ChristopherNov 6, 2022

Lotta talk about replacing Twitter.

The better dialogue is how to get people to re-evaluate how they engage with the internet.

Personally, I'm convinced of two things:

- You can't 1:1 replace Twitter unless it's a similar top-down walled garden.

- Most people probably shouldn't want a Twitter replacement, since Twitter is bad for us.

Instead of finding/molding/creating a replacement, we should encourage people (and ourselves!) to focus on what they like most about internet interaction.

Show threadThornbill9
@chrisabides Small communities absolutely have major advantages but this ignores two powerful use cases of twitter: a gathering place for mobilization of resistance to injustice (people who had no prior contacts) and being exposed to new perspectives and experts organically. For all the downsides of scale and troll farms, nothing can replicate that invaluable role
Nov 6, 2022 at 6:29pmWeb
Show threadChristopherNov 6, 2022

@thornbill9 I would argue that mobilization is likely easier on decentralized platforms, since they won't be subject to the monolith's whims, or the monolith's responses to govt pressure.

Regarding new perspectives; I agree. There's an inverse to that though; Twitter/FB have also been hotbeds of the spreading of extremist views that normally wouldn't have found purchase on smaller, better-moderated platforms.