Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 147 posts

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

#81

Post by doute »

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #63
F-0X wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes, very much so and it is also apparent by the content. You also don't have to have formal network to have a social network. The significant part is whether something behaves differently in the context of the network. Which I think one could clearly say about hacker news.

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

#82

Post by Nextgrid »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #32
ikeyany wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just her business, her identity. Their whole family is based on being a brand.

One reason would be that her media business is controlled by a corporation that could ban her without notice at any moment and without reason. A decentralized network would allow her more control.

The corporations are also making so much money off her content that banning her would be a disaster.

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

#83

Post by Nextgrid »

buboard wrote: post #72
kodz4 wrote: post #3

This is great. Celebs need to be on boarded more than Geeks. Getting an Obama or Kim Kardashian to show support would have major global impact. A cascade would start.

Nah, the geeks need to go there first. The rest always follows. But i think there are not enough geeks in decentraland

Maybe even geeks can be pragmatic and understand the limitations of the alternative social networks and choose not to bother? I’m in that camp personally.

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

#85

Post by doute »

Nextgrid wrote: post #80
kickscondor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there could be some useful purposes for everyone outside of social media: unifying those people, helping them find each other, mobilizing them to take community measures. I think it's safe to say that at this point we're not looking for another social network to replace Facebook or another search engine to replace Google - we need to start finding ways to work decentralized but still come together -this is go…

One big issue is that there’s nothing decentralised that currently exists that can rival the quality & user experience of mainstream social networks, and decentralisation comes with its own problems (I personally think the problem with mainstream social media is its ad-based business model and not centralisation). Mastodon (which seems to be the biggest alternative being proposed) is still a joke, even the name and b…

> The solution IMO is not Mastodon or any of these fringe social networks. The main problem is the lack of an ethical business model in mainstream social media.

That is certainly a problem and something should be addressed. But I don't think it is the root cause. The real tragedy is the lack of understanding that reality happens between the mainstream and the fringe.

Most of the technology we like was created in the second half of the 20th century. We have been standing on the shoulders of giant and eventually the giants got old and were replaced by self-serving large tech companies. But since most people are making money, or get things for free, we don't want to recognize that we are their servants. There is no longer any urgency to create something different, because being different means missing out.

The reason you have to go to esoteric solutions when talking about something like decentralization is because the Internet is no longer built for it. From authentication, to networks and even the state of ip addresses is less than great. That you can avoid these problem by going to the fringe likely comes from the idea that hackers still have influence. We think that if something doesn't work it can't be our own fault, it most be some conspiracy or inherent limitation, rather a lack in our own understanding and ability to organize.

> Besides the branding, decentralisation comes with its own issues like the lack of network-wide content moderation and agreement on what content is acceptable.

Decentralization built on individualism rarely works. Because it leaves the unorganized powerless. It has to be built upon common features used by different cliques were the participants have choice. Maybe most importantly there has to be separation between the platform and the activity.

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

#86

Post by greendestiny_re »

iliketosleep wrote: post #61
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.

I just spent seven days with only a limited data plan. I felt like time slowed down to a crawl and I was able to do much more than on a regular day with the internet.

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

#87

Post by PavlovsCat »

danboarder wrote: post #33
tickerticker wrote: post #6

Is HN a form of social media?

I would define online forums, newsgroups, and IRC/IM chat as predecessors to the current generation of social media, which are focused on the individual profile. On social media you follow people, while on forums you follow topics. From that understanding, I think HN is more of a forum, which is an online media format that predates what we define today as social media. (but it certainly similar to varying degrees, as…

To me, a forum is about topics and people can discuss them at their own leisure, bumping them in the process. In contrast slashdot, reddit, HN are more like "what topics are currently on", and if only few people are interested in a topic and visit the site apart from each other, no story they are interested in will make it to the front page, and they can't even discuss it "slowly, sometimes", like they could on a forum with a search function.

On reddit you at least get informed of replies to your comments, but discussions older than X are automatically closed, so that's not enough use to shift the balance for me.. I remember when a topic being locked felt like something rather grave, where either mods or users fucked up - now it's built-in. And sometimes discussion even gets substituted with clicking buttons.. which is also not about the topics, but another form of using outside force (something other than words) on words.

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

#88

Post by r3bl »

Nextgrid wrote: post #80
kickscondor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there could be some useful purposes for everyone outside of social media: unifying those people, helping them find each other, mobilizing them to take community measures. I think it's safe to say that at this point we're not looking for another social network to replace Facebook or another search engine to replace Google - we need to start finding ways to work decentralized but still come together -this is go…

One big issue is that there’s nothing decentralised that currently exists that can rival the quality & user experience of mainstream social networks, and decentralisation comes with its own problems (I personally think the problem with mainstream social media is its ad-based business model and not centralisation). Mastodon (which seems to be the biggest alternative being proposed) is still a joke, even the name and b…

I agree with you all the way until the middle of your third paragraph.

You're not gonna suggest Mastodon to someone, you're gonna point to a specific community (probably the same one you're a member of). Only one set of rules you need to worry about. Federation? You don't have to pay attention to it at all. It's a nice feature to have for sure, but it only becomes relevant once you don't have people to follow inside of your own instance. By recommending an instance, you're recommending a community, not the software behind that community.

There have been plenty of attempts of taking Facebook's crown (both VC-funded and user-funded), and they've all failed spectacularly. The reason for that is simple: people don't want a global network. Facebook was the first and last one to succeed. Nobody wants to be on the same network as their parents, so they indeed decentralize: they decentralize in group chats, Facebook groups, Discord servers, Slack servers, Twitter communities, Discourse instances, Mastodon instances, forums like HN, subreddits etc. Facebook and Google+ failed immediately simply by having a real-name policy. That's okay if you want to communicate with people around you, but terrible if you want to truly express yourself to a bunch of strangers. The younger you are, the bigger the odds that you belong in the latter. Nothing wrong with communicating with people around you, but that's not the group that drives your numbers up drastically.

Mastodon surely can't be the new Facebook simply because that's not what it aims to become. It aims to become the software of choice for the communities. The easier you make it to jump on board (and the less personal data you need to provide in order to do so), the bigger the odds that you'll be the home for a community.

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

#89

Post by Nextgrid »

doute wrote: post #85
Nextgrid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big issue is that there’s nothing decentralised that currently exists that can rival the quality & user experience of mainstream social networks, and decentralisation comes with its own problems (I personally think the problem with mainstream social media is its ad-based business model and not centralisation). Mastodon (which seems to be the biggest alternative being proposed) is still a joke, even the name and b…

> The solution IMO is not Mastodon or any of these fringe social networks. The main problem is the lack of an ethical business model in mainstream social media. That is certainly a problem and something should be addressed. But I don't think it is the root cause. The real tragedy is the lack of understanding that reality happens between the mainstream and the fringe. Most of the technology we like was created in the…

> because the Internet is no longer built for it

I’d say the Internet is no longer optimised for it because the use-case is no longer possible for the majority of people.

You can’t run a server on a phone due to power constraints and yet more and more people are using phones as their only computing device.

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

#90

Post by Nextgrid »

r3bl wrote: post #88
Nextgrid wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big issue is that there’s nothing decentralised that currently exists that can rival the quality & user experience of mainstream social networks, and decentralisation comes with its own problems (I personally think the problem with mainstream social media is its ad-based business model and not centralisation). Mastodon (which seems to be the biggest alternative being proposed) is still a joke, even the name and b…

I agree with you all the way until the middle of your third paragraph. You're not gonna suggest Mastodon to someone, you're gonna point to a specific community (probably the same one you're a member of). Only one set of rules you need to worry about. Federation? You don't have to pay attention to it at all. It's a nice feature to have for sure, but it only becomes relevant once you don't have people to follow inside…

I am not sure that being a global network is a problem.

Instagram is a global network and seems to be doing fine (although the quality of the content has now declined).

Personally, a global network is what I want. I already have the solutions you mention (group chats, Slack/Discord instances, forums, etc) for specific communities. What’s missing is something like Facebook or Instagram where everyone is on it and I can just “add” them and get updates about them every so often.

If anything, the per-community problem is already solved thanks to Discourse, Slack/Discord, Reddit, group chats, etc. But a global network is what’s missing.

Post reply on HN