Goofing around with the social medias

  • I signed up for Post.News a few days ago and think it’s fine for now. I’m not sure who will adopt it outside of journalists (if they do), but I think I will stick around for a while.
  • I finally got my Mastodon.Social account set up as well. I’m still wrapping my head around the Federated system, but I see that I don’t necessarily have to split myself into multiple pieces. I already have multiple personalities online, so I need to be careful here 😉
  • Slowly I’m coming back to tumblr too, under my personal name, and want to use that as a place to post comments on articles and asides. While I wanted to keep everything here on my blog, I would still like to reach a larger audience.

My plan is to have daily summary of the things I like elsewhere until that becomes unnecessary or unwieldy (or I just abandon it due to forgetting, which is more likely). Feel free to follow me in any of those places.

If you hold the banhammer, can you banhammer yourself?

Like, an early subset of Twitter users are Something Awful forum goons — the most prominent of whom is Dril — and they love fucking with people.

Elizabeth Lopatto, “Elon Musk learns the hard way that being a Twitter troll is way more fun than being a mod” at The Verge

Did not think I was going to start my day thinking about the Something Awful forums or flashback to Worth 1000’s Photoshop tournament with them, but here I am.

Everything in content moderation…

Content moderation is what Twitter makes — it is the thing that defines the user experience. It’s what YouTube makes, it’s what Instagram makes, it’s what TikTok makes. They all try to incentivize good stuff, disincentivize bad stuff, and delete the really bad stuff.

From Nilay Patel’s “Welcome to hell, Elon” at The Verge

Cory Doctorow: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms

That’s because the Benevolent Dictators can sometimes turn malignant. Some of the policies that Big Tech insists keep its users safe actually endanger those users’ lives.

Source: How to Leave Dying Social Media Platforms

This is one of the articles that started me on my way to reclaiming a space online just for me.

Social Media Exile

I don’t think social media is really all that healthy.

I’ve been positive in dealing my own rhetoric, especially in class. I’ve tried to discuss its functions conceptually, that there are benefits if you curate well and hypervigilant, but the labor costs outweigh the benefit.

I have been mindful of how I feel when I’m on a platform. Twitter is now where I feel the worst; Facebook is pretty neutral as I’ve culled my friends list down considerably. Instagram and TikTok are still relatively positive, if not actively negative. But I want to re-evaluate how *I* want to use platforms, what *I* want to say.

Right now, dunno, ya know?

This is going to be tricky as I read in Digital Composition and Rhetoric. There are more media out there than just social media channels, but like the sewage systems of most metropolitan areas, everything runs into them. Those channels are drivers of discourse now. We build cites based on how fast our shit flows underneath.

(Perhaps that’s not the best metaphor – but you see what I mean.)
I will be thinking a lot about how we pull back, as a society. How we maintain important connections, but not add to or get inundated by the garbage. Maybe it’s time to just go full in on a personal web-site. Keep all of my postings there and worry less about enGagEmeNT and more about cultivating a space for me.