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94 votes
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Tell US Congress: Stop the TikTok ban
31 votes -
The end of the MrBeast era
37 votes -
Refund fraud schemes promoted on TikTok, Telegram are costing Amazon and other retailers billions of dollars
37 votes -
Once more with feeling: Banning TikTok is unconstitutional and won’t do shit to deal with any actual threats
24 votes -
Can Reddit survive its own IPO?
22 votes -
House passes bill that could ban TikTok in the US, sending it to the Senate
45 votes -
On popular online platforms, predatory groups coerce children into self-harm
15 votes -
Reddit is letting power users in on its IPO
38 votes -
The mystery social media account schooling US Congress on how to do its job
39 votes -
Generative AI - We aren’t ready
27 votes -
Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads down in widespread outage
14 votes -
Is an ethical social media platform even possible?
I've long been uncomfortable using platforms that have a bad reputation with respect to: Human rights / genocide Disinformation Privacy All three of those can be connected with advertising...
I've long been uncomfortable using platforms that have a bad reputation with respect to:
- Human rights / genocide
- Disinformation
- Privacy
All three of those can be connected with advertising revenue, among other things. When I use platforms that are shady in this regard, I know I'm colluding with them and contributing to the problems they create. So it's been a relief to see new platforms like Tildes emerge, as well as those based on ActivityPub.
But even platforms that don't have overt advertising (Telegram?) do have a problem with hate groups that go unchallenged. And I know that if I was running an instance of an ActivityPub compatible platform such as KBin, I mightn't be able to keep on top of moderating things like disinformation.
So I suppose my question is, where do you draw the line? I've deleted my Twitter and Meta accounts and I'm exploring alternatives, but I'm not sure if I'm going from the darkness to the light, or just into shades of grey.
38 votes -
Tumblr to begin selling user content to AI generative service companies, opt-out will be per blog
75 votes -
Texas is right. The tech giants need to be regulated. (gifted link)
10 votes -
Google cut a deal with Reddit for AI training data
23 votes -
Bluesky announces data federation for self-hosting
20 votes -
Exhausted Pakistani content moderators are now trying to find other work but have been unsuccessful because their experience isn’t transferable
12 votes -
Reddit has a new AI training deal to sell user content
67 votes -
The majority of traffic from Elon Musk's X may have been fake during the Super Bowl, report suggests
50 votes -
Does anyone else have posting anxiety?
To preface, I have accounts on multiple link aggregators, three microblogging platforms, and I have my own (transiently online) blog. I'm a member of more niche Discord servers than I can count,...
To preface, I have accounts on multiple link aggregators, three microblogging platforms, and I have my own (transiently online) blog. I'm a member of more niche Discord servers than I can count, and I'm in a few other nooks where people generally seem to gather and talk. Despite all that, I find that it's incredibly rare that I ever actually participate in any of the discussions that I see taking place, and that's something that I think I'd like to change.
I think part of the problem is that I grew up in the formative years of the "modern" net, and was always taught that you should be careful about what you say online (and, implicitly, that saying nothing is probably even better), lest an axe murderer track you down and explodify your tibia while you sleep.
So, does anyone else, or have stories about, posting anxiety? Anyone gotten over it? Am I just crazy?
81 votes -
Twitter/X provides premium perks to Hezbollah, other US-sanctioned groups
18 votes -
Bluesky Social is now open to the public
67 votes -
How to avoid making other people angry on the internet
I have, at times, experienced that opinions I share online fails to win people over, to the extent that the essence of the thread transforms from that of an exchange of ideas into that of a...
I have, at times, experienced that opinions I share online fails to win people over, to the extent that the essence of the thread transforms from that of an exchange of ideas into that of a shitstorm.
Curiously, this is seldom caused by me having controversial views. I’m not especially hateful, and I don’t hold any conservative core ideas, such as advocating for an even less equal society or attacking or belittling various minority groups. If it were just that, then there would be no mystery; my views horrible, and for that reason, they provoke a strong reaction. But despite this not being the case, my views, which are truly very civilised and boring indeed, are sometimes intepreted in interesting ways.
I think the issue is me not expressing myself as well as I could. Assuming this to be the case, what follow is my own notes on how to better get your (mine) ideas across without misunderstandings.
Beware of the shortcoming of contemporary writing
Most of todays readers do not read. Rather, they impatiently give the text a quick glimpse, their brain already craving the next bit of novelty. I've noticed this in myself when I impatiently select random random test when trying to get my brain to read a text online. What's more, those who write has begin taking into account that their audience does not read. This has spawned a peculiar writing style which, for the first time in history(?), is designed not to actually be read, but merely glimpsed through.
It mostly consist of short paragraphs.
Often just a single sentence.
Sometimes two sentences. Maybe three. Four sentences are considered the max.
To help readers easier skim through it.
Read more: How can you write web content that people can skim?
If actually read, it has a staccato-like feel.
Almost like free verse poetry.
There are other characteristica too.
- Scattering links throughout.
- Inserting “Read more about“ references to other articles.
- Inserting list such as this one.
- Adding heaps of headlines.
I guess pretty much everyone have seen this particular style, and, to some degree, adapted it themselves. So there is a tendency to naturally try to boil everything down to a single, ultra-short paragraph. However, human language is not computer code; trying to destill a deeper set of ideas down to a Xwitter-length sentence will inevitably cause its fragile essence to be lost in translation. There is a reason why books are the length of, well, books, and not just the SparkNotes summary thereoff.
To build upon this idea, note that most dog-whistles comes in the form of a single, short sentence, as the shortness, unlike computer code, make it vague, opening it up for multiple interpretations. Indeed, some dog whistles doesn’t contain any words at all, but consists of a single emoji, such as “milk” or “the OK sign”.
If you write about more elusive fluffy ideas, ideas where your angle runs the risk of being read the wrong way, your writing has to go all the way, fully exposing your point with absolute clarity. You have to show it from every angle to make your vision travel through the written words and into the mind of the reader.
Sleep on it
If you aren’t sure you got everything right, no rush. You can always wait a bit, and go over it later.
Don’t accidently target other users
Lets say that someone posts the notorious recipe “Chicken and ham extravaganta”, and say that they don’t think society should go vegan because a balanced diet is better than a green one. You just happen to have a bunch of replies to that. For one thing, flesh food is not traditionally balanced, but centered around the meat, with everything else being mere decoration. Also, there are lots of protein sources other than meat. But most importantly, the vegan movement is not about what is the most healthy diet, but about it being morally wrong to kill a sentient creature just to eat its meat.
But this is a general argument about veganism. If you write it as a reply to someone recomendinging a “Chicken and ham extravaganta”, you’re essentially calling them a bad person.
So don’t reply. If you want to push your point, at least wait a bit and then create a new post, so you don’t target a specific user.
Don’t drink and post
Nope. Just don’t.
Avoid provocateur headlines
I might have given this post the headline “How to speak honestly without being banned for misogyny, racism, transphobia, and fascism”, or maybe “I was banned and censored on tilde.net. Here’s my conclusions.” Headlines which are undeniably more juicy, more clickbaity, if you will. You can almost smell the raising adrenaline. Controversy! Read all about it!
To me, this is hard to resist, because I really love the aethetic of blatant, vulgar marketing. But it also tends to backfire more often than not.
Also, even if the actual content of my post is okay, people who have experienced racism or transphobia might not be super thrilled about me playing around with racism and transphobia in my headline. Saying something “jokingly” is still saying it.
As an aside, me being temporary banned and having my posts deleted was what inspired me to write this post. I don’t have anything much to say about this itself, other than I would have liked it if removed post had a line about the reason for removal, and I would also note that, if you get banned, the red text bleed into be backgrund in a way which is aestetically displeasing.
Diversity reading
You might try mentally test reading your post from the perspective of groups which play a role in the content of your post. After all, if you talk about someone, you should be able to say it to their face. Also, it is entirely possible that your post will be read by those you talk about.
Take the rules for being a good listener, then invert them
Listening is a skill which most people haven’t learned. So when you speak your mind, it is worth taking precautions for the likely scenario that your readers will not follow the rules for the optimal listener. So let’s try inverting the rules:
When listening to others, always give their view the most generous intepretation —> If your words can be interpreted as ignorant, biggoted, or fashy, they will be, always.
Truly listen to others and try to understand them before giving your answer —> Assume that people will skim through your post.
I want to point out that (in bold and uppercase just for the heck of it) I DON’T SAY THIS TO WHINE ABOUT BAD PEOPLE READING MY POSTS UNFAIRLY. Nope, absolute nope. My point is the exact opposite; I have a deeply held belief that any writer or author who is “misunderstood” could have avoided it by writing better. The writer should be expected to know his audience and know how to write in circles around any potential misintepretation.
Got that? Ok. Let’s look at what we can do to address those two issues.
If your words can be interpreted as ignorant, biggoted, or fashy, they will be, always.
When writing a post, I sometimes get the notion that something I write might be taken the wrong way. But then I forget about it, because I’m busy building a clever metaphor finding just the right word. And without fail, my post get misinterpreted in exactly that way I thought it would. So always listen to that little voice. In my experience, it is seldom wrong.
This is not just to avoid you getting trashed online. Another more important aspect which is typically overlooked, is that if your post can, somehow, be misinterpreted in horrible ways, it may also be read as such by people who truly hold those views, people who then sees you as an ally. You really don’t want that.
Sometimes it is a simple matter of changing your phrasing. Other times, directly stating what you do or do not believe is in order.
Assume that people will skim through your post.
While you can’t predict exactly how our post is going to be skimmed through, It is likely that they will have read your headline. So use that as leverage to push your most important points, or the general vibe of your post. Your first paragraph is likely to be read too. If your post is longer, you can also add subheaders with key info. You can also use the inverted pyramid structure, leading with the information any reader must know, followed by things which will grant them greater understanding, and ending with the interesting nice to know stuff.
This is what I got so far! If you got any advice of your own, please share!
34 votes -
How Quora died - The site used to be a thriving community that worked to answer our most specific questions. But users are fleeing.
37 votes -
"By all means, go after big tech. But for the love of the next generation, don’t pretend that it’s going to help vulnerable youth."
33 votes -
Rebecca Solnit: How to comment on social media
12 votes -
The speed of outrage: Tom Scott at Thinking Digital 2015
20 votes -
What we discovered on ‘Deep YouTube’ – The video site isn’t just a platform. It’s infrastructure.
33 votes -
Coming of age at the dawn of the social internet (LiveJournal, AIM, and other pre-Facebook internet things)
42 votes -
Big Tech won’t let you leave. Here’s a way out.
28 votes -
The internet is being ruined by bloated junk
43 votes -
The quiet death of Ello’s big dreams
23 votes -
TikTok invaded this cruise for content. Maybe someday it’ll come for you.
19 votes -
Substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis, the company said today
46 votes -
A US-sanctioned oligarch ran pro-Kremlin ads on Facebook—again
18 votes -
"Goodbye internet": MatPat retiring from YouTube
27 votes -
How social media’s biggest user protest rocked Reddit
80 votes -
The "X Factor" was never going to work
Of all the changes Elon Musk brought to Twitter, the one I'm quite skeptical and cringed about is the renaming of the platform itself to "X". I don't know who advised him that this name could even...
Of all the changes Elon Musk brought to Twitter, the one I'm quite skeptical and cringed about is the renaming of the platform itself to "X".
I don't know who advised him that this name could even work at all. X is so generic a name that it doesn't really mean anything because it already stands for a lot of things, how can one even think that a whole new brand can be built out of it? For example, one of the first picture that comes to my mind is "X-Men" movie series and the famous Professor X. But from what I gather, Elon is more of an Iron Man fan boy than Prof X, right?
The X-Men brand isn't some fluke, the Marvel folks have put some decent effort in creating that story line, plot, dialogs, sound and video effects, etc. to build the legend that it is. If me sitting here in India knows so much about X-Men series, I can only imagine the kind of cult it must have built in US, UK, etc.
And who can forget the "X" variable in mathematics? It is often used for equations like (X2 + Y2). X is also very commonly used in discussions to denote an unknown quantity or factor. For example, "Let us assume that X is the demand factor for this new product.".
I don't know about other parts of the world but at least here in India, almost every person I've talked to still calls the platform "Twitter" and not X! Indeed, as long as the domain
twitter.com
still works, one might be even correct or justified in calling it so. But who knows how long that domain is going to work.However, one of the noblest things for Musk to do in 2024 is to just revert or rollback this decision and restore back the "Twitter" brand. This is not just a popular demand but if I recall, Elon himself had often said that they will experiment with twitter and roll back what doesn't work? At least his top advisors or generals must strongly advice Elon to consider reverting this. Maybe they can come up with a slightly modified version of the Twitter logo with a different color and a bit of what Elon has in mind with respect to X? I'm sure there is no dearth of creativity in either Silicon Valley or Elon's team!
30 votes -
Tom Scott: After ten years, it's time to stop making videos
109 votes -
Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves.
26 votes -
Substack turns on its ‘Nazis Welcome!’ sign
89 votes -
The work of online volunteers - Moderators’ work on Reddit and Facebook is crucial but not paid. We should be creative in how we compensate them.
32 votes -
Twitch's new sexual content guidelines updated to include 'artistic nudity' after viral topless stream
45 votes -
Threads is starting to make content available on the Fediverse
33 votes -
YouTube likely lowering resolution of videos if it detects you using Firefox on Asahi Linux
39 votes -
The year Twitter died: a special series from The Verge
26 votes -
Bluesky says it will allow users to opt out of the public web interface after backlash
23 votes -
Ex-Twitter exec claims X fired him for raising security concerns
21 votes -
New Mexico attorney general sues Meta for allegedly failing to protect children from predators on Facebook, Instagram
21 votes