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Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

theatlantic.com

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Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#91

Post by emodendroket »

segasaturn wrote: post #4

Maybe that's a good thing? I remember a few years ago when journalists were outsourcing their reporting to Twitter and we had headlines like "The Internet is Freaking Out About X" when it was really a dozen nobodies on Twitter. The death of Twitter and the re-fragmentation of the internet sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to the purple haze of the last decade's centralized web.

So you think that the fragmentation of Web communities is going to lead to people having a LESS blinkered perspective?

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#92

Post by emodendroket »

highspeedbus wrote: post #89
segasaturn wrote: post #4

Maybe that's a good thing? I remember a few years ago when journalists were outsourcing their reporting to Twitter and we had headlines like "The Internet is Freaking Out About X" when it was really a dozen nobodies on Twitter. The death of Twitter and the re-fragmentation of the internet sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to the purple haze of the last decade's centralized web.

I think this is a bad thing for the way it was implemented. Twitter for a brief moment used to work like a Global Broadcast Radio, where everyone could hang out to get a sense of What Is Going On, even if results skewed towards the interests of terminally online people. Current siloed content feels more like hyper-personalized newspaper. The content is there, but there is limited opportunity or common ground to share…

They got so sick of hearing about political bias they decided they didn’t want to be news sources after all, is my impression. Too bad they only came to their conclusion after getting news publishers to totally reorient themselves around social media though.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#93

Post by blueridge »

liotier wrote: post #39

What is happening online ? Easy answer: everything. The online world is now just as complex, both globalized and fragmented at the same time in different dimensions, as humanity itself... The tools of our social interactions, public and private, can only be homomorphic to them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#94

Post by zebomon »

emodendroket wrote: post #91
segasaturn wrote: post #4

Maybe that's a good thing? I remember a few years ago when journalists were outsourcing their reporting to Twitter and we had headlines like "The Internet is Freaking Out About X" when it was really a dozen nobodies on Twitter. The death of Twitter and the re-fragmentation of the internet sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to the purple haze of the last decade's centralized web.

So you think that the fragmentation of Web communities is going to lead to people having a LESS blinkered perspective?

Maybe not the fragmentation itself, but the general awareness of that fragmentation, yes. It sounds like a healthy thing for none of us to feel like we have a sense of "the internet" as a whole. I for one look forward to again being genuinely surprised to learn people's batshit insane opinions and theories, as I was in the early 2000s the first time I stumbled upon AboveTopSecret.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#95

Post by zem »

i feel like this is simply due to the increasing ubiquity of the internet, such that it isn't "the internet" any more but a bunch of people doing a bunch of things, some of which happen to use the internet. replace "online" with "in the world" and the absurdity of trying to keep up with it all as though it's a single entity becomes more obvious.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#96

Post by frabbit »

zo1 wrote: post #72
Retr0id wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Twitter Has Complied With Almost Every Government Request For Censorship Since Musk Took Over, Report Finds" - https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/27/tw...

Call me when we've had a verified audit and report and detailed breakdown of all censorship. I want database dumps, SQL statements, verifiable guids and URLs, etc. Until then that's just a grey blob of hearsay and may very well be "true" but doesn't represent reality. We need to see the raw data.

Failing that it is probably worth listening-to/reading Matt Taibbi:

https://twitterfiles.substack.com/p/the-censorship-industria...

https://public.substack.com/p/censorship-leaders-accuse-us-o...

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#97

Post by JohnFen »

the_doctah wrote: post #86
JohnFen wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes indeed. It's only "censorship" when the government demands it. Engaging in voluntary moderation is not censorship in a meaningful sense. It is, in fact, an aspect of freedom of speech that people should not be compelled to engage in speech that they don't want to engage in.

I don't agree with your definition of censorship. A government doesn't have to be involved to qualify. Moderation is a subset of censorship.

Strictly speaking, you're correct -- but it also highlights that not all censorship is wrong or bad. It can very easily be a valid exercise of free speech rights.

Twitter (or any social media) moderating people's posts isn't wrong, for instance. Nobody's rights are being infringed when they do this. You might disagree with their moderation policies, but that's a different thing altogether.

Legally speaking in the US, it's only censorship when the government is doing it.

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#98

Post by AniseAbyss »

steveBK123 wrote: post #11
segasaturn wrote: post #4

Maybe that's a good thing? I remember a few years ago when journalists were outsourcing their reporting to Twitter and we had headlines like "The Internet is Freaking Out About X" when it was really a dozen nobodies on Twitter. The death of Twitter and the re-fragmentation of the internet sounds like a breath of fresh air compared to the purple haze of the last decade's centralized web.

Would agree. Some old school journalists from NYT wrote about that phenomenon. Colleagues doing a lot of stories that were basically the groupthink of their friend group or what they saw on Twitter. Part of it is economics/incentives leading journalists to have to churn out a lot of content. Part of it is laziness as it's a lot easier than going out into the field and actually talking to people.

[dead]

Re: Nobody knows what's happening online anymore

#100

Post by swayvil »

JohnFen wrote: post #65
the_doctah wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That implies government requests were the sole source of Twitter's censorship.

Yes indeed. It's only "censorship" when the government demands it. Engaging in voluntary moderation is not censorship in a meaningful sense. It is, in fact, an aspect of freedom of speech that people should not be compelled to engage in speech that they don't want to engage in.

That's some fine semantic tapdancing.
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