The thesis of this article was pretty interesting: the public majority of social media isn’t toxic. It pushes for a “Community Check” which is a polling system that helps people see what the majority of people think on any given topic.
The problem is that social media is still social media. I kicked all of my social media accounts to the curb last year, but stayed on Bluesky to remained plugged into atproto development. After a few months of only using the following feed, I felt the same way I did on X. There is just something about a feed with likes, replies, and reposts that brings the worst out of all of us. It forces people to take complex issues and reduce them to 320 characters or make a horrible string of posts. Controversy is king. Users aren’t perceived as real people. The format itself is hostile to honest and productive discussion.
At least in my experience, the answer lies with older technology: blogs and RSS feeds.
- Write however much you want, to a point where it makes you think through your arguments and question yourself
- Follow only the people you’re interested in
- If you want to reply to someone, open up your email and think long and hard if it’s worth sending
This slowing down helps us pause, reflect, and act in a way that is far more helpful than any kind of social media. While I appreciate the ambition and motive behind community checks, social media is still social media.