Victor Pickard

One small silver lining to the Twitter debacle is that it's forcing people to think about the political economy of platforms. Calls for structural alternatives based on cooperative governance and public ownership are increasingly common.

Hopefully Twitter's collapse will lead to a more expansive conversation about the relationships between capitalist imperatives and the communication/information needs of democratic societies. Are they compatible? What are the alternatives?

Nov 18, 2022 at 3:16pmWeb
Show threadErrol SalamonNov 18, 2022
@victorpickard I was also thinking along these lines, along with forcing people to think more about the labor that goes to into the organization of platforms and the workers who make our platforms function.
Show threadVictor PickardNov 18, 2022
@errolsalamon Yes! All key structural relationships that are typically overlooked -- until moments of crisis!
Show threadDr. Yotam OphirNov 18, 2022
@victorpickard Absolutely. and an opportunity to remember there's not much SOCIAL about social media. Not as long as it is based in capitalistic incentives. It's not a public sphere or a town square. It's a space for billionaires to collect our data and sell it to advertisers. If we do manage to build a community out of it, it's more of a side-effect than the goal
Show threadDirk-Jan SwagermanNov 19, 2022
@victorpickard authentic human connection on federated self hosted platforms?
Show threadtoxtethogradyDec 22, 2022
@victorpickard It has also had the desirable effect of knocking Elon Musk off his high perch, and he has no one to blame but himself. Below is a representation of what Elon Musk's shareholdings have done just today...
Show threadJohn DoeDec 23, 2022
@victorpickard I know I've lamented the bird site being run by a IRL Bond Villain and pinned for it to be nationalized and run by the CPB or similar public ownership scheme...OTOH, not necessarily great for it to be under US control only...should be more a United Nations purview...where no one country dominates...I don't know what that looks like but nationalization alone, even at its most benign (like PBS) has drawbacks.
Show threadLynn KellerDec 23, 2022
@victorpickard what are your thoughts about larger instances being bought by investors? Was this anticipated as a nxt step of #opensource? I suppose it runs parallel with an individual starting a sm biz then being bought out .
Show threadCraig DanzDec 23, 2022
@victorpickard I’d like to see more introspection about the “attention” model for most platforms - greater prominence for that which is timely and provocative and incentives to drive users to stay on longer and longer. Reddit is the only model I know that challenges that that I know of.