This is the best summary I could come up with:
As people grow tired of toxic and addictive platforms that undermine real social connection, this new wave of social-focused upstarts could end up producing a healthier online environment.
Major platforms such as Facebook have long abandoned their goal to “bring the world closer together” in favor of “profit-motivated and engagement-inducing designs” that keep us hooked and drive growth, Ben Grosser, an artist and faculty associate at Harvard University’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, told me.
No matter how fun group chats and breakout social apps such as BeReal are, I’ve missed the borderless experience that large platforms offer — a place where I can discover viral content, expand my network, and participate in global conversations.
At its best, Steve Teixeira, the chief product officer at Mozilla, said that social media facilitated connection, regardless of geographic or temporal boundaries, and helps people stay informed, encounter novel ideas, and access vital services.
And experts have found that a collection of networks would “optimize itself solely for public good,” rather than fall into the pitfalls of traditional platforms — an unhealthy obsession with metrics and meaningless interactions.
It’s hard to predict the future, least of all when it comes to online services where new apps can go viral — and then fail — in a flash, but the breakup of monolithic social-media platforms and the rise of myriad new social experiences has felt like an urgent, long-overdue turn of events.
The original article contains 2,074 words, the summary contains 239 words. Saved 88%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
This article stinks of an agenda. The author goes out of their way not to mention the term Fediverse (pluriverse? wtf is that?), and they clearly haven’t done their due diligence on Activity Pub. Either they skimped on the research or this article was heavily edited afterwards to remove any concept of the Fediverse being a viable alternative to centralized platforms. Doesn’t surprise me coming from Business Insider.
That being said, the overall dynamic the article speaks to is valid, as is the discussion it engenders, so have an upvote despite my gripes with the writing.
Yeah I found the article a bizarre read. It talks about ActovityPub and Mastodon but fails to mention the fediverse at all. Instead it talks about the “pluriverse”, some random new term pulled from some paper, and paints a vision of people spread across various commercial social media platforms.
Either it’s a blind spot In their research or an agenda so deliberate omission, but regardless it seems strange to talk about the disintegration of social media and even Mastodon but not what Mastodon is a part of.
But I agree the general themes are there - it’s basically talking about the impact of enshittification but without using the term.
Is the pluriverse term a jab at the fediverse? That term seems too coincidental to not be. Equivalating the fediverse to a flavor of the week social media the writer was experiencing?
If the fediverse doesn’t do something about all the authoritarian propaganda it will just be a flavor of the week.
I was thrilled by the concept and excited to join. Now that I’ve experienced it, I’d be embarrassed to say I use it, and I’m considering leaving.
I’ve been on the Fediverse for years and I’ve never much encountered this. I curate my timelines very carefully. I don’t look at the Local or Federated timelines in Mastodon, Pixelfed, or Lemmy.
That said, I do the exact same thing with all social media. I don’t go to the subreddits that would have such content, don’t follow users on Twitter who spew this content, etc.
I’m not disputing that it’s there, because of course it is. But it’s also there on every other social media platform, and with far more resources these platforms haven’t been able to do nearly anything about it.
I don’t know what the answer is to this propaganda, and I want to make clear that I think it’s awful. But it’s the fault of social media writ large, not the Fediverse.
In fact, I’ve found the Fediverse to be better about calling it out and encouraging defederating offending instances than I’ve seen on traditional social media, which seems to shrug its shoulders at it at best and actively encourages it at worst.
Why don’t you just join communities you like and block the ones you really dislike? Reddit was crawling with propaganda you couldn’t escape.
It’s not overwhelming, but I see occasional “eruptions” of Tankies and their ilk on posts and in communities where you wouldn’t expect to see them. Maybe just an organic thing where they see each other coming out of their closets and decide to pile on when they get the chance, but still kind of annoying and not something that’s easily preemptively blocked.
That said, this is hardly unique to the Fediverse. There’s stuff like that in social media in general, the Fediverse just happens to have that particular flavor for reasons of historical happenstance.
I can handle the blocking, that’s something I can control. what I can’t control is the same link being posted on multiple instances that just gets annoying to scroll through.
Recently Google announced Android 14, now all the technology, android, google related communities start posting the same link to the announcement along with the commentary by tech blogs and it repeats 10s of times in the feed.
I follow multiple tech subs across multiple instances for broader coverage but if the news is popular, it’s on every one of them.
Because I want the fediverse to succeed, not become another failed platform drowning in extremism like Voat.
I think it’s unique that we see more different sides and not just a US echo chamber that reddit was. However some communities of all spectrums have their idiots and communities that brigade stuff are very annoying. The idea that these communities exist is not the problem. I just block what I don’t want to see. I am ready for the block instance by user feature. I have to play wack a mole right now.
I wish it were, but it really isn’t.
Social media is so everywhere it’s even outside of social media.
