With recent drastic changes to social media platforms like Twiiter/X and Reddit, many users have raised questions and concerns regarding their online conversation spaces.
In 2023, Reddit decided to significantly increase the price of access to its Application Programming Interface (API). This caused many users and moderators to “blackout” their subreddits and forced many popular third-party apps to shut down.
Twitter ended its era of traditional verification in 2023. Now, users will have to pay to be verified. This caused much commotion as the blue check next to a users name no longer can be used as a mark of validity. Instead, it means that someone has paid to make their account more visible.
In both cases, it’s become apparent that the decision making of many platforms is up to corporations or rich individuals. They essentially have complete power over some of our most significant online conversation spaces. Both of these changes have effected active users of these, and other online communities, and some interesting questions have been raised.
1. What are the benefits of highly centralized sites that are being called “public squares” — and what are the drawbacks?
One advantage of highly centralized sites is the ability for large online communities to connect in one space. They’re diverse, they’re accessible. and they’re mostly global. One disadvantage is the fact that the platform is highly susceptible to drastic changes to how the space is moderated, due to there being a sole decision maker.
2. Should we be depending on the good will of their owners?
Personally, I don’t think we should have to depend on the good will of the owners. Take Twitter/X for example, a few years ago it was a platform that promoted diversity. Then, the site gets bought by Elon Musk, and now I see tons of promotion for Donald Trump, including tweets from Musk himself. Musk’s imprint on the platform has been made, and it’s definitely different than what it used to be.
3. Should we look instead for more decentralized environments?
Decentralized platforms allow users to regulate their own communities, servers, groups, and spaces, with their own rules. This also means that there’s less power in the owner’s hands, and more in the user’s hands. One drawback, however, is that decentralized environments often lack stability and consistency as it’s a bit more difficult to regulate harmful and abusive content.
4. Should the government intervene in some way?
Many have asked the government to intervene in order to force platforms to be held accountable. One suggestion has been to require centralized sites to put “portability” in place, so that users have the option to move their conversations within their communities elsewhere. This is a feature that would have an incredibly positive impact on online communities’ morale.
5. Ultimately, who owns what we say to each other?
Although in an ideal world we have ownership of our conversations online. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The platforms currently own what we say to each other, and that brings us back to the everlasting discussion of privacy and data ownership.
What should we do?
I can’t speak for everyone, but I will say that while it may not feel like it, there actually are quality alternatives to most of the mainstream social media platforms. Twitter/X is one that lots of people have been trying to leave, including myself. Personally, I’ve enjoyed using Threads as an alternative when Twitter/X feels too toxic. Threads doesn’t currently have ads, nor does it provide users any way to monetize their posts/accounts, unlike Twitter/X that’s filled with it. Threads promotes more real-time conversations and debates.
Furthermore, Meta has made moves to make Threads a more decentralized platform. While Meta is still centralized, Threads is integrating itself with ActivityPub protocol, which is part of the fediverse. This means that Threads will be apart of a network of independent social media servers that can communicate with each other.
Read this quote from Meta themselves about the integration:
“Threads leverages ActivityPub – a decentralized, open social networking protocol built by the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) – that is premised on a straightforward, fundamental idea: creating a social networking structure based on open protocols that allow people to communicate and network with each other regardless of the server they choose.”
Alternative sites are a great solution, however I think the greatest solution of them all is increasing our media literacy. We must understand that we are responsible for the platforms we choose to use and how we use them.
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