Current Events > What do you think the future of big social media sites looks like?

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-splintering-new-less-toxic-era-meta-bluesky-twitter-2023-10

Whatever you think of social media's future, it's increasingly clear that the big-platform party is over. But instead of spelling the death of social media, it may be the beginning of a better era. Welcome to the Great Social Media Splintering.

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Mike McCue, Flipboard's CEO, believes that the next big, social platform must bring together the benefits of both worlds, he said: "the quality and trust in small, transparent communities with the ability for those quality conversations to reach millions." But instead of one platform that manages to appease everyone, the future of social media is looking more like a network of platforms that offer people a customized experience. The ideal system would not only allow you to migrate to new social apps without losing your network or profile but also link them together so that you could post on one and a friend could comment on it from another.

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This kind of open, decentralized system would help break down big platforms' walled gardens, whose one-size-fits-all approach has had vastly detrimental effects. Instead of living in Facebook city under Facebook's laws, the decentralized approach offers everyone more control over the social-media experience and allows people to pick the communities and feeds they're most interested and comfortable in.

TBH I haven't used Facebook/Instagram for years, and haven't even touched Twitter/TikTok. The big issue I see with them isn't the size of the community you interact with, but how and what the algorithm pushes content in front of you. A few professional artist friends of mine mentioned to me recently that their posts on Twitter have zero reach now, like they're shadow banned, and apparently that's the norm now for everyone who isn't paying for the blue checkmark; what point is there to even using Twitter anymore if your voice doesn't have a chance to be heard unless you pay a monthly sub?

Would a networked confederation of social media sites fix this anti-democratic trend or only make it worse?

Everyone gets a billboard on their abode

I agree that "splintering" is probably the future but that's probably not a good thing. Social skills are bad enough as it is.