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Top-level
 Social media is important and it's incredibly powerful. Increasingly, we see efforts to control it, to guide it and shape it to political and economic ends. There is also a desire to monetize it which has been there since the start in many cases. Most of the things that make social media "toxic" can be tied back to these forces. (Most but not all!) This notion that social media is unimportant and really not even something serious people care about has made it easier to co-opt. 6 comments
@futurebird thank you for this thread! Been thinking along these lines as the corporate social platforms are being enshittified. There are major problems there but there are also many great things. So many insightful, creative, funny and moving things folks share  @futurebird @SrRochardBunson In the early 2000s, I traveled overseas multiple times, always staying with people I’d met on early social media & forums. It was fantastic, and I’m friends with almost all those folks to this day. Social media was the absolute best thing that ever happened to my socially awkward ass.  @futurebird this difference feels important If social media is then objecting to changes to the feed algorithm is like whinging about changes to the "extra ball" mechanics of your favorite pinball machine But if the "social medium" is true to its etymology — a space for performing a society — that objection is closer to raising concerns about a head shop opening next to a playground @trochee |
Gregory's Server
I think social media can be: useful, amusing, enriching, educational, funny, and comforting.
I think it can make people feel *less* alone and *more* hopeful.
But that can't happen if anyone makes more money if they keep you scrolling and the reason why you are scrolling doesn't matter to them.