“So that we could simply leave their platforms rather than turning them into our default civic spaces. I thought if people recognized that these men really do mean to leave us all behind, we would stop supporting their efforts.”
Doug, we saw a poorly organized/poorly thought through attempt to boycott certain stores in protest in the past weeks. For many reasons I thought it was misguided.
One thing that was not mentioned in the boycott was to stay off social media and how feeding platforms like Instagram feeds their attention economy and give them data and ad revenue. It feels strange that so many rush to social media, the very place that took billions from 45 to help elect him, and seem to think that by posting and sharing will help their side win. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it feels like trying to stop the beast by feeding it.
If there was a serious, well organized, boycott of social media with local events in parks and neighborhoods around the country/world where we helped people learn alternatives to data collection tools, leave Gmail, switch to other search engines from Google, leave Amazon, disable smart tech in appliances/cars etc could this have a real impact?
After the election Meta platforms forced many people to follow JD Vance and Melania Trump. They also disabled political fact checking filters while leaving censorship filters in place. Roughly 2% of users left the platform in the first wave, and I still see people leaving. What’s interesting is that after the numbers dipped, they went back up.
I highly suspect Meta added bot accounts so they didn’t have to report user loss to their shareholders. This suggests to me social media, needs users addicted and is likely more susceptible to a nationwide “collective dopamine reset” aka a strike or boycott than we might think. I’m not talking a day or two though.
In your opinion what would happen if a substantial number of people left social media platforms for several months?
If this was able to deprive them of ad revenue, cut off some of the data to their AI, could it collapse their stocks or have any real impact?
::as many livelihoods are made from social spaces it would be nice to consider this from a harm reduction pov::
"US government is shifting toward fascism" So then where is the mass exodus out of the country? Americans seem to be staying put, watching, and arguing rather than running for the borders. How can this be?
Nope, no surprises. In fact the only surprise is that they have taken so long to come out of the misogynist closet (Trump tried in his first term, but didn't have quite enough backing.) Looks like he's got the 'numbers' this time round, and he's trying to break everything, asap.
Question: Are you still optimistic about this stuff? (Don't have to answer.) Just let me know if you see any 'silver linings' anytime soon. My only hope is that the dialectic of climate collapse might, one day, turn things around.
I am launching a collaborative, i.e. revenue sharing, platform in the next few weeks. On Shakespeare. It side-steps the educational establishment, and tries to go straight in for community, embedded learning, and mutual aid. Just saying. I see a few green shoots, and I am willing to 'leverage' (horrible term, but it's all I have) my fortunate position as a retired pensioner to see where that might lead. My real interest (apart from Shakespeare) is that I think some platforms are finally emerging which might (?) enable mutual 'value added' practices.
Like: McArthur awards in the US, and 'Mastery' awards in Japan, not to mention what's left over of 'ubuntu' practices in Southern Africa, and 'Braiding Sweetgrass' in the US of A.
“So that we could simply leave their platforms rather than turning them into our default civic spaces. I thought if people recognized that these men really do mean to leave us all behind, we would stop supporting their efforts.”
Doug, we saw a poorly organized/poorly thought through attempt to boycott certain stores in protest in the past weeks. For many reasons I thought it was misguided.
One thing that was not mentioned in the boycott was to stay off social media and how feeding platforms like Instagram feeds their attention economy and give them data and ad revenue. It feels strange that so many rush to social media, the very place that took billions from 45 to help elect him, and seem to think that by posting and sharing will help their side win. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but it feels like trying to stop the beast by feeding it.
If there was a serious, well organized, boycott of social media with local events in parks and neighborhoods around the country/world where we helped people learn alternatives to data collection tools, leave Gmail, switch to other search engines from Google, leave Amazon, disable smart tech in appliances/cars etc could this have a real impact?
After the election Meta platforms forced many people to follow JD Vance and Melania Trump. They also disabled political fact checking filters while leaving censorship filters in place. Roughly 2% of users left the platform in the first wave, and I still see people leaving. What’s interesting is that after the numbers dipped, they went back up.
I highly suspect Meta added bot accounts so they didn’t have to report user loss to their shareholders. This suggests to me social media, needs users addicted and is likely more susceptible to a nationwide “collective dopamine reset” aka a strike or boycott than we might think. I’m not talking a day or two though.
In your opinion what would happen if a substantial number of people left social media platforms for several months?
If this was able to deprive them of ad revenue, cut off some of the data to their AI, could it collapse their stocks or have any real impact?
::as many livelihoods are made from social spaces it would be nice to consider this from a harm reduction pov::
"US government is shifting toward fascism" So then where is the mass exodus out of the country? Americans seem to be staying put, watching, and arguing rather than running for the borders. How can this be?
Nope, no surprises. In fact the only surprise is that they have taken so long to come out of the misogynist closet (Trump tried in his first term, but didn't have quite enough backing.) Looks like he's got the 'numbers' this time round, and he's trying to break everything, asap.
Question: Are you still optimistic about this stuff? (Don't have to answer.) Just let me know if you see any 'silver linings' anytime soon. My only hope is that the dialectic of climate collapse might, one day, turn things around.
I am launching a collaborative, i.e. revenue sharing, platform in the next few weeks. On Shakespeare. It side-steps the educational establishment, and tries to go straight in for community, embedded learning, and mutual aid. Just saying. I see a few green shoots, and I am willing to 'leverage' (horrible term, but it's all I have) my fortunate position as a retired pensioner to see where that might lead. My real interest (apart from Shakespeare) is that I think some platforms are finally emerging which might (?) enable mutual 'value added' practices.
Like: McArthur awards in the US, and 'Mastery' awards in Japan, not to mention what's left over of 'ubuntu' practices in Southern Africa, and 'Braiding Sweetgrass' in the US of A.