[LINK] Social media (hijacked from: Re: Comments on WhatsApp?)

[Karl Auer]

On Tue, 2023-03-14 at 12:06 +1100, David wrote:
> I'm not suggesting social media doesn't have its' place but on
> balance it may now be causing more harm than good, especially where
> children & adolescents are concerned.  Methinks regulation of some
> sort is required.

It depends. Where the medium exists to farm the participants, then I'd
say it's definitely harmful. That includes LinkedIn, Facebook, TikTok,
Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter... Actually just about all of them with
the possible exception of Discord, though there were worrying changes
to their privacy policy recently.

So far I've found Mastodon to be an oasis. Not without its moments, but
the moments are not confected or amplified by the platform itself (not
that there is *a* platform, being as how it's a federated system). As a
result they tend to die down very quickly. Offensive people tend to get
very short shrift and end up chatting with themselves in a space where
nobody else can hear them.

I find I can lob in, be entertained, interact with some people maybe,
read something interesting and then (and this is important) lob OUT
again.

Regards, K.

-- 
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Karl Auer (kauer at biplane.com.au)
http://www.biplane.com.au/kauer