I suggest watching the video, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QkC1aK7jfLo but the article has an OK summary.
Also a Mastodon shout-out in the video.
I suggest watching the video, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QkC1aK7jfLo but the article has an OK summary.
Also a Mastodon shout-out in the video.
I agree with @wesker@lemmy.sdf.org in their comment. No one in real life is on twitter. Twitter is place that seems real because people on media convince themselves its real and give it substance.
No materially meaningful thing happens on twitter, and its perceived importance is a byproduct of media hyping it up.
Now meta… thats an altogether different beast. FB market place captured most of what used to happen on craiglist. Its how entire families organize and keep together.
In terms of analysis, I’m annoyed at Cohn here. This isn’t something we as individuals have control of. Her saying people individually have to make the difference is like saying you individually have to make the difference regarding climate change by making different choices, like recycling.
So Cohn did mention comprehensive privacy laws and the ability to leave platforms. These are absolutely things that need to happen.
However as an individual there are still things you can do. Cohn mentions Bluesky because it has no algorithm (except the “Discovery” feed). Cohn also mentions (in the video) Mastodon. And the truth is you don’t need to switch fully, just don’t only slurp down the concentrated hate machine(s).
Look at Lemmy. Reddit decided to be pricks and a bunch of individuals jumped over here to create what I think is a pretty good community. That doesn’t mean the problem is solved. That doesn’t mean Reddit isn’t still a problem. That doesn’t mean Lemmy is perfect. But that is a win and something individuals can do.
Additionally, those are things you can do now. You don’t need to wait for some law to be passed to fix things. You can make the move now. (While still advocating for laws to fix things.)
The point of the critique is that individuals have no power to make Twitter less important, or at least, not the audience of this show. Who she should be bringing that critique to is someone like Jon Stewart himself, not to Jon Stewart’s audience. And actually, Jon is a great example of someone who did exactly this, with his Crossfire video.
Jon didn’t go on Crossfire and tell Crossfire’s audience to stop engaging with the content. He went on Crossfire and told the people in power to stop. Broadly, if you are ever doing something where you are shifting responsibility from those in power, to those out of power, you are doing the job of the oppressor.
Literally, Lemmy does not matter whatsoever to reddit, and likewise, Mastodon does not matter whatsoever to Twitter. Those things do not matter. Moving to lemmy or mastadon might make you feel better, but it has made not one iota of difference to those platforms.
Regulation, changes from those in positions of power, those can make a meaningful difference. But its utterly disingenuous to put things that require systemic reform as “collective reform”. Its utterly bonkers, and shields those in power, who can make different decisions, from needing to do so.
I get a lot of my business for my company from facebook marketplace and my facebook reviews. It enrages me that I have to use facebook to succeed, at least at this point in my business.
When I need to buy or sell anything for my farm activities, its pretty much the only game in town.
I understood her differently. I understood that she advocated into making it possible to leave platforms, saying that it currently isn’t. She said the people are the victims here and often don’t have a choice.
People cannot leave platforms because each platform is like an isle, and leaving it means losing connections to other people. It that sense they are locked-in, by social pressure.
This is is a natural monopoly which, gives social media companies so much power and prevents newcomers (like the fediverse) from joining the market.
Making the current social media companies less important, for instance via privacy laws, means people can connect and stay connected to other people via other means. It makes it easier to just leave twitter or meta, if they don’t like it there. Instead of being peer pressured into right extreme politics, because the algorithm decided that it gets more engagement when surrounding thrm with nazis.
She made it clear that replacing an dictator with another dictator that censors differently is bad, so she made a point against bluesky and for Mastodon and the fediverse.
(Sadly ehe wasn’t given the opportunity to fully complete her arguments though.)
The only way I can see forward is regulation. Antitrust laws have been suspended for too long. They have to be enforced, and interoperable standards must be fiercely enforced, without loopholes, without exceptions. If leaving Facebook for another social media platform does not have to mean you’ll lose all your connections, thanks to interoperable standards, it will be easier for people to ditch them and harder for them to become monopolies.
at one time, Twitter was amazing
if you could catch the attention of someone you wanted and they replied, it was amazing
i found that moment a few times
talking to The artist you had wondered about for years answering the question you had
it was fucking special
and that is over. it is something that I am saddened by
Twatter sucked before musk bought it. The moderation was dishonest.
Absolute nonsense.
Oh its absolutely not though. And you thinking that, thats decades of propaganda operating on you. And it worked. It shifts the responsibly from those in positions power, who can make societal scale decisions, to those who have the least power, who can only change their individual behavior.
And its not an accidental thing as a mechanism for governments, corporations, etc… to use to shift blame. Its all very well established.
There’s no propaganda. Its very simple logic and reason. I’ve done it. There’s no reason you can’t too.
It doesn’t shift responsibility anywhere. For some reason society gets this ridiculous notion that there can be only 1 person or entity to blame for anything, when in reality that’s almost never the case. Platforms have the choice not to exploit their users, and the users have the choice to leave. Both are responsible for the way things are, and either party has the power to end it.
Of course there is no war in bah sing seh! How could I forget.
Individual choices are practically immaterial and have almost no impact on the outcomes societies endure. For all practical purposes, individual choice is meaningless. You doing or not doing something doesn’t mean shit, because you aren’t in a position of power over systems.
Yes…you are. Claiming you’re not is exactly the kind of attitude that perpetuates these monoliths and they thank you kindly for your service.
Ah yes. The pee-wee herman defense. How astute.
As long as you put the responsibility for outcomes on individuals and not systems and those with power over systems, you are doing their work for them.
I already told you that’s not what I’m doing. You need to read more carefully. I put the responsibility on the people responsible. All of them.
They said, as they repeatedly did the thing they were being accused of…