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Calling social media a "public square," isn't a valid analogy, and is an impossible ideal to live up to. Nothing about it works the same way an actual public s

by mvkel 2y ago

Calling social media a "public square," isn't a valid analogy, and is an impossible ideal to live up to. Nothing about it works the same way an actual public square does. It's a coliseum.

rchaud 2y ago
The "public square" talk is pure marketing from Twitter. It began in 2009 when Iranians held mass protests against their government and used Twitter as a way to share information as the state had turned off SMS texts. This led to wall-to-wall coverage on US news channels as Iran is of course denoted as an enemy state, and here was Twitter, an American social network helping spread free speech. This would happen again in 2011 during the so-called Arab Spring.
- mvkel 2y ago
  It's wild that a one-time convenient excuse turned into the base expectation of all social media that is impossible to live up to. People are weird.
  - krapp 2y ago
    It's politics. Until relatively recently, the expectation that social media could be moderated even while acting as a "public square" (which was never a "base expectation of all social media" for anyone outside of a politically vested minority) was not controversial. Now people want to make "algorithms" illegal.
winternett 2y ago
There are so many sites that all follow the same template... To sell sponsorships & ads and to companies, and then slap the illusion that public participation is vibrant. The only good model for a social site these days are smaller communities specialized around a niche, like specific cars or musician communities based on genres. Even back in the day, people had extensive problems with community forums because operators usually worked based on collusion and favoritism and ad profit. There are far too many agendas involved in major "social" communities, and social is in quotes, because if you look at the tools dedicated to communication on these platforms, they barely facilitate communication and connection beyond public fandom, a lot of that is based on bot traffic. If you look at live streaming, a ton of generic comments flood celebrity sessions, many operate chat bots to make their live streaming sessions look "active" with users. I think users are now beginning to wise up to the façade that social media is not really helpful once it grows big.

by mvkel 2y ago

Calling social media a "public square," isn't a valid analogy, and is an impossible ideal to live up to. Nothing about it works the same way an actual public square does. It's a coliseum.

rchaud 2y ago

The "public square" talk is pure marketing from Twitter. It began in 2009 when Iranians held mass protests against their government and used Twitter as a way to share information as the state had turned off SMS texts. This led to wall-to-wall coverage on US news channels as Iran is of course denoted as an enemy state, and here was Twitter, an American social network helping spread free speech. This would happen again in 2011 during the so-called Arab Spring.

mvkel 2y ago
It's wild that a one-time convenient excuse turned into the base expectation of all social media that is impossible to live up to. People are weird.
- krapp 2y ago
  It's politics. Until relatively recently, the expectation that social media could be moderated even while acting as a "public square" (which was never a "base expectation of all social media" for anyone outside of a politically vested minority) was not controversial. Now people want to make "algorithms" illegal.

winternett 2y ago

There are so many sites that all follow the same template... To sell sponsorships & ads and to companies, and then slap the illusion that public participation is vibrant. The only good model for a social site these days are smaller communities specialized around a niche, like specific cars or musician communities based on genres. Even back in the day, people had extensive problems with community forums because operators usually worked based on collusion and favoritism and ad profit. There are far too many agendas involved in major "social" communities, and social is in quotes, because if you look at the tools dedicated to communication on these platforms, they barely facilitate communication and connection beyond public fandom, a lot of that is based on bot traffic. If you look at live streaming, a ton of generic comments flood celebrity sessions, many operate chat bots to make their live streaming sessions look "active" with users. I think users are now beginning to wise up to the façade that social media is not really helpful once it grows big.