The False Promise of Digital Public Squares Was Always a Scam

https://www.joanwestenberg.com/the-false-promise-of-digital-public-squares-was-always-a-scam/

by cratermoon • 1 year ago

16 11 1 year ago

joanwestenberg.com

spadufed• 1 year ago

I'm pretty bullish on fediverse-like concepts in the long term even if US social becomes a dystopian hellscape.

UncleEntity• 1 year ago

Hmm... goes looking into why Socrates was executed... corrupting the youth and impiety?!?!?

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" -- not Socrates

mediumsmart• 1 year ago

You can only have the digital version with real people logged in, living in the area and running the Square.

TZubiri3• 1 year ago

Interesting that there is no equivalent of a public square in the digital space. Wikipedia maybe, but it feels more like a library with steep rules rather than a plaza.

Maybe email, it's not easy to connect with people. But it's not easy to strike up random conversation in a plaza either. Email + html web, which is privates making data public, but close enough

aredox• 1 year ago

The reason that twitter became "the place where a nobody could talk to an expert" (at the time it wasn't the place to mob experts) was the utter design failure of email against spam. Nowadays people don't publish their email address publicly and spam filters are likely to silently delete the message you sent.

(Twitter is a failure too, now)

TZubiri3• 1 year ago

The moment it was purchased by an individual, it became a symbol of those who believe single individuals (with money) should hold that kind of power.

I'm seeing a lot of email surviving right now. Especially plain text emails. Refuses to die, one of the most neutral protocols after IP and DNS

feraloink2• 1 year ago

Wikipedia is definitely not a public square. It is an encyclopedia. What you said, about it being

like a library with steep rules

is entirely correct. That doesn't make it bad, not at all! You're right: There are very few equivalents of a public square, digitally. I consider HN to be one, even more so than email. Email chains get awkward with multiple people, and email addresses are (of necessity, due to spam, like others already said) non-public.

TZubiri3• 1 year ago

Agree that it is not a square, but I meant more in the sense that it is public. It has GPL, Creative Commons, 501 c 3.

The thing with social media of that type is that it is often filled with foss devs who are a very narrow point demographics.

The chans and reddit have some public properties. I hear the bluesky and mastodon things (the latter especially) have very public infrastructures, not sure about the people, it feels like it will be left leaning democrats on the first hand and FOSS devs on the latter.

fxtentacle• 1 year ago

The problem is information asymmetry. If I get scammed or treated badly in person in a real public space, I can immediately punch the perpetrator. In a digital public square, I will most likely not even know who "attacked" me. That's how email and Twitter became unusable: anonymous spam

filoleg• 1 year ago

If I get scammed or treated badly in person in a real public space, I can immediately punch the perpetrator

No, you cannot. Especially not if the person treating you badly in a public space is either twice your size or has a group of people with them.

Unless we are going to dive into the concealed carry fantasies (which don’t even apply to most countries in the first place), imo that whole line of reasoning about physical vs digital public spaces is a dead-end.

feraloink2• 1 year ago

I thought this was a bit much (although I agree with her overall message):

The social media billionaires want us to believe their putrid platforms are the “new town squares.” That their half-baked social videos and for-you feeds have replaced the agora... Instead of humans talking and interacting with each other in the open air, we’re corralled like cattle by engagement metrics...

Someone has to pay for IRL town squares: Pay for security to keep the square safe at night, encourage entertainers on the periphery, arrange for someone to clean up litter every day, etc. Digital public spaces are a distant second to those in real life. Paying to use the digital ones with our personal data and original "content" isn't as good a deal as it seemed initially...

The False Promise of Digital Public Squares Was Always a Scam

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