Meganets
How Digital Forces Beyond Our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities
There is no hand on the tiller of some of the largest global digital forces that influence our daily lives: from corporate sites such as Facebook, Amazon, Google, YouTube, Instagram, and Reddit to the burgeoning metaverse encompassing cryptocurrencies and online gaming to government systems such as China’s Social Credit System and India’s Aadhaar.
It's sad to say, but the media of the "only Democracy in the Middle East" is fully mobilized. Except for #Haaretz, which operates outside the consensus, Israel's news sites and daily newspapers highlight #IDF heroism, while concealing the kidnapped and ignoring or downplaying the killing of thousands of Gazan children.
Israeli readers are getting a daily diet consisting of every food fight on #socialmedia between celebs pro-Israel or pro-Palestine, truly bizarre opinion columns written by an Israeli Palestinian, glorifying #Zionism and admiring Jews, or simplistic and obnoxious opinion pieces like "Gaza minus Israelis = Auschwitz".
From "The massacre brought Jews back to the beginnings of Zionism", penned by Mahmud Abu Raj'ab:
"[...] And before they [the Jews] forget the spirit inspired them when they established the state [of Israel], and before they reach the stage where "blindness blinds their eyes", someone comes who wakes them up from their deep slumber and brings them back to the ground of reality. So do not be frightened or dismayed."
(last expression taken from Joshua, 10:25)
The text on Ynet (which never publishes anything in Arabic) is available in both Hebrew and Arabic, "بعد المذبحة: عودة الى البدايات دولة اليهود لا تزال في صعود."
University teachers suspended, employees sacked: in #israelPalestine, the authorities punish the slightest expression of support for Palestine on social media. In the course of a week, at least 170 people have been arrested for their online activities. https://www.972mag.com/israel-gaza-war-political-persecution/
Investigation by The Insider on Russia's enhanced filtering capacity - protocol-based blocking - and how it evaded sanctions to procure the equipment this requires.
Ach Mist, das war's dann wohl mit meinen Statistiken zu #Mastodon als Trafficquelle für @heiseonline:
Hab gerade bemerkt, dass die schönen neuen Vorschaukarten den URL-Parameter abschneiden, über den wir überhaupt erfahren, dass Besuche von hier kommen. Je mehr Instanzen diese neue Vorschau nun anzeigen, desto mehr Einstiege werden darüber kommen und für uns nicht mehr erkennbar.
Weiß nicht, ob wir das überhaupt beheben können/wollen.
Interesting new paper from Philipp Dietrich on the development of Russia's VK social media platform into a 'super app' to increase state surveillance and the dissemination of propaganda.
I had the pleasure of learning about this research when visiting DGAP earlier this year, glad to now see it published.
🔭🧬🔬 Arranca la segunda jornada del #CGutenberg23 con la mesa "Ponga usted a un comunicador o una comunicadora en su organización" con🗣️Angela Monasor, Rubén Permuy, Núria Saladié y moderada por Concepción Sanz.😉
Freedom House has kicked off promotion for the launch of the 2023 #FreedomOnTheNet ranking on 4 Oct.
As a primer, have a look at our recent article with @tanyalokot on how competing rankings have shaped global understandings of what internet freedom is (and isn't)
We adopt a relational approach to explain how & why such a complex landscape of internet freedom rankings has emerged and identify how the ranking organisations’ varying approaches to capturing internet freedom have played a role in defining and legitimating it as a global issue.
Here is an interesting piece about some possible impacts that AI might have on online communities.
Shown here is one that I feel has been a problem for many years:
"... everything new posted online is created by a machine or by someone looking to turn a profit."
Although I do occasionally find other voices online, big social media has been very effective in silencing too many of them. Their algorithms-tuned-for-profit and use of dark patterns has made it increasingly difficult to hear the helpful voices over the ugliness and nonsense.
And we've allowed them to improperly use Section 230 as a shield to protect them from responsibility for the harms they have knowingly created.
There is no reason why in this day and age that municipal, state, provincial, and federal #government cannot stand up their own #fediverse instances that they control to provide their citizens relevant information. Whether that be #mastodon, #lemmy, #kbin, #peertube, #pixelfeed, or #whatever. Why should we have to rely on #meta (#facebook and #instagram) or #x (#twitter) #databrokers for publicly funded and public relevant information and communication.
As an avid reader I find research suggesting over 50% of 8-18yr olds do not 'enjoy reading' in their spare time particularly depressing!
Part of this is a Q. of them having a quiet space to read, but in part must also be related to #socialmedia sucking up their time & also (possibly) to the way that reading is framed as instrumental (not enjoyable) for #education?
As someone who has benefitted immeasurably from #reading, I so hope this can be reversed
I recently tried to join Mastodon, and like Twitter before it, I don’t understand the premise. You follow individuals instead of topics, and if you try to follow hashtags they change on a whim all the time so you’re unlikely to get relevant posts....
Here's how the rebranding from Twitter to X has affected Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon:
In the first week (July 23-August 5) of the rebrand, Threads downloads dropped 70%, leaving the app ranked 16th Overall. But Bluesky and Mastodon saw downloads increase by 180% and 15%, respectively — an indication that those fleeing the new X largely turned to Bluesky instead.
However, in the weeks that followed (August 8-20), Threads saw an uptick in downloads with growth up by roughly 50% while also moving up one spot to 12th Overall in the category rankings. By this time, Threads had also rolled out a number of new features, including a chronological feed. Bluesky and Mastodon, on the other hand, saw downloads decline after the rebranding of X subdued, with installs dropping 25% and 40%, respectively.
The “X-odus,” in other words, has not settled on a new platform.
In other words, the rebrand to X has been everyone else's gains.
What's more notable to me, though, is that Threads, Bluesky, and Mastodon are either federated or are intending federation in the near future.
On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be much of a migration to emerging centralized social media platforms. Nobody's talking about Hive, Tribel, or Post -- all Twitter alternatives that gained notice in November 2022.
The future of social media seems to be decentralization.
@atomicpoet
Raw numbers of app downloads are going to fluctuate for a while, while we test the waters, sample the systems. Hell, I'm here, on Counter.Social, Bluesky, not quite out of Xitter...
But what many in the 🐦 migration want to know is, "where are the journalists and scientists going? That's where we'll go" is what I hear.
The adtech-based corporatization of the Web has empowered an emotionally unintelligent, racist, sexist, ageist (etc.) and hypercapitalist tech industry that is fueling a global mental health crisis while profiting off disinformation and destabilizing democracies.
“The psychology of Silicon Valley. Ethical threats and emotional unintelligence in the tech industry.” Cook 2020. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27364-4
I don't understand the whole Twitter/Mastodon social media format
I recently tried to join Mastodon, and like Twitter before it, I don’t understand the premise. You follow individuals instead of topics, and if you try to follow hashtags they change on a whim all the time so you’re unlikely to get relevant posts....