In a new paper, digital activist Audrey Tang and others emphasize the need for context and community over clicks.
Study: Social media probably can’t be fixed
The [structural] mechanism producing these problematic outcomes is really robust and hard to resolve."
I drew a bunch of dots to explain why social media is broken.
Two years ago last month, I shut down This., a social media platform that allowed each member to share just 1 link a day. The service was…
How to Fix Facebook—Before It Fixes Us
An early investor explains why the social media platform’s business model is such a threat—and what to do about it.
How do you solve a problem like social media? Part I
It's all well and good saying we should regulate social media. But social media is already regulated. So why is it failing? And what could we do in response?
RIP social media. What comes next is messy.
As social media splinters, how can we keep the new online spaces from devolving into toxic pits of despair?
How Social Media Brings Out the Worst in Us
A new book argues that social media does more harm than good and we might be happier and healthier using it less.
It’s time for movements to rethink social media
Movements can still find people on social media. But the real organizing has to happen somewhere else — and that's the part we keep skipping.
Free Our Feeds
Social media is broken: controlled by a handful of billionaires who shape what people see, say, and believe. These platforms profit from division, exploit user data, and lock people into closed systems.
The Interplay of Knowledge Overestimation, Social Media Use, and Populist Ideas: Cross-Sectional and Experimental Evidence From Germany and Taiwan - Niels G. Mede, Adrian Rauchfleisch, Julia Metag, Mike S. Schäfer, 2024
Social media expose users to an abundance of information about various issues. But they also make it difficult for users to assess the quality of this informati...
Social Media Is Now Parasocial Media
When practitioners used the term “social media” to describe the internet tools that emerged in the mid-aughts, they were giving a name to the kinds of platforms and protocols that allowed people to socialize with friends and communities of interest by using digital technologies. Twenty years later, users of social media are far more likely to scroll than post – and the content that they consume is often strategically produced and algorithmically curated. In this essay, I argue that the very essence of social media has changed. To more effectively interrogate what we are witnessing, we need to stop presuming that these tools are “social media” and begin recognizing that they are now “parasocial media.” Doing so raises new questions about digitally mediated sociality, not to mention the politics and governance of these platforms.
Social media algorithms can be redesigned to bridge divides — here’s how
"It falls to both the tech companies that built these systems and an engaged public to create technologies designed for social cohesion."
Empowering Users, Not Overlords: Overcoming Digital Helplessness
Disclosure: I’m on the board of Bluesky, so feel free to take as many grains of salt as you want in reading it, though all of it applies equally to other decentralized social media ecosys…
(PDF) The Loop and Reasons to Break It: Investigating Infinite Scrolling Behaviour in Social Media Applications and Reasons to Stop
PDF | Today's social media (SM) platforms are toolkits consisting of features with different use cases, some strongly related to habitual and regretful... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
Social Media is Broken. Here’s How to Fix It. - Interlinked
Breaking down the AT Protocol for normies.
One of the issues that has come up again and again in my reporting on misinformation and social media is the massive influence social media companies have on research in the field. Last night a preprint dropped that tries to get at this with some numbers. My piece in @science.org (and 🧪🧵 coming):
Nearly a third of social media research has undisclosed ties to industry, preprint claims
www.science.org