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   Ben Werdmuller (ben@werd.social)'s status on Sunday, 11-Feb-2024 11:11:03 JST Ben Werdmuller

   The clampdown on “political” content over on Meta’s platforms could impact public sentiment over ongoing human rights abuses around the world. Whether intentional or not, the effect is that the status quo position is always the one that gets amplified. There can be no social change or calls for equality on that kind of social media - except in partnership with the already-powerful with huge follower lists.

   • Embed this notice
     J. Nathan Matias 🦣 (natematias@social.coop)'s status on Sunday, 11-Feb-2024 11:11:00 JST J. Nathan Matias 🦣

     in reply to

     @ben right now, with meta and other firms restricting transparency, it’s hard to know what the effects have been. From news publishers, it’s clear that the reductions in news promotion have hurt public knowledge and journalism for years.

     I am hoping that the DSA and related laws will create the conditions for more fine grained independent evaluation of platform policies, which is why I am working on that issue now. It really sucks not to be able to answer the most basic questions.

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     Ben Werdmuller (ben@werd.social)'s status on Sunday, 11-Feb-2024 11:11:01 JST Ben Werdmuller

     in reply to

     • J. Nathan Matias 🦣

     But truly, I don’t know. I’m not an expert here. I’d love to learn from people like @natematias who study these community dynamics more directly.

     Tim Chambers repeated this.
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     Ben Werdmuller (ben@werd.social)'s status on Sunday, 11-Feb-2024 11:11:02 JST Ben Werdmuller

     in reply to

     The dampening is on discovering content from people you don’t follow - people like many of us who already engage politically won’t notice a difference. But other folks won’t get to learn about some stuff they should know about.

     My suspicion is that MAGA content will ramp up on benign-looking Facebook groups, but more progressive causes won’t do that because, well, it’s a shitty thing to do.