Negotiating a New Distributed Digital Social Contract
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Sun, 11/20/2022 - 18:55
I just boosted a post on Mastodon by @jon@social.lot23.com describing his experiences as a former designer for Twitter. The discussion about algorithms and reverse chronological posts is fascinating and is worthy of much discussion. There has also been a recent discussion about moderation and the experiences of @parkermolloy@masto.ai. These are the discussions to be had around negotiating a new distributed digital social contract.
One thing that particularly jumped out as me from Jon's thread was, "The data told us we were making a better product." I wondered, what data and how do we define 'better'? I'm guessing better is being measured in terms of number of tweetviews or number of interactions, or something like that. This probably makes sense if the focus is monetizing the platform.
But, what if we went for other metrics? More accurate reporting? Improved mental health? A stronger, more stable democracy? What do you think makes for a better microblogging platform?
