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Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

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Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#61

Post by iliketosleep »

negamax wrote: post #54

Why not do a no Internet day? Will be easier to communicate that. Give people a taste of normal life. They will automatically quit on social media. Like every Sunday no Internet day.

That actually would have been a great idea, in hindsight. I have seen far to many people who suffer from intense anxiety if they have no internet or device access, even if it's just for a few hours. It's like a form of addiction. A day away from the Internet each week would condition people to be able to survive without it.

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#62

Post by 3xblah »

Interesting how he chose the word "strike", commonly used to refer to workers, as if to imply users are working for Facebook or Twitter.

Every time a user submits something to them, it is arguable she is doing work for those companies. The companies do not produce content, yet they depend on it in order to draw traffic. What they provide is a centralised distribution channel. They rely on users to do the work of producing/submitting content.

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#63

Post by NeedMoreTea »

F-0X wrote: post #60
espeed wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. HN is a form of social media -- it's a social media exemplar -- the exception that proves it's possible to have an open system for high-quality public discourse, even if such a system is hard to establish and even harder to maintain. Paul Graham has said, "he hopes to avoid the Eternal September that results in the general decline of intelligent discourse within a community" [1]. Hacker News launched 12 years ag…

Strong disagree. HN is not a social media. Because we do not use it for social purposes. This site has no concept of user relationships, and it does not encourage you to use real/identifying information about yourself to use it. It is centred on topics and discussion - sites like this, Reddit, and other forums can develop social networks, but this is a byproduct and not the intent, which I think is the single most im…

It seems to have the key components. An ephemeral timeline and new posts page, user submitted stories and content, and the like/upvote.

It's not a social network though. There's no concept of friends. Twitter is part way between the two. It barely groks user relationships - you subscribe to someone to see their stuff in your feed and that's about as far as it goes.

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#65

Post by Kiro »

cryptozeus wrote: post #55
yoz-y wrote: post #40

I feel that even if everybody who cared went on strike, the difference in daily visitors would probably be in the error margin. I think most people who really care have already left the centralised social media or scaled it down to the point that a non-strike day is an exception. I do not disagree with the message, but I seriously doubt that this will have any effect.

You are underestimating the annoyance of social media. People want to quit it but at this point they are too attached. I think this will be big.

And I'm pretty sure you're overestimating it. The only people I ever hear expressing a desire to quit are inside this tiny tech circle.

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#66

Post by buboard »

0x8BADF00D wrote: post #38

It never held any power over me. I was always skeptical of it from the start. That’s why it is hard to imagine something like a social media strike. For many of us it has no power over our minds.

Doesn't HN count as social media?

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#68

Post by buboard »

This is laudable as a way to draw attention to the decentralized media. This is not the typical "social media is bad for you get away". Of course i very much doubt it will work. The best way to make decentralized systems work, is to kick a lot of smart people outside corporate media. Smart people will improve the decentralized platforms and influence others to use them. It will be sort of like what happened with the birth of Bitcoin.

I think we should be asking for swift regulation and more censorship on corporate media. It is the kind of thing that really puts off smart people, and will push those early adopters to use the decentranet.

Is there a reddit-like decentralized alternative?

Re: Tell HN: Social media strike proposed for July 4-5 by Wikipedia co-founder

#70

Post by espeed »

F-0X wrote: post #60
espeed wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. HN is a form of social media -- it's a social media exemplar -- the exception that proves it's possible to have an open system for high-quality public discourse, even if such a system is hard to establish and even harder to maintain. Paul Graham has said, "he hopes to avoid the Eternal September that results in the general decline of intelligent discourse within a community" [1]. Hacker News launched 12 years ag…

Strong disagree. HN is not a social media. Because we do not use it for social purposes. This site has no concept of user relationships, and it does not encourage you to use real/identifying information about yourself to use it. It is centred on topics and discussion - sites like this, Reddit, and other forums can develop social networks, but this is a byproduct and not the intent, which I think is the single most im…

Where are you getting your definition for social media?

Wikipedia defines social media as [1]:

  Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies 
  that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, 
  ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via 
  virtual communities and networks.
I don't know if there's an "official" agreed upon definition somewhere, but I do know this: The definition of what social media is and what it will become is not yet known -- it will continue to evolve as the Internet evolves and as our understanding evolves closer to true -- but at its core, I would say social media is technology that enables bidirectional public communication among people whereas mass media [2] enables unidirectional public communication -- one to many broadcasts to people -- with no direct feedback loop.

The Internet provided the foundational infrastructure and was the prerequisite layer that made social media interaction possible. What we do with social media -- how we use it, build upon it, and optimize for it -- is yet to be determined.

For example, who would have envisioned the mobile phone as we use it today when the telephone was invented. Phones aren't just used for phone calls anymore. The iPhone changed that, but the iPhone couldn't exist in its present form until the foundation for the Internet infrastructure was laid. Today our vision of the Internet is not what it was when it was invented. It continues to evolve, as does its uses and definition. Social media will be like that too -- it's part of the next layer to build upon, and we're still learning what that is -- its definition is still being formed, and its optimal form is still to come.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_media

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