Why private micro-networks could be the future of how we connect

More broadly, social networks have messed with our privacy settings in more ways than one. Everything is public now, partly due to outrage culture and “social highlight reels,” but as a result, there will be a big pendulum swing back to private networks. Facebook is a lot like Walmart in the sense that it's just utility oriented, and it doesn't rea... See more

Like the private messaging campfires, micro-community campfires often live on traditional social platforms. Facebook Groups are probably the best-known example. The “close friends” feature within Instagram Stories has become a tool some influencers are using to share exclusive content and interact with small groups of their followers, for a fee. Sl... See more

It’s an almost unthinkable reversal from Meta’s extremely lucrative walled-garden strategy, which it has employed for its entire history as a company. But Mosseri told me that decentralization is the future of social networks — even if it means that someday a disgruntled Threads user will be able to take the following they build in the app to anoth... See more