Beyond the Feed

When everything turns into television, every form of communication starts to adopt television’s values: immediacy, emotion, spectacle, brevity.

The platform’s allure is the infinitude promised by its algorithm. It is the flow, not the content, that is primary.

When I say “everything is turning into television,” what I mean is that disparate forms of media and entertainment are converging on one thing: the continuous flow of episodic video.

we need semipermeable membranes

discussions work better when you can pick and choose who you’re talking to.

🚨This is the trap that social media, and by extension all of us, are in: 📈Toxicity drives use. Lowering toxicity drops ad sales (if you are ad supported) & engagement (even if you are not) 📉Toxicity spreads like a disease. It turns regular users toxic & makes networks awful https://t.co/NeqlZ4G05H

Community moderation works . This was the overwhelming lesson of the early internet. It works because it mirrors the social interaction of real life, where social groups exclude people who don’t fit in. And it works because it distributes the task of policing the internet to a vast number of volunteers, who provide the free labor of keeping forums... See more