MK
Twitter was for talking to everyone —which is perhaps one of the reasons journalists have flocked to it.
from The Age of Social Media Is Ending by Ian Bogost
Some invest a lot of time and skill in crafting TikTok videos, but neither time nor skill is required. If TikTok “enables everyone to be a creator,” as its former mission statement proclaimed, this is because creative labor on the platform has been automated and deskilled.
from Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents by Rogers Brubaker
It’s never felt more plausible that the age of social media might end—and soon.
Social media was never a natural way to work, play, and socialize, though it did become second nature.
The shift began 20 years ago or so, when networked computers became sufficiently ubiquitous that people began using them to build and manage relationships. Social n
... See morefrom The Age of Social Media Is Ending by Ian Bogost
It’s only on platforms where controversy and drama are prioritized for driving engagement where we’re rewarded for despising each other.
from Every "chronically online" conversation is the same by Vox
This was what personal style was to me in 2008: a cipher for something much broader, a glimpse into the lives of others.
from Dirt | Substack by Dirt
Researchers have found instead that the distribution of attention remains highly unequal across a wide range of digital contexts, ensuring the hypervisibility of a few and the invisibility or near-invisibility of the great majority. The winner-take-all (or winner-take-most) logic, sustained in part by algorithms that ratify and reinforce what is a
... See morefrom Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents by Rogers Brubaker
Anybody can speak, but in an increasingly saturated cultural environment, nobody may be listening. Gatekeepers may no longer control what gets published, but algorithms control what gets circulated. Who sees what — in the domain of culture as well as news and commentary — is governed by opaque and proprietary software.
from Hyperconnected Culture and Its Discontents by Rogers Brubaker
For one, social-media operators discovered that the more emotionally charged the content, the better it spread across its users’ networks.
from The Age of Social Media Is Ending by Ian Bogost
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 morefrom The Internet Wants to Be Fragmented by Noah Smith