Notices by New_ Public (wearenew_public@mastodon.social), page 2

RESEARCH: On decentralized social networks like Mastodon, community moderators can choose to defederate — disconnect from another group to protect themselves from harassers and undesirable content.

The effects of defederation include reduced activity on blocked servers, but not necessarily less toxic content.

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.02109

New_ Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi talked to @CNET about how people are connecting online in many different small groups, but those groups need support, resources, and tools.

https://www.cnet.com/news/social-media/how-were-bringing-back-the-social-part-of-social-media/

New in @CNET from Katelyn Chedraoui: people are fleeing the “mindless scroll spiral” of the big social platforms for smaller groups in places like Nextdoor, Reddit, and even Letterboxd.

According to New_ Public Co-Director @deeptidoshi : “We need to complement that with a movement to ensure that these small spaces are actually healthy.”

https://www.cnet.com/news/social-media/how-were-bringing-back-the-social-part-of-social-media/

Watch New_ Public Co-Director @elipariser’s presentation on Public Spaces Incubator and a conversation with leaders from public media broadcasters at @republica this week

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSVVVS64VBE

We know it takes empathy, civic responsibility, care, and a sense of justice to become an effective leader of an online space in your local community. We also know it can be a challenging and emotionally taxing (unpaid) job.

In our Neighborhood Steward Fellowship program, you will work together with other passionate community stewards to find peer support and new ideas.

Applications due Monday:

https://newpublic.org/fellowship

We’re New_ Public, a nonprofit R&D lab reimagining social media. We’re part of a collaboration called Public Spaces Incubator.

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For the last year, we’ve been working with @radiocanada (Canada), RTBF (Belgium), SRG SSR (Switzerland), @ZDF (Germany) and now we can share some of what we’ve been up to!

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https://bit.ly/4bdnQ3W

So, in response, Public Spaces Incubator brings together four national public broadcasters in an unprecedented, groundbreaking collaboration across language, culture, and region.

We've now developed 100 prototypes and sought feedback from more than 200 stakeholders across North America and Europe.

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But online, true dialogue seems like it has never been more difficult.

Unstructured comment sections are difficult to moderate, and most of the dominant social media platforms are toxic, chaotic, or politics-averse.

Many have fled for smaller, safer spaces like private forums or group chats.

Around the world, public media organizations play a vital role in facilitating public conversations.

They act as hosts, moderators, and platforms for communities to connect and engage with each other, especially on tough subjects where people disagree.

Here’s one concept:

Comments Slider allows people to submit a response (with or without a written comment) along a spectrum.

The slider itself encourages users to see and share more nuanced opinions beyond the typical binary and to find common ground with others across differing opinions.

https://youtu.be/8MAtEumu0sg

We are aiming to build new, powerful ways to support audiences in talking to each other, build long-lasting relationships, and elevate new voices.

Now we have serious work to do in developing these prototypes into useful design features for media organizations’ websites, apps, and other digital platforms.

Would you go see The Social Network 2?

Almost 15 years after the release of the movie The Social Network, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is reportedly working on a sequel that grapples with tensions between Facebook’s growth and its integrity.

“Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible.”

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/aaron-sorkin-social-network-2-sequel-january-6-facebook-1235983390/

What would actually happen with a TikTok ban?

New users will be unable to download the app, and current users will lose access to any updates. While some could find workarounds — including offline app installations or VPNs — for most Americans, the app will eventually become inoperable.

“For the majority of people, it will be lots of trouble”

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/congress-potential-tiktok-ban-how-would-it-work/story?id=109490158

We tend to discuss Big Tech's control of the internet with cold terms like "monopoly" and "antitrust."

But this wonderful piece in Noema talks about "rewilding" the internet.

https://www.noemamag.com/we-need-to-rewild-the-internet/

Ezra Klein makes a thoughtful point about social media in the midst of his goodbye to Gmail and all that it represents:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/07/opinion/gmail-email-digital-shame.html

Why is the default for digital communities a system where community members have no power, representation, or agency?

This “implicit feudalism” isn’t great for moderators either — they’re just vassals of the platform CEOs.

Read an excerpt of media theorist @ntnsndr's new book, Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life.

https://newpublic.substack.com/p/the-internet-was-supposed-to-be-democratic

Researchers are beginning to capture data that seems to show Meta's pivot away from political and news content.

This shift on Facebook, between spring and winter 2023, is wild:

https://psychoftech.substack.com/p/social-media-that-is-bad-for-the-world

New issue of the HTML review!

Deeply fun, surprising, experimental pieces built to be experienced in a browser

https://thehtml.review/03/

Is the internet really more toxic now than it used to be?

Seriously considering that premise via a new study:

"While the platforms and how we use them have evolved, human behaviors in these spaces have remained surprisingly stable."

https://linksiwouldgchatyou.substack.com/p/actually-the-internets-always-been

Arena, the link sharing and bookmarking site, has a new digital publication extending the talks of Naive Yearly, a conference on the quiet, odd, and poetic web.

https://www.are.na/editorial/introducing-a-new-publication-from-naive-yearly-and-are-na