All about social networks
shit you should read if you are building or care about how social networks are evolving
sari and
All about social networks
Taste for Privacy: How Context, Identity, and Lived-Experience Shape Information Sharing Preferences
arxiv.orgon privacy preferences - “Privacy preferences are not fixed individual traits, they depend on context and lived experiences. In this study, we analyze 2,912 survey responses from 782 college students collected over seven survey periods during 2023 and 2024. We ask about their usage of social media, the security settings of their accounts, and measure their comfort in sharing personally identifiable information (PII) across 17 different institutional contexts. Compared to past research, we observe a large shift towards private accounts, going from 1/3rd private in 2007 to 2/3rds in 2024, and find that participants’ discomfort sharing PII with social media platforms strongly predicts their privacy settings. Beyond social media, we identify a stable ranking of institutional trust, though some institutions, like the police, show high variability reflecting divergent lived experiences. Traditionally marginalized groups and participants having faced adverse childhood experiences show more discomfort with institutions of power, especially in areas where they face greater vulnerability. We argue for context-adaptive privacy settings that recognize institutional relationships and demographic vulnerabilities, moving beyond one-size-fits-all consent frameworks toward contextually appropriate data governance.”
Social media stopped being primarily about connecting socially a long time ago. People still use a range of technologies to connect to friends and build relationships, but we don’t call those technologies – like texting and group chats – “social media.” Media shared on platforms may support social connections by creating a common culture, just as... See more
So when people opt to devote their energy to tracking the latest TikTok star or scrolling content instead of nurturing interpersonal relationships, they are effectively amusing themselves to death.2
In 2006, we imagined a social media ecosystem that prioritized strengthening connections through media rather than one that replaced connections with... See more
In 2006, we imagined a social media ecosystem that prioritized strengthening connections through media rather than one that replaced connections with... See more
Social media platforms don’t produce a common public; they produce competing sub-publics, each with its own sense of what everyone knows. To answer the question Habermas never adequately posed: the public sphere, such as it is, functions for those who own it.
Directing the Herd
Yuka Shiratsuchi (白土由佳『はじめてのソーシャルメディア論』, Sanwa Shoseki, 2024, p. 60) defines social media by three elements: many-to-many communication premised on exposure and observation, individually optimized diversity of experience, and accumulation of digital footprints.
Communities are Not Fungible
In every case, the platform's architects // successors assumed that the product was the platform and the community was an emergent feature that would re-emerge given similar conditions. They had the relationship exactly backwards. The community was the product and the platform was the container, and when the container breaks, the product spills and... See more