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   Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:11:53 JST Evan Prodromou

   I'm a qualified no. I think both on the Fediverse and on siloed social networks, there are a lot of news accounts. The realtime updates are a great way to find out that something is happening right now.

   • Tim Chambers repeated this.
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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:17:00 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     But there are a lot of problems with news on social networks. First is conflating news organizations with our social contacts.

     The New York Times is not my aunt; I do not care about it and want to encourage or engage with it in the same way I do with people I care about.

     And my aunt is not the New York Times; she has not been fact checked nor has she verified two independent sources for her posts.

     Mixing personal contacts with news sources in the same stream is a problem for both.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:22:32 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     There are also real affordance problems with getting news over stream-based social networks.

     The in-stream experience is usually only a headline plus a link, and maybe a thumbnail image and a lede sentence or two. Not a lot of nuance or context.

     But clicking the link is costly in terms of attention. It usually takes me out to a browser, maybe running into a paywall, and definitely requiring a lot more focus than anything else in my stream.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:23:18 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     So people don't click; they comment on the headline (notoriously the least accurate part of the article) and thumbnail image (which might not even be related to the content).

     The conversation that comes out is not great.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:23:59 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     • lakelady

     @lakelady yes, but it takes cognitive effort. And not everyone is willing to invest that.

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     lakelady (lakelady@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:24:00 JST lakelady

     in reply to

     @evan I don't understand why you think having both in one's stream is a problem. Don't you think people can be aware of the source of information and act accordingly?

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:26:39 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Another issue is algorithms. On algorithm-free streams like Mastodon, you just see the news that is happening now, or reported now.

     On algorithm-driven feeds optimized for engagement, the news items you see are primarily ones that will get you to react in some way.

     Only a few specialized services show you news items that actually matter to you because of your location and interests and capacity to act.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:29:01 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     I think on the Fediverse it's possible for us to design and test social interfaces that give us healthy, comfortable, entertaining and effective experiences with the news. So, I'm only a qualified no. We could get there.

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     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Thursday, 21-Nov-2024 03:29:53 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     Thanks to everyone who responded and voted. 🙏🏼