I think they are going for more promoting communities topics like sports, fashion, entertainment ect than hot topics like news and politics.
Most people in most public squares aren’t engaging in civic discourse. They’re bantering and conversing and trading. With Reddit and Twitter simultaneously crapping the bed, there’s a valid niche for that sort of square on the internet.
We still need a public square for civic discourse. But it’s clear the current model optimises for bloviation and posturing. Maybe there’s a better model than every person their own broadcaster.
What do you think is happening on the internet or social media? Most of the internet or social media is non-political and non-news related.
> Maybe there’s a better model than every person their own broadcaster.
You are blaming 'every person' when the toxicity of news and politics is news and politics itself. It's the toxic mainstream news and politicians that are the problem. Not 'every person'.
Are those really public? I know that is just metaphor but Guardian has whole category for this topic: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/privately-owned-public-sp...
Facebook is now offering the 'cure' to a disease they spread themselves, for profit. And monetizing it, with ads from corporations who lobby heavily.
This 'cure' is another series of steps toward complete disengagement with everything that might actually improve the lives of the 99% (ie, actual politics).
Climate change is politics, inequality is politics, corruption is politics - all of it shoved under the rug in favor of yet more inane sports and celebrity trivia.
Like, isn't "small text blurbs" better than nothing? ... Do you think billionaires bought and crippled Twitter and Reddit for our sake?
We recently got hard evidence that Facebook and Twitter censored true information at the White House's request; to drive people toward a desired political outcome... On Threads, that wouldn't even have been necessary. They just call any debate they don't like 'political', and de-platform it. Silent, and deadly.
Reddit and Twitter have been suicided. That's not actually a boon, as toxic as they were pre-Musk and pre-SpezGate. Now a platform where political engagement is explicitly shadowbanned rises up to offer ever-more vacuous bullshit heavily dosed with pro-corporate propaganda, with the glimpses of substance all expressly filtered out. That's not a boon either, though that's what seems to be the spin.
I do hope your optimism isn't misplaced. Maybe driving the engaged people toward defederated platforms will work out, and we can leave the sports-minded to their own devices - but realistically, those people will be weaponized against change even more easily once the agitators have been sectioned off.
It's like the free speech zones Bush brought in - say whatever the fuck you like, in this little cage two miles from any TV cameras.
I honestly don't think they are. Small text blurbs are not actually informative. You can't engage in nuance, you can't really argue a position, and you can't really have a good debate. They're just good for bloviating, and there are lots of places where you can bloviate anyway.
As it turns out, social media short-circuited traditional methods of organizing. Those traditional methods of organizing, ie, actually knocking on doors and talking with your neighbours, were also the social glue that formed civic groups which did stuff after the protest ended, like voter drives or lobbying politicians, political tactics which actually worked.
Do you think what happened to OWS was just because of tweets lack of effectiveness? I don't believe that, and neither should you.
I did try to find the study you mentioned, as well as the podcast, but came up empty. Got a link handy?
I think why I enjoy sports so much more than politics—my ministry is the NBA and WNBA—is that it’s inherently a game so you don’t impose any of the IRL stress politics does. And to elaborate on why I find them similar is that in sports, you take stock of the landscape, analyze your standing, and strategize on improving eg optimal use of resources. And those r true over stretches of years or during a single game.
As the parent alluded to, Twitter is definitely not the place for this nuanced discourse and unfortunately any stereotypical nerd that would be more wont to honestly engage probably didn’t grow up playing a sport or at the very least not such a mainstream American sport like basketball and has no interest in the topic.
But it’s whatever. I still find great joy theorizing, seeing the results of different implementations, being presented with ideas I hadn’t thought of (these r like lineup combos and play calls), team/player growth, etc
Dunno what your point is, and don't mind not knowing. If you want to make a weird pronouncement about Twitter having no effect on politics, I suggest you do it on Threads so that it'll be marked as political and shadowbanned.
The political polarization fueled by the internet stagnates the cooperation needed to affect climate change, inequality, and corruption.
I'm perfectly fine with an internet platform, especially if run by a private company, that explicitly embraces the fact that it's a discussion platform for fashion, video games, or whatever anime or movie someone has seen instead of some mad billionaire's experiment.
If you want politics the correct place is your local townhall, want news subscribe to a quality paper. Instagram is decent precisely because it is limited to the kind of content I trust Meta with. Politics on Twitter isn't people genuinely being productive citizens, it's political hobbyism, purely for entertainment and self-expression, politics as spectator sport.
So only the super PC, brand friendly stuff? Guess I shouldn’t be surprised given it’s Meta but disappointing if true. How can you have a public square without fostering news and political niches? That doesn’t mean you have to shove it in everyone’s feeds like Elon’s Twitter.
So it really will just be instagram with a text focus then. Was hoping all the influencer/celeb/brand focus early on was just a result of early app launch and no following feed yet.