AnilI am trying to talk less about social media drama on here, but I will say it is sort of my personal hell to have spent roughly two decades thinking deeply about decentralized social media, content moderation policy, managing bad-faith actors, systematic online abuse, and the role of journalists in the architecture of generative online platforms, and see a broad public discussion going on where the loudest voices are all approaching this with “I don’t know much, but here’s my first thought!”
Like, I’m far from the only one, but credentials at a minimum? Has run a platform with millions of users that has no fascist presence, has been doxxed/stalked by the currently-active bad actors in the mainstream ecosystem, understands the role of policy (including global policy) in impacting network design, knows both non-profit and VC-backed economics, has been a working writer at a mainstream media outlet, has deep visibility into current coding practice & culture. And… didn’t go to Stanford?
Anyway, here’s a subset of my writing about Twitter in just the last 10 years; I’ll have another couple tens of thousands of words from the archives online shortly. https://anildash.com/tags/twitter
Kim Scheinberg@anildash
I really envy you having all your contemporaneous thinking around this as it happened. It must be a unique pleasure to be able to go back and see how your thoughts evolved over time.
I really envy you having all your contemporaneous thinking around this as it happened. It must be a unique pleasure to be able to go back and see how your thoughts evolved over time.
@kims well, the consensus seems to be that it doesn’t matter, so maybe it feels worse? I dunno.
debs
sayrer@anildash Well, you didn't really work on it. The hard part about Twitter is the expectation of immediate updates, far faster than email or RSS.
Having worked in both non-profit and VC platforms, I would say you know more than most, but less than me, and I know people that know a lot more than I do.
@anildash The platform has minimal text with which to detect abusive content, and the users expect it to be instant. It is faster than television, let alone something like Movable Type. Signed, bored engineer that knew about the World Cup goals before the TV showed them...
@sayrer indeed! I’m not saying “I’m the best at this”, I’m saying “I’m minimally credible in this area and yet still head and shoulders more fluent than those being cited”. And to be clear — this isn’t just a technical problem. I do have more social/cultural experience than a lot of folks with deeper tech chops, including what’s involved in being targeted for coordinated harassment campaigns.
@anildash yes, most of it is really dumb.
I do know the reason Twitter is faster than TV, though. It's because TV is delayed ~10 seconds at the source, so they don't inadvertently air snuff films (Messi's knee bending forward, toddler killed in car chase, etc).
I think Musk actually focused on a lot of the right issues, just did it very wrong. I'd be in favor of $1/yr for Twitter, like WhatsApp used to do.
a pile of moss@anildash lol sick stanford burn. (But seriously)
@anildash
"And… didn’t go to Stanford?"
People used to joke about the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field but every year I'm more and more convinced that there's something in the water in Palo Alto...
Bob Davidson@anildash
"didn't go to Sanford" is the key! 😂
"didn't go to Sanford" is the key! 😂
חנן כהן • Hanan CohenI know you from back then and I am on Mastodon from April 2017 and feel that your ideas are alive here.
Sara@anildash the Stanford piece is HUGE🤣
John Spounias 
@anildash we all walk our own path, and some gurus pave the way for some.
johngineer
Kim Crayton ~ Her/She@anildash well of course...otherwise it wouldn't be a day ending in "y" 🤣
Siona@anildash Yet another argument in favor of paying attention to and listening for the quieter among us.
Peter Bronez@anildash where have you consolidated and summarize your work? I would love to review it.
RenéePresenting: The Consolidated Works of Anil Dash
https://anildash.com/posts/
I didn't even have to google it, I just made a wild guess... but that also exists.
@reneestephen yes, I did look at @anildash ‘s profile, see the link, and visit the site before posting.
That website does not provide any indication that anildash has thought deeply about the topics he mentioned. The first five posts are about:
1) cooking
2) 9/11
3) coffee
4) healthcare
5) puzzles
So I looked at the about page, which tells me that he’s “a tech entrepreneur and writer, and someone who's trying to make technology more responsible.” Ok?
@reneestephen now if I keep scrolling, the 9th post is on topic https://anildash.com/2022/04/a-web-renaissance/ it seems to have some interesting points, and I will read it.
But there is no overall thesis. No entry point. What does he believe? Why should I trust him? Why is he correct?
You have to balance doing good work and telling people about it. @anildash asserts his expertise and body of work is undervalued, but doesn’t state them very clearly.
@PeterBronez @reneestephen if you think that third post is about coffee, I can’t help you.
So I went and read the article. That’s a horrible experience and I’m sorry it happened it to you.
It seems your thesis is “Our institutions have no capability for responding to crisis with compassion.” That’s not stated until the end of the article.
@anildash @reneestephen Here’s what I see as a first time visitor to your site, trying to figure out what you’re about, and scrolling to that article:
Title: “I went to a coffee shop”
Above the fold: “[cw: violence] I just wanted to capture this story here once so I don't have to tell it to anyone again. Because, while I am okay now, it is unpleasant to keep having to repeat the story to new people over and over. The short version is, I was…”
@anildash @reneestephen if you’re frustrated that people aren’t engaging with your ideas, try to communicate them more concisely. Make them more accessible. Reduce the digging someone has to do to get the point.
If I were in your shoes, I would
(1) create an evergreen page on the website that summarizes the philosophy you feel is ignored unfairly
(2) Be more intentional about blog post titles, taking some lessons from news headlines
@anildash @reneestephen In the spirit of the original question, is there a particular blog post that you feel summarizes your philosophy?
Something that communicates the questions that you’ve thought deeply about and see other folks stumbling through for the first time?
(1) this is like if someone gave ChatGPT the prompt "mansplain."
(2) I'm going to be more intentional about using my block button in the future.
Robert@reneestephen @anildash love that the op refers to people screaming from the rooftops "I don't know much, but here's my first thought" and this guy decided the thread could use an example
@PeterBronez so 1. there's this cool swiping motion that is very helpful for doing what we call "scrolling down." In the command line you can pipe curl to more.
2. Search is also lets you find content by keyword, topic, date, or anything in between.
Coming onto someone's mentions demanding a spoon-fed TL;dr of several decades of work you just now want to pay attention to is never gonna end happily for you, nor increase your knowledge (which I gather you are trying to do. Right?)
Leigh Honeywell@anildash September, until the end of time 😵💫
Josh (he/his)
jay
C Sawula@anildash this is how I and all my historian friends felt every time something big happened ~2015 to now and it’s the worst. Expertise gets ignored in favor of whoever has the biggest megaphone
seldo@anildash This but online social network dynamics.
Gwen Snyder is uncivil@anildash and they're the loudest voices because privilege has given them a megaphone to shout over the most impacted and closest to the pain.
And then they're using that megaphone to make sure that everyone who looks like them can do the same thing.
Rage-inducing.
Glenn Fleishman@anildash A tonic for you might be a new podcast https://michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/i-have-a-new-podcast It’s refreshing to hear how bad ideas were introduced into the discourse through popular books that were bad to begin with.
Karla@anildash Anil. The struggle is real.
John Minnihan@anildash we cld solve so many of these issues with a thoughtfully considered + well-placed sandwich button
micah@anildash It must maddening. The frenzied ‘off the top of my head’ /free/ advice just drowns out guidance from the sober long-term experience / historical record.
Dan Lyke@anildash the public sphere has a long tradition of elevating ignorance and ignoring experience and expertise.
Just as the ability to make money with a craft is largely decoupled from the ability to do that craft (which is often just hired help), so is the ability to attract readers decoupled from the expertise that might inform the opinions expressed in that pursuit.
Devin Singer@anildash Amen, neighbor.
Amy Hoy@anildash the forever pain of being an expert, it’s like being a cassandra but the others are even less forgivable
Corey Cradle@anildash
If you wish to take the Iron Throne then you absolutely should.
But if you don't, it appears someone is going to because there is a vacuum.
acm@anildash How long before the restorative mangoes arrive?!?
@anildash this has been an ongoing issue.
jwz@anildash Sometimes I think that "I don’t know much, but here’s my first thought" is the fundamental organizing principle of the internet.
Michael 
Doremus Jeƒƒup (Jeff Uphoff)
eukara@jwz @anildash Sometimes I wonder if that's a fault of how we see different forms of communication. Why am I hesitant to press send on an E-Mail I've been starting at for 10 minutes, but am content with hitting 'Post' everywhere else after I typed up a bunch of nonsense most people don't even understand?
Hm… I’m skeptical@anildash I saw Dave Weiner go through this in the very early days of Mastodon. Anyway, I always hold out hope that any big wave of inexperienced people may still trigger a new idea that turns out to be transformative.
Mash@anildash Self proclaimed deep thinker, y'all.
Ethan Jacobs@anildash there’s something almost impossibly seductive about exploring problems using our gut intuitions instead of doing the hard work of learning.
@ethanjacobslaw yeah perhaps so
@anildash psychologists may have written about the phenomenon, but I have some intuitions that explain it and they’ll match up with your own intuitions.
Pontifex@anildash please keep jerking yourself off we all care so much about you
Allan Chow@anildash good things that start with "I don't know much..."
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ElZaDt2D4&feature=share
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=i_ElZaDt2D4&feature=share
@anildash another good thing that starts with "don't know much!"
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlLi5jX_C4&feature=share
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlLi5jX_C4&feature=share
Bryan Lawrence
Michael C. Bazarewsky@anildash I don't know much, but here's my first thought!
(sorry, I couldn't resist)