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Top-level
 At 4am in NYC I wake up to catch the early bus. When I'd look at twitter at that hour it was totally filled with all these students and scientists and nurses from Nigeria-- They are already at work and in class and taking about the news, papers, jokes. And I made friends that way too. I learned new things. That's the power of a network with 100s of millions of people. 4 comments
 @futurebird @aral yeah I have Twitter connections in Nigeria, iNaturalist connections in Australia, and Facebook connections in remote areas of Colombia and Peru. LinkedIn has let me connect with corporate leaders in Chile and El Salvador. Corporate social media is bad on many ways but it's also a miracle. Maybe your job doesn't require constant global outreach. But don't preach at me about thinking small. @futurebird @aral It's a lot like cars. I make structural critiques of cars and driving. But when I do drive, I keep a window open almost all the time. I almost never speed. I stop completely at stop signs and let pedestrians and bikers go first. It's possible to use a bad system conscientiously. And while I have biked across the USA and taken other long trips, I now have a job. So if I am going NYC-Montreal, I usually go by car. @futurebird @aral it isn't that hard to use social media conscientiously. Yes, you are going against the design. But if you don't learn how to operate against malicious or predatory designs I don't know how you live in this world. That said I've never enjoyed going viral. When I had a blog it had 100 daily readers and that was plenty. I get the pleasures of small streams where I can get to know the other fish. But I amv also desperate for easy access to the wide ocean. |
Gregory's Server
@futurebird @aral yep. I've made lots of friends on Twitter and Facebook -- and reconnected with old acquaintances as well. There are plenty of good critiques of Twitter, FB, and surveillance capitalism-based social networks ... but this is not one.