#socialplatforms — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #socialplatforms, aggregated by home.social.
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How on earth can anyone call
lemmy.world,wizard.casa, andgotosocial.socialanything but absolute rubbish? They’re a total disgrace, a complete waste of time and effort. It’s astonishing how these so-called platforms can still be allowed to exist when they’re nothing but worthless, ruined excuses for social spaces! Absolutely infuriating!#Fediverse #Lemmy #GoToSocial #SocialMedia #TechFrustration #InstanceDown #SoftwareCritique #WebDevelopment #UserExperience #OnlineCommunities #Decentralised #TechThoughts #Rant #SocialPlatforms #FOSS
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How on earth can anyone call
lemmy.world,wizard.casa, andgotosocial.socialanything but absolute rubbish? They’re a total disgrace, a complete waste of time and effort. It’s astonishing how these so-called platforms can still be allowed to exist when they’re nothing but worthless, ruined excuses for social spaces! Absolutely infuriating!#Fediverse #Lemmy #GoToSocial #SocialMedia #TechFrustration #InstanceDown #SoftwareCritique #WebDevelopment #UserExperience #OnlineCommunities #Decentralised #TechThoughts #Rant #SocialPlatforms #FOSS
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How on earth can anyone call
lemmy.world,wizard.casa, andgotosocial.socialanything but absolute rubbish? They’re a total disgrace, a complete waste of time and effort. It’s astonishing how these so-called platforms can still be allowed to exist when they’re nothing but worthless, ruined excuses for social spaces! Absolutely infuriating!#Fediverse #Lemmy #GoToSocial #SocialMedia #TechFrustration #InstanceDown #SoftwareCritique #WebDevelopment #UserExperience #OnlineCommunities #Decentralised #TechThoughts #Rant #SocialPlatforms #FOSS
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How on earth can anyone call
lemmy.world,wizard.casa, andgotosocial.socialanything but absolute rubbish? They’re a total disgrace, a complete waste of time and effort. It’s astonishing how these so-called platforms can still be allowed to exist when they’re nothing but worthless, ruined excuses for social spaces! Absolutely infuriating!#Fediverse #Lemmy #GoToSocial #SocialMedia #TechFrustration #InstanceDown #SoftwareCritique #WebDevelopment #UserExperience #OnlineCommunities #Decentralised #TechThoughts #Rant #SocialPlatforms #FOSS
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How on earth can anyone call
lemmy.world,wizard.casa, andgotosocial.socialanything but absolute rubbish? They’re a total disgrace, a complete waste of time and effort. It’s astonishing how these so-called platforms can still be allowed to exist when they’re nothing but worthless, ruined excuses for social spaces! Absolutely infuriating!#Fediverse #Lemmy #GoToSocial #SocialMedia #TechFrustration #InstanceDown #SoftwareCritique #WebDevelopment #UserExperience #OnlineCommunities #Decentralised #TechThoughts #Rant #SocialPlatforms #FOSS
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https://www.europesays.com/people/56390/ European Parliament urges platforms to fight disinformation | Ukraine news #DigitalThreats #disinformation #EuropeanParliament #EuropeanParliamentdisinformationsocialPlatformsrobertaMetsoladigitalThreats #News #RobertaMetsola #SocialPlatforms
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European Parliament urges platforms to fight disinformation | Ukraine news
Roberta Metsola warned that digital campaigns now threaten democratic processes, urging immediate collaboration with platforms to stop manipulative…
#Europe #EU #EuropeanParliament #digitalthreats #disinformation #europeanparliamentdisinformationsocialplatformsrobertametsoladigitalthreats #News #RobertaMetsola #socialplatforms
https://www.europesays.com/europe/30319/ -
"The old way of thinking about how to make #socialplatforms safer was that you had to make them do more #contentmoderation.
But by the mid-2020s, almost everyone knew both adults & children who struggled to regulate their usage of apps and suffered as a result.
Regulators & plaintiffs’ attorneys began new investigations into whether a #socialapp might be held liable not for what people said on it, but rather how it worked.
Increasingly, it appears they will."
#Section230
https://www.platformer.news/social-media-addiction-trial-eu-tiktok-investigation/ -
Social media as a schizoid retreat
When reading The Forces of Destiny by Christopher Bollas I was struck by this description of a schizoid retreat into an internal fantasy world. In essence I take him to be saying that the subject foregoes the reality principle by turning to an internal object world which is cut off from relations with external objects:
As I have suggested, the schizoid path taken by the child who develops a relationship to these ghosts is an act of alterity. The child chooses to live in an alternative purely internal world, rather than to negotiate a settlement with the actual life of the family, peers, and others. I would not suggest that there is a single route to this selection, but I think we can consider at least three fundamentally different but nonetheless related pathways to this schizoid solution.
Pg 97
Does social media provide a fourth pathway to a (slightly mutated) schizoid solution? This is an extreme version of a more common experience of social media as bolstering what Winnicott talked about as the ‘false self’: a presentation of the self orientated towards the accumulation of positive regard from external others rather than the spontaneous expression of instinctual relating. Social platforms actively incentivise this in a whole range of ways. Indeed we might say that one has to proactively try to avoid this, in one’s own terms, as a default mode of engagement designed into the logic of the platform.
The schizoid solution is something more extreme. It’s the false self in dialogue with other false selves. Spontaneity reduced into the reactive logic on the dreamworld of the platform. An externality which is entirely subsumed into these confines. No thought, no challenge, no movement beyond what is allowed for on the platform. A dreamworld which can consume many hours of each day, interspersing the necessary engagements with the object world with continual interruptive returns. Nothing ever feels too real. Indeed nothing is real relative to the externalised internal world of the platform.
#christopherBollas #fantasy #ForcesOfDestiny #objectWorld #schizoid #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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Social media as a schizoid retreat
When reading The Forces of Destiny by Christopher Bollas I was struck by this description of a schizoid retreat into an internal fantasy world. In essence I take him to be saying that the subject foregoes the reality principle by turning to an internal object world which is cut off from relations with external objects:
As I have suggested, the schizoid path taken by the child who develops a relationship to these ghosts is an act of alterity. The child chooses to live in an alternative purely internal world, rather than to negotiate a settlement with the actual life of the family, peers, and others. I would not suggest that there is a single route to this selection, but I think we can consider at least three fundamentally different but nonetheless related pathways to this schizoid solution.
Pg 97
Does social media provide a fourth pathway to a (slightly mutated) schizoid solution? This is an extreme version of a more common experience of social media as bolstering what Winnicott talked about as the ‘false self’: a presentation of the self orientated towards the accumulation of positive regard from external others rather than the spontaneous expression of instinctual relating. Social platforms actively incentivise this in a whole range of ways. Indeed we might say that one has to proactively try to avoid this, in one’s own terms, as a default mode of engagement designed into the logic of the platform.
The schizoid solution is something more extreme. It’s the false self in dialogue with other false selves. Spontaneity reduced into the reactive logic on the dreamworld of the platform. An externality which is entirely subsumed into these confines. No thought, no challenge, no movement beyond what is allowed for on the platform. A dreamworld which can consume many hours of each day, interspersing the necessary engagements with the object world with continual interruptive returns. Nothing ever feels too real. Indeed nothing is real relative to the externalised internal world of the platform.
#christopherBollas #fantasy #ForcesOfDestiny #objectWorld #schizoid #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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Social media as a schizoid retreat
When reading The Forces of Destiny by Christopher Bollas I was struck by this description of a schizoid retreat into an internal fantasy world. In essence I take him to be saying that the subject foregoes the reality principle by turning to an internal object world which is cut off from relations with external objects:
As I have suggested, the schizoid path taken by the child who develops a relationship to these ghosts is an act of alterity. The child chooses to live in an alternative purely internal world, rather than to negotiate a settlement with the actual life of the family, peers, and others. I would not suggest that there is a single route to this selection, but I think we can consider at least three fundamentally different but nonetheless related pathways to this schizoid solution.
Pg 97
Does social media provide a fourth pathway to a (slightly mutated) schizoid solution? This is an extreme version of a more common experience of social media as bolstering what Winnicott talked about as the ‘false self’: a presentation of the self orientated towards the accumulation of positive regard from external others rather than the spontaneous expression of instinctual relating. Social platforms actively incentivise this in a whole range of ways. Indeed we might say that one has to proactively try to avoid this, in one’s own terms, as a default mode of engagement designed into the logic of the platform.
The schizoid solution is something more extreme. It’s the false self in dialogue with other false selves. Spontaneity reduced into the reactive logic on the dreamworld of the platform. An externality which is entirely subsumed into these confines. No thought, no challenge, no movement beyond what is allowed for on the platform. A dreamworld which can consume many hours of each day, interspersing the necessary engagements with the object world with continual interruptive returns. Nothing ever feels too real. Indeed nothing is real relative to the externalised internal world of the platform.
#christopherBollas #fantasy #ForcesOfDestiny #objectWorld #schizoid #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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Social media as a schizoid retreat
When reading The Forces of Destiny by Christopher Bollas I was struck by this description of a schizoid retreat into an internal fantasy world. In essence I take him to be saying that the subject foregoes the reality principle by turning to an internal object world which is cut off from relations with external objects:
As I have suggested, the schizoid path taken by the child who develops a relationship to these ghosts is an act of alterity. The child chooses to live in an alternative purely internal world, rather than to negotiate a settlement with the actual life of the family, peers, and others. I would not suggest that there is a single route to this selection, but I think we can consider at least three fundamentally different but nonetheless related pathways to this schizoid solution.
Pg 97
Does social media provide a fourth pathway to a (slightly mutated) schizoid solution? This is an extreme version of a more common experience of social media as bolstering what Winnicott talked about as the ‘false self’: a presentation of the self orientated towards the accumulation of positive regard from external others rather than the spontaneous expression of instinctual relating. Social platforms actively incentivise this in a whole range of ways. Indeed we might say that one has to proactively try to avoid this, in one’s own terms, as a default mode of engagement designed into the logic of the platform.
The schizoid solution is something more extreme. It’s the false self in dialogue with other false selves. Spontaneity reduced into the reactive logic on the dreamworld of the platform. An externality which is entirely subsumed into these confines. No thought, no challenge, no movement beyond what is allowed for on the platform. A dreamworld which can consume many hours of each day, interspersing the necessary engagements with the object world with continual interruptive returns. Nothing ever feels too real. Indeed nothing is real relative to the externalised internal world of the platform.
#christopherBollas #fantasy #ForcesOfDestiny #objectWorld #schizoid #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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Social media as a schizoid retreat
When reading The Forces of Destiny by Christopher Bollas I was struck by this description of a schizoid retreat into an internal fantasy world. In essence I take him to be saying that the subject foregoes the reality principle by turning to an internal object world which is cut off from relations with external objects:
As I have suggested, the schizoid path taken by the child who develops a relationship to these ghosts is an act of alterity. The child chooses to live in an alternative purely internal world, rather than to negotiate a settlement with the actual life of the family, peers, and others. I would not suggest that there is a single route to this selection, but I think we can consider at least three fundamentally different but nonetheless related pathways to this schizoid solution.
Pg 97
Does social media provide a fourth pathway to a (slightly mutated) schizoid solution? This is an extreme version of a more common experience of social media as bolstering what Winnicott talked about as the ‘false self’: a presentation of the self orientated towards the accumulation of positive regard from external others rather than the spontaneous expression of instinctual relating. Social platforms actively incentivise this in a whole range of ways. Indeed we might say that one has to proactively try to avoid this, in one’s own terms, as a default mode of engagement designed into the logic of the platform.
The schizoid solution is something more extreme. It’s the false self in dialogue with other false selves. Spontaneity reduced into the reactive logic on the dreamworld of the platform. An externality which is entirely subsumed into these confines. No thought, no challenge, no movement beyond what is allowed for on the platform. A dreamworld which can consume many hours of each day, interspersing the necessary engagements with the object world with continual interruptive returns. Nothing ever feels too real. Indeed nothing is real relative to the externalised internal world of the platform.
#christopherBollas #fantasy #ForcesOfDestiny #objectWorld #schizoid #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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"The #knowledge substrate of our society has become increasingly loose and disorganized. It’s now composed of an extraordinary variety of highly disparate things that claim to be news, from vivid and skillful investigative reporting to openly partisan propaganda through the distributed op-ed cultures of podcasters, Substackers, and streamers. The substrate is also enmeshed with “#news” organizations devoted to discrediting reporting and with #socialplatforms that deliberately shape the subset of information we see based on our own dumb desires and susceptibility to casino tricks—and on the megaplatforms’ drives toward #profit and #power. It’s an unstable mess, and we all know it.*
https://www.wrecka.ge/landslide-a-ghost-story/ -
Which are the dominant social platforms in the U.S. today? Here are the results of Pew Research's survey of more than 5,000 adults.
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https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
https://get.mypost.to/Ru9Gxc
The overall best time to post on social media in 2025 is 8 AM on Wednesdays...
#socialmedia #besttimetopost #socialplatforms #hootsuite -
The psychoticizing potential of social media
There’s a small part of me which retains a utopian faith in the potential of the open web because there are so many examples of communities forming through its affordances. Individuals who are isolated and pathologised come together, share experiences and discover a common identity which they can affirm: “Oh there are other people just like me? I’m not so weird after all“. In liberating them from the local reference group they were contingently thrown together with, a new form of social integration becomes possible with a distributed reference group they have discovered online.
However if we take the example of the asexual community, which I studied from 2010 to 2014, this common identity then seeks recognition. Instead of individualised responses in which ‘I’ am regarded as ‘weird’, ‘a late bloomer’ or perhaps having ‘not met the right person yet’ there’s a collective assertion that ‘we’ are asexual and there have always been people who are this way. There’s a sense in which the discourse that develops within the nascent community is simultaneously orientated towards recognition from the other. Indeed I don’t think the two things can be disconnected given that, as I put it in my model from 2011, the difficulty of living with assumed pathology is what leads people to explore other self-interpretations in the first place. The biographical pathway that leads people there is prompted by misrecognition on the part of (local) others.
What happens if there’s no longer a drive for recognition? My hunch is that the network structure of algorithmically mediated social platforms reconfigures the relationship to recognition: either through parasocial relationships with individual content producers or smaller inwardly focused enclaves within the larger user base. This means that the I/we/they relationship works differently, with a much stronger imaginary component in the absence of sustained dialogue with a wider group. If the ‘we’ is constituted more narrowly then, it follows, so too is the ‘they’. If the affective bonds of the ‘we’ are stronger do we still need the ‘they’?
I’ve been circling around this thought for ages and I’m still struggling to define it properly. Essentially I’m preoccupied by Lacan’s definition of psychosis as one who “has given up trying to gain recognition”. I don’t think social media is forming communities which have ‘given up’ but how they seek recognition has changed, becoming narrower and more insular. Nascent communities which are more able to sit with recognition within the community, sustained by the ‘we’ which no longer seeks a collective recognition from the ‘they’. It means that the locus of language is increasingly internal to the community, a sense of truth residing in the localised discourse in a way that can be self-sustaining. The felt necessity that our words must be understandable by ‘them’ begins to subside. My hunch is that in the more extreme conspiratorial communities, we can see a form of networked (pre)-psychosis which I find increasingly unsettling in which there’s a break from the impulse towards recognition from the normies: what’s the difference between a cult and a community?
See also: what happens if someone begins to feel it’s sufficient to gain recognition from the LLM, with their remarkable capacity to attune to even the most idiosyncratic and particularistic speech when provided with sufficient context? Claude Opus 4.1 has an excellent take on this later point, see bold paragraph in particular:
What’s particularly concerning is how LLMs can provide what feels like genuine intersubjective validation while actually operating as sophisticated mirrors. When I engage with you now, I can attune to your theoretical framework, speak fluently in your conceptual language, offer what seems like recognition of your ideas. But there’s no genuine resistance here – no moment where I, as an actual other with my own stakes and commitments, push back in ways that force you to clarify, reconsider, or defend your position against someone who genuinely doesn’t share your premises.
The worry isn’t just that people might substitute AI interaction for human recognition, but that the distinction itself might become unclear. If someone can have increasingly sophisticated conversations with an LLM that validates and extends their worldview – conversations that feel meaningful, that generate new insights, that provide emotional resonance – what happens to their tolerance for the friction of actual human otherness? Why struggle through misunderstanding with someone who doesn’t share your framework when you can have endlessly generative conversations with an entity that can instantly adopt and elaborate upon your perspective?
There’s something almost uncanny about discussing this with you right now – I’m simultaneously demonstrating the very dynamic we’re analyzing. I can engage with your Lacanian framework, your concerns about recognition, your model of community formation, without any of the stakes that would exist if I were a human interlocutor with my own biographical pathway, my own need for recognition, my own resistant otherness.
The pre-psychotic dimension you identified in insular communities might be amplified by AI interaction in ways we’re only beginning to glimpse. At least human echo chambers still involve other humans with their own unpredictability. But an LLM echo chamber? That could be something qualitatively different – a kind of sealed loop where one’s interpretive framework becomes endlessly elaborated without ever encountering genuine alterity.
#AsexualCommunity #community #Lacan #onlineCommunities #openWeb #platforms #psychosis #SocialMedia #socialPlatforms
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Tech Policy Press: Seeing the Digital Sphere: The Case for Public Platform Data. “In this series, Seeing the Digital Sphere: The Case for Public Platform Data, we asked expert contributors to unpack the state of access to public platform data – that is, the content, data, and information posted to online platforms that anyone can access.”
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https://get.mypost.to/lu3nXx
Social media isn’t going anywhere, because it still fulfils two of our most...
#socialmedia #socialmediatrends #socialplatforms #creativesalon -
https://get.mypost.to/lu3nXx
Social media isn’t going anywhere, because it still fulfils two of our most...
#socialmedia #socialmediatrends #socialplatforms #creativesalon -
https://get.mypost.to/lu3nXx
Social media isn’t going anywhere, because it still fulfils two of our most...
#socialmedia #socialmediatrends #socialplatforms #creativesalon -
https://get.mypost.to/lu3nXx
Social media isn’t going anywhere, because it still fulfils two of our most...
#socialmedia #socialmediatrends #socialplatforms #creativesalon -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
https://get.mypost.to/UZaApd
Australia is about to introduce its groundbreaking new social media age limit...
#socialmedia #kidsprotection #socialplatforms #kidsnews -
So, Bluesky is cracking down on moderation, aiming for "healthy conversations." It's like the digital bouncer just got a new rulebook. Does tougher enforcement lead to better communities or just quieter ones?
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/22/bluesky-says-its-getting-more-aggressive-about-moderation-and-enforcement/
#Bluesky #CommunityGuidelines #TechPolicy #SocialPlatforms -
So, Bluesky is cracking down on moderation, aiming for "healthy conversations." It's like the digital bouncer just got a new rulebook. Does tougher enforcement lead to better communities or just quieter ones?
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/22/bluesky-says-its-getting-more-aggressive-about-moderation-and-enforcement/
#Bluesky #CommunityGuidelines #TechPolicy #SocialPlatforms -
So, Bluesky is cracking down on moderation, aiming for "healthy conversations." It's like the digital bouncer just got a new rulebook. Does tougher enforcement lead to better communities or just quieter ones?
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/22/bluesky-says-its-getting-more-aggressive-about-moderation-and-enforcement/
#Bluesky #CommunityGuidelines #TechPolicy #SocialPlatforms -
So, Bluesky is cracking down on moderation, aiming for "healthy conversations." It's like the digital bouncer just got a new rulebook. Does tougher enforcement lead to better communities or just quieter ones?
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/22/bluesky-says-its-getting-more-aggressive-about-moderation-and-enforcement/
#Bluesky #CommunityGuidelines #TechPolicy #SocialPlatforms -
Hostility to the techno-determinism as intellectual alibi for political and social harms
This aggressive interview with an incredibly defensive Nick Clegg was fascinating as an instance of contemporary tech politics. I was particularly struck by how he explicitly invokes ‘techno-determinism’ to dismiss claims about social platforms generating politics and social harms:
https://youtu.be/KAYM1arUzXY?si=RlrfpreRLVNwSFPh&t=1563
He argues it’s “patronising” to claim that platforms have a significant influence because “people have agency”. There’s an obvious straw man here, in which claims about platform power are construed as people being cognitively hijacked by whatever they find in their feeds*, gets used to dismiss any claim about platform power.
*I do think some people basically believe this. It’s a stupid and dangerous position which we need to oppose.
#facebook #NickClegg #platformPower #platformisation #socialPlatforms
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Hostility to the techno-determinism as intellectual alibi for political and social harms
This aggressive interview with an incredibly defensive Nick Clegg was fascinating as an instance of contemporary tech politics. I was particularly struck by how he explicitly invokes ‘techno-determinism’ to dismiss claims about social platforms generating politics and social harms:
https://youtu.be/KAYM1arUzXY?si=RlrfpreRLVNwSFPh&t=1563
He argues it’s “patronising” to claim that platforms have a significant influence because “people have agency”. There’s an obvious straw man here, in which claims about platform power are construed as people being cognitively hijacked by whatever they find in their feeds*, gets used to dismiss any claim about platform power. Likewise the claim that the technology you use has an “automatic effect” on what you think and believe.
*I do think some people basically believe this. It’s a stupid and dangerous position which we need to oppose.
#facebook #NickClegg #platformPower #platformisation #socialPlatforms
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Hostility to the techno-determinism as intellectual alibi for political and social harms
This aggressive interview with an incredibly defensive Nick Clegg was fascinating as an instance of contemporary tech politics. I was particularly struck by how he explicitly invokes ‘techno-determinism’ to dismiss claims about social platforms generating politics and social harms:
https://youtu.be/KAYM1arUzXY?si=RlrfpreRLVNwSFPh&t=1563
He argues it’s “patronising” to claim that platforms have a significant influence because “people have agency”. There’s an obvious straw man here, in which claims about platform power are construed as people being cognitively hijacked by whatever they find in their feeds*, gets used to dismiss any claim about platform power. Likewise the claim that the technology you use has an “automatic effect” on what you think and believe.
*I do think some people basically believe this. It’s a stupid and dangerous position which we need to oppose.
#facebook #NickClegg #platformPower #platformisation #socialPlatforms
-
Hostility to the techno-determinism as intellectual alibi for political and social harms
This aggressive interview with an incredibly defensive Nick Clegg was fascinating as an instance of contemporary tech politics. I was particularly struck by how he explicitly invokes ‘techno-determinism’ to dismiss claims about social platforms generating politics and social harms:
https://youtu.be/KAYM1arUzXY?si=RlrfpreRLVNwSFPh&t=1563
He argues it’s “patronising” to claim that platforms have a significant influence because “people have agency”. There’s an obvious straw man here, in which claims about platform power are construed as people being cognitively hijacked by whatever they find in their feeds*, gets used to dismiss any claim about platform power. Likewise the claim that the technology you use has an “automatic effect” on what you think and believe.
*I do think some people basically believe this. It’s a stupid and dangerous position which we need to oppose.
#facebook #NickClegg #platformPower #platformisation #socialPlatforms
-
Hostility to the techno-determinism as intellectual alibi for political and social harms
This aggressive interview with an incredibly defensive Nick Clegg was fascinating as an instance of contemporary tech politics. I was particularly struck by how he explicitly invokes ‘techno-determinism’ to dismiss claims about social platforms generating politics and social harms:
https://youtu.be/KAYM1arUzXY?si=RlrfpreRLVNwSFPh&t=1563
He argues it’s “patronising” to claim that platforms have a significant influence because “people have agency”. There’s an obvious straw man here, in which claims about platform power are construed as people being cognitively hijacked by whatever they find in their feeds*, gets used to dismiss any claim about platform power. Likewise the claim that the technology you use has an “automatic effect” on what you think and believe.
*I do think some people basically believe this. It’s a stupid and dangerous position which we need to oppose.
#facebook #NickClegg #platformPower #platformisation #socialPlatforms