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My opinion, what's the return on joining yet another social media network so you can receive ads and see messages from bots screaming about mRNA vaccines and Hu
by Sunspark 4y ago
My opinion, what's the return on joining yet another social media network so you can receive ads and see messages from bots screaming about mRNA vaccines and Hunter Biden's laptop? That's one extreme. The other is highly controlled content from dictators-for-life (e.g. unelected moderators or technology company employees) who will ban/shut you down for expressing an opinion that doesn't fit their narrative. It's fine until it's you they decide to cancel. The only way to avoid that is be an invisible lurker.. but then, why not read a newspaper or a dedicated topic website instead? At least everyone writing in a newspaper isn't intellectually challenged or a bot.
Using your real name isn't enjoyable anymore because people look for things to use against you. Did you say or do something 25 years ago that today people will penalize you for? They'll search for it. So, using a handle.. ok, see the first paragraph above.
What does one get out of joining new social media? You can be amazingly creative or eloquent. Nobody is going to care and whatever it was, it is forgotten the next day. Create or dialogue for your own entertainment, at the end of the day, it's completely unproductive. No one will remember your contribution, no one will even remember you existed the next day.
I think we've all seen enough photos of people's dinners or pets.
So what is left?
I think one problem is audience reach. It's all-or-nothing. Do you really always want to broadcast to the world? (Twitter) or do you always want to broadcast only to your "friends" (Facebook) or do you want to collect names but never speak out of fear of workplace politics (LinkedIn).
One social media network I thought was interesting, but is dead now due to mismanagement (as usual) was Google+. It had the concept of circles. It was more work absolutely, but you could tag people with being a family member, or a highschool friend or a circle of people who climbed Mt. Everest with you. The advantage of this would be you could write about how great this nylon rope is, and not have it go to your family or work colleagues in the non-rope industry, or whatever.
It took years, but Google+ was STARTING to grow, then Google as usual decided to kill it off, along with Hangouts which was their iMessage competitor (included SMS at one point).
- zamnos 4y agoThere are plenty of thriving communities on Slack and Discord and Mastodon, often private, that seem to be doing just fine despite, or perhaps because of having a code of conduct that everyone agrees to before joining. I'm not sure how you expect a platform to escape having bots screaming about Hunter Bidens laptop unless there are guidelines on what constitutes good conduct, with repercussions for violating them, so that the bots can be banned. That you've made the leap of logic to conclude that only "highly controlled content from dictators-for-life (e.g. unelected moderators or technology company employees)" will be approved is your loss. Every community has their own biases, and if you need a safe space to post your screed against the blacks/the whites/Jews/Gentiles/gays/straights/immigrants/natives/bankers/soccer moms/the rich/the poor/cats/dinner pics/etc don't worry, there's a community out there for you.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]