6/14/2023 0 Comments Mastodonte call of![]() "We've definitely taken it to places that aren't great for society or our mental well-being. And lose the parts we hate, like the disinformation, compulsion, and breathless chase for likes and eyeballs.Īs for Wilker, the sci-fi writer, he says he's ready for a break from his relationship with Twitter. "Let's ask, 'What does it mean to build an intentional social network around timely, accurate, local knowledge?'" said Joan Donovan, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and co-author of the new book "Meme Wars." "Rather than start from the premise of, 'We're just going to be the tubes that push information around the Web and no one's going to be responsible for quality.'"ĭonovan says imagine if we could keep the parts we like: easy online community building and fun memes, for example. If a critical mass of Twitter users desert it for Mastodon or other alternatives, it could be an opportunity for a do-over of sorts for social media networks. And it's hard to remember that Friendster and MySpace even existed." A chance to rethink what social media could be And before that, everybody left MySpace, and before that, everybody left Friendster. "Then they got frustrated with Instagram and they went over to Snapchat. Young people migrated from Facebook to Instagram, she said. But she notes users' shifting allegiance over time is also part of the evolution of social media. North, of USC, says many people will stay on Twitter simply because of the time and effort it takes to set up a new community on another site. At the time, the company said Trump broke its rules about inciting violence. Musk has said it was a mistake for Twitter to ban Trump shortly after the Jan. "The question is whether they want to deal with the kind of harassment that has definitely spiked in the last few days and weeks, whether they want to be there when, say, the chief chaos agent in charge, is allowed back on the platform," Clark said. She worries it'll get even worse for them under Musk, who is known for his belligerence and trolling of those who disagree with him. "No other social networking platform has the same sort of tools that make connection possible the way Twitter does," she said.Įven before Musk took over, she said, Twitter didn't do a good job of protecting Black and other marginalized users. While more popular social networks like Facebook and TikTok serve some of the same needs as Twitter, they are not the same. But she knows users who are looking around for options feel torn about leaving. She's sticking with Twitter because it's central to her research. Meredith Clark, a communications professor at Northeastern University, is writing a book about Black Twitter. Other blue checkmarks simply signify that the user has a monthly subscription, leading to mass confusion. Now, some blue checkmarks still indicate that the company has confirmed a user's identity. Twitter, under Musk, has overhauled its system of marking verified accounts with blue checkmarks. Shortly before Election Day, the Associated Press warned its journalists to consider Twitter and other social media platforms "also function as arenas of information warfare," and to approach all posts with skepticism. "It's really a place where journalists go to get a heads up on a headline, get a quote by the source, build their stories and talk to their audiences."īut that is changing. "People come to Twitter because they want to be part of a community of people crowdsourcing information and opinions," she said. ![]() Twitter is more than a social network, says Karen North, a professor at University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. "It is, in effect, more democratic," he asserts, because the operators of each individual server can set content standards based on the preferences of the communities they're trying to serve. "Nobody is in control of the entire network," Rochko said. Mastodon is open-source software, meaning anyone so inclined could set up a server to host users and connect to other servers, making for a decentralized network. Now he's pulling all-nighters to meet the growing demand.īut Mastodon is not the most intuitive social media platform. "What I always wanted to try to get over as a hurdle is the idea that, no, there's not enough people in there, so I can't really use it. ![]() The surge in popularity has surprised even Eugen Rochko, who founded Mastodon in 2016. Mastodon now has nearly two million users, up from under 400,000 before Musk closed the Twitter deal on Oct. ![]() Now, Twitter users queasy about changes to the platform are signing up for Mastodon accounts in droves. Photo Illustration by Davide Bonaldo/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Imagesįew people outside computer programmers or engineers had heard of the social network Mastodon before Elon Musk bought Twitter. The Mastodon app homepage is seen displayed on a mobile phone screen.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |