The False Promise of Digital Public Squares Was Always a Scam

Re:The False Promise of Digital Public Squares Was Always a ... by feraloink on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @10:44AM (#43173371)

Wikipedia is definitely not a public square. It is an encyclopedia. What you said, about it being

>like a library with steep rules

is entirely correct. That doesn't make it bad, not at all! You're right: There are very few equivalents of a public square, digitally. I consider HN to be one, even more so than email. Email chains get awkward with multiple people, and email addresses are (of necessity, due to spam, like others already said) non-public.

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Re:The False Promise of Digital Public Squares Was Always a ... by TZubiri on Tuesday February 25, 2025 @08:47PM (#43179749)

Agree that it is not a square, but I meant more in the sense that it is public. It has GPL, Creative Commons, 501 c 3.

The thing with social media of that type is that it is often filled with foss devs who are a very narrow point demographics.

The chans and reddit have some public properties. I hear the bluesky and mastodon things (the latter especially) have very public infrastructures, not sure about the people, it feels like it will be left leaning democrats on the first hand and FOSS devs on the latter.

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