the moment they can get away with higher walls and no net neutrality protections.
Sure, it could be QR codes and link in bio and so on but all of those add friction. I don't have a solution, but it's not that simple to do as you suggest.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 4:51 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Tiktok, for instance, has completely removed the ability to follow links outside of its built in browser. I haven't touched Facebook in ages but I'd imagine they may steer you in that direction as well. Xitter likes to reduce visibility of posts with off site links (and briefly banned them iirc). All of these are waiting on the moment they can get away with higher walls and no net neutrality protections.
Sure, it could be QR codes and link in bio and so on but all of those add friction. I don't have a solution, but it's not that simple to do as you suggest.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 4:51 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
Do you though?
Yes.
I use Facebook for its Groups functionality, Messenger to stay in contact with the friends I made before I had an Instagram account, Instagram to stay in contact with friends I made after that, and WhatsApp to stay in contact with family and also the friends I have who stay off Facebook and Instagram for whatever reason.
Just give me one 'everything forum' app to replace Facebook Groups, one 'image blogging' app to replace Instagram, and one messaging app where I can import/synchronise contacts/friends/followers from the other two apps plus BlueSky plus ordinary phone numbers to replace Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram DMs.
I mean it's three entirely new apps to develop and popularise, MetaFilter, what could it cost? Ten dollars?
posted by Panthalassa at 5:08 PM on January 10 [17 favorites]
Yes.
I use Facebook for its Groups functionality, Messenger to stay in contact with the friends I made before I had an Instagram account, Instagram to stay in contact with friends I made after that, and WhatsApp to stay in contact with family and also the friends I have who stay off Facebook and Instagram for whatever reason.
Just give me one 'everything forum' app to replace Facebook Groups, one 'image blogging' app to replace Instagram, and one messaging app where I can import/synchronise contacts/friends/followers from the other two apps plus BlueSky plus ordinary phone numbers to replace Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram DMs.
I mean it's three entirely new apps to develop and popularise, MetaFilter, what could it cost? Ten dollars?
posted by Panthalassa at 5:08 PM on January 10 [17 favorites]
Fediverse ho?
posted by anthill at 5:20 PM on January 10 [10 favorites]
posted by anthill at 5:20 PM on January 10 [10 favorites]
I wish I was less tired of fiery screeds.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:56 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 5:56 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
soapbox brevity, be, look at me, can you see, we should be, just so free, more the glee, less then rent, lost intent, foreshadow, dumb box, hitching post of desire, lost ithought from content-redirect, front face, right lace, Apple Jack's, methane traps, rapid maps, who raps, playing taps, North Koreans in the Ukraine..
glut peak.
posted by clavdivs at 6:28 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
glut peak.
posted by clavdivs at 6:28 PM on January 10 [3 favorites]
Despite wanting to, I'm reluctant to give up Facebook and Instagram or even Twitter to some extent because those are literally the only way I keep up with some people I know (these are people I know in real life but also live far from me). I don't think I can convince a bunch of people who don't know each other (and also have their own networks on these social media sites) to follow me to another one (but they'll probably stay where they are too because ... they know people on those sites).
I manage to not see a lot of the garbage social media sites put in front of people because I use it in very specific ways. But it's frustrating to know that there are some people I will very rarely interact with again if they quit one or any of these.
(This has already happened with Twitter.)
I keep joking we should go back to LiveJournal, but that's owned by Russians so ... no. Someone's trying to revive Friendster.
Maybe we should all just go back to email listservs.
posted by edencosmic at 7:23 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
I manage to not see a lot of the garbage social media sites put in front of people because I use it in very specific ways. But it's frustrating to know that there are some people I will very rarely interact with again if they quit one or any of these.
(This has already happened with Twitter.)
I keep joking we should go back to LiveJournal, but that's owned by Russians so ... no. Someone's trying to revive Friendster.
Maybe we should all just go back to email listservs.
posted by edencosmic at 7:23 PM on January 10 [5 favorites]
Two things can be true.
1. Social media is definitely seen as a threat to certain powerful people who want to squash the ability for people they dislike to organize and resist.
2. Staying on a platform that targets people I love is a nonstarter.
Anyway I notified the folks I talk to there that I would be downloading stuff this weekend and gone by Monday .
posted by emjaybee at 7:51 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
1. Social media is definitely seen as a threat to certain powerful people who want to squash the ability for people they dislike to organize and resist.
2. Staying on a platform that targets people I love is a nonstarter.
Anyway I notified the folks I talk to there that I would be downloading stuff this weekend and gone by Monday .
posted by emjaybee at 7:51 PM on January 10 [7 favorites]
I keep joking we should go back to LiveJournal, but that's owned by Russians so ... no. Someone's trying to revive Friendster.
I mean, Dreamwidth still exists and is thriving, based on the ancient LJ codebase (albeit vastly, vastly improved and modernized).
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:32 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
I mean, Dreamwidth still exists and is thriving, based on the ancient LJ codebase (albeit vastly, vastly improved and modernized).
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:32 PM on January 10 [8 favorites]
Just give me one 'everything forum' app to replace Facebook Groups, one 'image blogging' app to replace Instagram, and one messaging app where I can import/synchronise contacts/friends/followers from the other two apps plus BlueSky plus ordinary phone numbers to replace Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram DMs.
The problem is that these things exist in one way or another, your friends and family just aren't on them and that's 100% the problem. I've done Ello and Diaspora and Dreamwidth and Discord and Tumblr and fedi and self-hosted IRC channels and more fora than I can name, but if the people you want to communicate aren't there, there's no point in moving.
I'm in a Stitch and Bitch group with a mix of people, about half of whom are tech savvy and half of whom are not. We've got a Discord server and about a third again of the tech-heads are on fedi. The only spot we can organise is on Facebook Messenger because that's where most of the people are. We have one hard core member who refuses to be on anything Meta who we make sure to loop in, but by and large if we didn't use Messenger we'd be out of luck because we'd just lose people. We already have - yarn crafts being as they are, there's a few folks who just don't Internet and who barely Phone, so they just don't come to things.
I am a hair's breadth from bailing on Meta as much as I can, but I'll be on both for a bit yet because if you're a self published author you gotta hustle, and Meta is where a good chunk of the hustle. Insty is less of a horror show than FB but I'd gladly toss in both given half a chance. It's just not happening till we hit a Twitter X-out level crash and people bail for good.
posted by Jilder at 11:57 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
The problem is that these things exist in one way or another, your friends and family just aren't on them and that's 100% the problem. I've done Ello and Diaspora and Dreamwidth and Discord and Tumblr and fedi and self-hosted IRC channels and more fora than I can name, but if the people you want to communicate aren't there, there's no point in moving.
I'm in a Stitch and Bitch group with a mix of people, about half of whom are tech savvy and half of whom are not. We've got a Discord server and about a third again of the tech-heads are on fedi. The only spot we can organise is on Facebook Messenger because that's where most of the people are. We have one hard core member who refuses to be on anything Meta who we make sure to loop in, but by and large if we didn't use Messenger we'd be out of luck because we'd just lose people. We already have - yarn crafts being as they are, there's a few folks who just don't Internet and who barely Phone, so they just don't come to things.
I am a hair's breadth from bailing on Meta as much as I can, but I'll be on both for a bit yet because if you're a self published author you gotta hustle, and Meta is where a good chunk of the hustle. Insty is less of a horror show than FB but I'd gladly toss in both given half a chance. It's just not happening till we hit a Twitter X-out level crash and people bail for good.
posted by Jilder at 11:57 PM on January 10 [6 favorites]
For good or ill, most of the major events of my life in this century have taken place because of online communities. I am, to be blunt, neutral on whether those events were the best things that could have happened to or for me. They are simply what transpired. My social connection to the internet is whisper thin now, and I'm not entirely sure what I've lost. I often think we were better off without it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:41 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:41 AM on January 11 [14 favorites]
I lost touch with people when I left Facebook in 2018ish. I’ve missed unofficial college reunions, countless parties and events, and just this month learned about but won’t be able to join a neighborhood book club because they organize it all through a FB group.
I lost touch with people when I left Twitter last year. I gained some back on bluesky and/or the fediverse but not all.
I’m considering leaving Instagram but if I do, I will lose touch with so many more folks. People who live near me and I know IRL but we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, as well as people who live elsewhere I’ve never met. I’ve had a Flickr pro account since like 2005 and can go back to posting there, but that’s not really what I or most of my friends use Insta for. It’s all stories where we’re just sharing our lives and thoughts, not really photos.
Oh, and I use What’s App for my cross-device family group chat and neighbor Community and I don’t really think there’s anything to replace those that people would actually use.
posted by misskaz at 5:58 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
I lost touch with people when I left Twitter last year. I gained some back on bluesky and/or the fediverse but not all.
I’m considering leaving Instagram but if I do, I will lose touch with so many more folks. People who live near me and I know IRL but we don’t see each other as often as we’d like, as well as people who live elsewhere I’ve never met. I’ve had a Flickr pro account since like 2005 and can go back to posting there, but that’s not really what I or most of my friends use Insta for. It’s all stories where we’re just sharing our lives and thoughts, not really photos.
Oh, and I use What’s App for my cross-device family group chat and neighbor Community and I don’t really think there’s anything to replace those that people would actually use.
posted by misskaz at 5:58 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
my first marriage was formed through a multi-user BBS I ran in the 80s (control = me).
my second marriage was formed through usenet (control = no one, tbh)
now the only widespread communication entities are controlled by tech bros (mastodon a slight exception).
the point isn't about making relationships online, but on who controls them and maintains them.
things are much worse now than they were before.
any kind of joy you find online now is essentially "stolen" from the claws of the rentiers
it's sad because if we tried to put usenet back together it would be instantly filled with spam and garbage
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:19 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
my second marriage was formed through usenet (control = no one, tbh)
now the only widespread communication entities are controlled by tech bros (mastodon a slight exception).
the point isn't about making relationships online, but on who controls them and maintains them.
things are much worse now than they were before.
any kind of joy you find online now is essentially "stolen" from the claws of the rentiers
it's sad because if we tried to put usenet back together it would be instantly filled with spam and garbage
posted by seanmpuckett at 6:19 AM on January 11 [11 favorites]
There are some old Mac user groups on FB that I depend on for meeting other weird old nerds who like working on obsolete tech. Once upon a time those groups would've been on Yahoo Groups which has been gone for years. Yes there are subreddits but it's really not the same - I've been talking to and meeting up with these people for years and years, and leaving FB entirely would mean losing a little bit of the community that keeps me sane.
But there are some things up with which we cannot put. Meta turning full bore Maga is one of them. I'll just have to start looking for alternatives. Thank goodness this place exists.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:30 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
But there are some things up with which we cannot put. Meta turning full bore Maga is one of them. I'll just have to start looking for alternatives. Thank goodness this place exists.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:30 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
I loved reading the earlier comment on this post that said to stop posting free content for others. If you're a paid journalist or what have you, then everything that you do on social media should be redirecting people to the sites that help to write you your checks.
Because of events that happened on many social media platforms I took the dive into the Fediverse. It's a small place but the engagement is good. No one person or company owns it. During my time there I've felt that several news organizations should build their own instance for their journalists. They would then control the roads their news travels down. No app or account would be needed for readers if they didn't want one.
The downside would definitely be that the news organization would have to grow it organically. There's no algorithm and no organization to force your account into the face of others. Your money can't necessarily buy you that there. And if your instance becomes more spam than useful or you become less about news and more about opinion, then other instances could defederate from you.
One big thing to note too about the Fediverse, it is where it is today because of marginalized groups. LGBTQ+, the disabled, the neurodivergent, and others at the fringes breathed life into it.
posted by DB_S at 6:40 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
Because of events that happened on many social media platforms I took the dive into the Fediverse. It's a small place but the engagement is good. No one person or company owns it. During my time there I've felt that several news organizations should build their own instance for their journalists. They would then control the roads their news travels down. No app or account would be needed for readers if they didn't want one.
The downside would definitely be that the news organization would have to grow it organically. There's no algorithm and no organization to force your account into the face of others. Your money can't necessarily buy you that there. And if your instance becomes more spam than useful or you become less about news and more about opinion, then other instances could defederate from you.
One big thing to note too about the Fediverse, it is where it is today because of marginalized groups. LGBTQ+, the disabled, the neurodivergent, and others at the fringes breathed life into it.
posted by DB_S at 6:40 AM on January 11 [10 favorites]
> I mean it's three entirely new apps to develop and popularise, MetaFilter, what could it cost? Ten dollars?
Cut to: a messy office, covered in old pizza boxes, coffee cups and accumulated layers of standard programmer filth. Slow push toward a computer screen as a developer is heard laughing maniacally for no less than 360 seconds. We're talking Tarkovsky level shit here. Kubrick. Ridiculously slow push, ridiculously long maniacal laughing.
A single finger, attached to a fist, rises into frame. It is the middle finger. An angry face is drawn on the fingernail.
Developer voice: (choking) No.
Cut to: viewer reaction
Cut to: the finger. The laughter stops with a choking sound. The face is closed eyes above an 'o' mouth. The hand drops.
Cue music (Mozart's Requiem). We are subjected to the full 9 minutes with an unchanging camera before …
Fade to black. Roill credits.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:29 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Cut to: a messy office, covered in old pizza boxes, coffee cups and accumulated layers of standard programmer filth. Slow push toward a computer screen as a developer is heard laughing maniacally for no less than 360 seconds. We're talking Tarkovsky level shit here. Kubrick. Ridiculously slow push, ridiculously long maniacal laughing.
A single finger, attached to a fist, rises into frame. It is the middle finger. An angry face is drawn on the fingernail.
Developer voice: (choking) No.
Cut to: viewer reaction
Cut to: the finger. The laughter stops with a choking sound. The face is closed eyes above an 'o' mouth. The hand drops.
Cue music (Mozart's Requiem). We are subjected to the full 9 minutes with an unchanging camera before …
Fade to black. Roill credits.
posted by JustSayNoDawg at 7:29 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
I'm trying to figure out what "the ‘end of letters’ industrial complex" is.
posted by doctornemo at 7:42 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
posted by doctornemo at 7:42 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
She's snarking on the very popular genre of essay lamenting that no one reads any more
posted by jy4m at 7:55 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 7:55 AM on January 11 [2 favorites]
I sympathize with the author in some ways. I'm also an independent, without an institution to back me up (or pay health insurance). I also rely on social media to further my writing and to work professionally. The digital world, including the social, helps keep me and my family alive through Patreon, YouTube (monetized at last!), and paid newsletter subscriptions.
I still use social media and will continue to do so for at least the near future. Why?
1) Bluesky, X/Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Mastodon are venues where I learn from and host conversations. The format, quality, etc. of such conversation varies in the usual ways: what the algo decides, what interests people, what I do to keep things going, etc.
2) As a futurist social media offers useful data and stories.
3) I can get the word out of my various projects across social media to various extents. This is how I do what DB_S says, "everything that you do on social media should be redirecting people to the sites that help to write you your checks."
4) There are a *ton* of people who connect with me on Facebook and will not do so through any other platform. This is mostly social, not professional, but there is some of the latter. (Yes, I am 57.) (And Facebook Purity helps tamp down some of the platform's mess)
PS: I still blog, damn it.
posted by doctornemo at 8:00 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
I still use social media and will continue to do so for at least the near future. Why?
1) Bluesky, X/Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Mastodon are venues where I learn from and host conversations. The format, quality, etc. of such conversation varies in the usual ways: what the algo decides, what interests people, what I do to keep things going, etc.
2) As a futurist social media offers useful data and stories.
3) I can get the word out of my various projects across social media to various extents. This is how I do what DB_S says, "everything that you do on social media should be redirecting people to the sites that help to write you your checks."
4) There are a *ton* of people who connect with me on Facebook and will not do so through any other platform. This is mostly social, not professional, but there is some of the latter. (Yes, I am 57.) (And Facebook Purity helps tamp down some of the platform's mess)
PS: I still blog, damn it.
posted by doctornemo at 8:00 AM on January 11 [7 favorites]
my first marriage was formed through a multi-user BBS I ran in the 80s (control = me).
my second marriage was formed through usenet (control = no one, tbh)
now the only widespread communication entities are controlled by tech bros (mastodon a slight exception).
I feel you on this, but the key difference is that back in the BBS and Usenet days, only a very small fraction of people were online (excluding AOL, CompuServe et al which often get forgotten and had a much higher normie contingent). The advent of FB, Friendster, Twitter, Instagram et al brought almost everyone online and allowed a lot of these connections across large distances to happen that would have not otherwise happened. It's a Faustian bargain, to be sure, but you can't have that level of connection without a platform as large as FB/X/IG.
I remember how cliquey and drama-laden the BBS scene was, and I don't miss it. For sure, I loved the BBS that I ran and the BBSes of my friends, but I wasn't keeping in touch with long lost connections that way.
Disconnecting from FB/X/IG/WhatsApp doesn't mean you have to disconnect from the people you're in touch with, though - it just means it will take more effort. Email, SMS, snail mail, personal websites. And sure, some percentage of those people won't be willing to put in the effort, which sucks, but that is the tradeoff if you don't want to give your data to Big Tech.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:27 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
my second marriage was formed through usenet (control = no one, tbh)
now the only widespread communication entities are controlled by tech bros (mastodon a slight exception).
I feel you on this, but the key difference is that back in the BBS and Usenet days, only a very small fraction of people were online (excluding AOL, CompuServe et al which often get forgotten and had a much higher normie contingent). The advent of FB, Friendster, Twitter, Instagram et al brought almost everyone online and allowed a lot of these connections across large distances to happen that would have not otherwise happened. It's a Faustian bargain, to be sure, but you can't have that level of connection without a platform as large as FB/X/IG.
I remember how cliquey and drama-laden the BBS scene was, and I don't miss it. For sure, I loved the BBS that I ran and the BBSes of my friends, but I wasn't keeping in touch with long lost connections that way.
Disconnecting from FB/X/IG/WhatsApp doesn't mean you have to disconnect from the people you're in touch with, though - it just means it will take more effort. Email, SMS, snail mail, personal websites. And sure, some percentage of those people won't be willing to put in the effort, which sucks, but that is the tradeoff if you don't want to give your data to Big Tech.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:27 AM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Facebook already silently pushes down posts with a link.
Now I notice they are also hiding comments with links matching certain keywords - yesterday I linked to the 404media article calling out Meta's new transphobic policies and my comment got insta-blocked.
The idea that queer support groups can use Facebook at all - even to post links to external sites - is going to get increasingly difficult.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:35 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
Now I notice they are also hiding comments with links matching certain keywords - yesterday I linked to the 404media article calling out Meta's new transphobic policies and my comment got insta-blocked.
The idea that queer support groups can use Facebook at all - even to post links to external sites - is going to get increasingly difficult.
posted by splitpeasoup at 8:35 AM on January 11 [8 favorites]
>I wish I was less tired of fiery screeds.
Me too. As much as I adore Kate Wagner, I probably won't read this. There's only so much I can take.
posted by lhauser at 8:45 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
Me too. As much as I adore Kate Wagner, I probably won't read this. There's only so much I can take.
posted by lhauser at 8:45 AM on January 11 [1 favorite]
it's sad because if we tried to put usenet back together it would be instantly filled with spam and garbage
Usenet was filled with spam and garbage decades ago, which is why I left it behind. That was the real legacy of Eternal September; not that there were all these noobs all of a sudden, but that there were also a whole bunch of people trying to make a buck off of being online and not caring what they turned the existing online experience into. Their solution to finding a needle in a haystack was to burn down the haystack.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:28 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
Usenet was filled with spam and garbage decades ago, which is why I left it behind. That was the real legacy of Eternal September; not that there were all these noobs all of a sudden, but that there were also a whole bunch of people trying to make a buck off of being online and not caring what they turned the existing online experience into. Their solution to finding a needle in a haystack was to burn down the haystack.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:28 AM on January 11 [5 favorites]
Usenet (or to be more specific, the capability to have newsgroups; Usenet might be all distributed newsgroups in aggregate) still exists AFAICT. Its a kind of distributed system - you can host a server with newsgroups of your own making and decide what to propagate or pull in (there was a time most universities and academic institutions had their own news-groups that may or may not have left their respective networks).
It feels like one reason social networks have thrived is the hassle of rolling your own for things more complex than static html sites. Patching-vulns/moderating-comments can consume a non-trivial amount of time and expertise (+ things like the old slashdot effect - if anything you wrote became note-worthy and you self-hosted, it could be taken offline inadvertently or rack-up large traffic-bills) - if someone else takes care of that then you got to participate without some of the head-aches (you may end up with different head-aches tho').
posted by phigmov at 9:59 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
It feels like one reason social networks have thrived is the hassle of rolling your own for things more complex than static html sites. Patching-vulns/moderating-comments can consume a non-trivial amount of time and expertise (+ things like the old slashdot effect - if anything you wrote became note-worthy and you self-hosted, it could be taken offline inadvertently or rack-up large traffic-bills) - if someone else takes care of that then you got to participate without some of the head-aches (you may end up with different head-aches tho').
posted by phigmov at 9:59 AM on January 11 [6 favorites]
As much as I adore Kate Wagner, I probably won't read this. There's only so much I can take.
The reason this resonated with me enough to post it is that it isn’t really a firey screed. I’m sick to death of those because they feel like rallying cries to nobody with no solutions offered. This essay feels more… idk, quiet and realistic, somehow. Less something made performatively for clicks, more one woman’s deep frustration with the lack of solutions that seem to exist. It feels honest in a way these things often don’t, to me.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
The reason this resonated with me enough to post it is that it isn’t really a firey screed. I’m sick to death of those because they feel like rallying cries to nobody with no solutions offered. This essay feels more… idk, quiet and realistic, somehow. Less something made performatively for clicks, more one woman’s deep frustration with the lack of solutions that seem to exist. It feels honest in a way these things often don’t, to me.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:02 AM on January 11 [4 favorites]
Agreend, phigmov, there is no easy solution. I'm right now just trying to install MongoDB 4.0+ on my Ubuntu VM and got weird issues trying to upgrade it (because the Spring Boot MongoDB drivers don't support Mongo 3.6) and it turns out I have to upgrade from 20.04 to 24.04, which, OK, cool, because I'm a professional software developer (though not a Unix sysadmin) this is doable for me, but holy hell how would someone who isn't a full time computer doofus deal with this? And it already has me wanting to ditch MongoDB for DynamoDB specifically because of upgrading wire version etc. And this is just to get a stupid proof of concept up and running! Forget about maintaining the infrastructure for a full-bore social networking site. The only reason BBSes were so popular and lasted so long was because they were more like appliances than applications - they just worked for as long as you kept them up and running. Modern applications, not so much.
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:31 AM on January 11
posted by grumpybear69 at 10:31 AM on January 11
During my time there I've felt that several news organizations should build their own instance for their journalists.
So, like journa.host?
In other journalism on the fediverse news, the mainline creator tag is an interesting approach, but I don’t remember seeing it in the wild.
posted by zamboni at 12:44 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
So, like journa.host?
In other journalism on the fediverse news, the mainline creator tag is an interesting approach, but I don’t remember seeing it in the wild.
posted by zamboni at 12:44 PM on January 11 [3 favorites]
Even like the Texas Observer , running its own social-media instance as well as its web server.
posted by clew at 1:11 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
posted by clew at 1:11 PM on January 11 [2 favorites]
Thank you, jy4m. I read "letters" as in "arts and letters" or "belles lettres" and got waylaid.
posted by doctornemo at 5:44 PM on January 11
posted by doctornemo at 5:44 PM on January 11
Facebook already silently pushes down posts with a link.
This drives me nuts. It seems that Instagram and X are doing this as well.
One workaround is to share a URL in a following comment.
posted by doctornemo at 5:46 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
This drives me nuts. It seems that Instagram and X are doing this as well.
One workaround is to share a URL in a following comment.
posted by doctornemo at 5:46 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]
doctornemo: Very anecdata, but some links shared in comments just make the whole post go bye bye, or get hidden as spam. Patreon links and itch.io links disappear for me all the time, and there are days it won't allow me to post them at all - I just get 'this link is spam and can't be displayed' and that's it. Happens with tumblr sometimes, too. They want to keep you in the FB arcology and will do anything they can to make that happen, apparently.
posted by Jilder at 1:27 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
posted by Jilder at 1:27 AM on January 12 [3 favorites]
Grr, Jilder. How galling.
posted by doctornemo at 11:05 AM on January 12
posted by doctornemo at 11:05 AM on January 12
social media was an exceptional space for activism and organizing
to be honest, I don't know if this was the case. Historically, in activism, there's been an understanding that there's two kinds of spaces - one by and for specific people to be among their own kind, and a space for building alliances with people who don't necessarily understand your issues but are willing to learn if that means you'll help with theirs. (The surprising alliance between UK coal miners and the UK LGBTQ+ movement is a sterling example of the latter.) Social media unhelpfully conflated the two, leading to a lot of infighting and purity testing amongst the movement as people tried to use a alliance space as a safe space. I think the way awareness-raising needs to be done, by blanketing people's feeds to reach those who barely notice, does a lot of damage to more sensitive people who hear about an issue first, care about it, then feel powerless to do anything about it. Most damningly, it seems to have lead to really fragile issue-based movements like #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter that are able to get a lot done, but dissipate in time for the backlash and allow most of their work to be undone.
posted by Merus at 2:29 PM on January 12 [3 favorites]
to be honest, I don't know if this was the case. Historically, in activism, there's been an understanding that there's two kinds of spaces - one by and for specific people to be among their own kind, and a space for building alliances with people who don't necessarily understand your issues but are willing to learn if that means you'll help with theirs. (The surprising alliance between UK coal miners and the UK LGBTQ+ movement is a sterling example of the latter.) Social media unhelpfully conflated the two, leading to a lot of infighting and purity testing amongst the movement as people tried to use a alliance space as a safe space. I think the way awareness-raising needs to be done, by blanketing people's feeds to reach those who barely notice, does a lot of damage to more sensitive people who hear about an issue first, care about it, then feel powerless to do anything about it. Most damningly, it seems to have lead to really fragile issue-based movements like #MeToo or #BlackLivesMatter that are able to get a lot done, but dissipate in time for the backlash and allow most of their work to be undone.
posted by Merus at 2:29 PM on January 12 [3 favorites]
>The only spot we can organise is on Facebook Messenger because that's where most of the people are. We have one hard core member who refuses to be on anything Meta who we make sure to loop in
Is a text message group really so impossible for everyone to use? I get that some annoying incompatibilities have persisted (thanks Apple) but anyone who has a phone has text messages. Not trying to be snarky there are plenty of parent and school groups who also default to one of the Meta owned services and suggesting regular texting just gets me ghettoized instantly.
Maybe Signal will finally be more palatable as the others continue to enshittify.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 5:58 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
Is a text message group really so impossible for everyone to use? I get that some annoying incompatibilities have persisted (thanks Apple) but anyone who has a phone has text messages. Not trying to be snarky there are plenty of parent and school groups who also default to one of the Meta owned services and suggesting regular texting just gets me ghettoized instantly.
Maybe Signal will finally be more palatable as the others continue to enshittify.
posted by Lenie Clarke at 5:58 AM on January 13 [2 favorites]
I think text groups top out at about 20 people, with exceptions. My groups regularly needed to be larger so now we're (almost) all happily using Signal.
posted by achrise at 7:46 AM on January 13
posted by achrise at 7:46 AM on January 13
Lenie: Part of the drama at my school is that using an app makes it opt in, whereas just getting an SMS or whatever makes it opt out. Size is an issue too and like most things you have to use whatever is most readily adopted. For our school that's Whatsapp, and it's annoying.
posted by Jilder at 9:38 PM on January 13
posted by Jilder at 9:38 PM on January 13
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