Humanist social networking

Mon, 19 Aug 2019 19:56:00 +0000

Despite their name and ostensible purpose, social networks aren’t very human. To companies, engineers, and advertisers, the emphasis has been on network, not social. We flatten users into profiles and communities into graphs. While it’s certainly convenient for databases, it’s an utter failure at capturing the nuances of social interaction—when you force people to interact in inhuman ways, you can’t be surprised if you get inhuman behavior.

How do we fix it? I’ll tell you up front that I don’t have answers. It’s looking pretty grim out there. From here in 2019, it looks like may not get to keep both global social networks and a functioning society.

Social Media on gtank writes here

Humanist social networking