Mastodon has got enough press. Some quotes around it’s “founder” who’s found fame again around “exodus from Twitter” and some companies announcing their “servers” to provide a “safe space” for “expression”. Please note, I don’t condone these statements, which obscure the fact that social media (and anonymity) generate tribalistic behaviours. There has been enough “research” done into the harms of the medium. It has not shown any demonstrable change.
33 charts | Bryan Vartabedian | Substack
The value with Twitter has devolved from a place of real community to an echo chamber for our own ideas.
And when the tired themes of our agenda fail to invoke a response, we raise our game with emotion and outrage. We intentionally seed division for in-group approval and visibility. This hijacking of tone, sentiment and agenda has become an end unto itself. This is where the value now comes. This race to the bottom to is a bastardization of a common space where we should give more than we take.
He writes further:
Now we move to Mastodon. We celebrate our great exodus into the Promised Land. The problem is that we bring the same baggage and motivations with us. And all of our habits. The race for influence is a story as old and predictable as social media: Grab first mover advantage, evangelize the platform in the service of raising our game, and battle desperately for followers.
My motivation to get people off social media is to make them see beyond visible options. There’s a possibility of “network effect” and the “blue tick privileges” where it adds more “heft” and “value” to the social media presence. Some people equate being on social media for the “work done” by “generating conversations”. True, but the medium itself is constrained in what it does and has never been its primary objective.
We need a rethink on this.
RadOncNotes 