Category: Social media

Your trial period has ended…

Jan 7, 2024

in Note, Social media

The underlying promise of web 2.0 was mass participation. Users were sold the idea that everyone could be seen and heard. After years of stealthily pushing down the possibility of organic vs paid reach, platforms are now being openly transactional: pay them a subscription to have a chance of being heard, otherwise languish in obscurity.…
We don’t need global-level conversation platforms

Aug 29, 2023

in Conference, Social media

AMEE, AMEE23, learning community, mastodon, Meta, social media, social network, Threads, twitter

Instead of more sessions on how to use Twitter to build community (a conversation that’s been going since Twitter launched), I would have liked to see more thoughtful and critical discussion around the use of social media for HPE at the AMEE conference. For example, this piece by Cal Newport, where he questions the idea…
Using social media to build learning communities

Aug 28, 2023

in Conference, Social media

AMEE, AMEE23, community of practice, cop, learning community, social graph, social media, social network

I was in a session earlier where one participant asked about the inevitable disintegration of social media platforms, and how the #AcademicTwitter / #MedEd social media communities might respond. I thought it was a good question, although I was skeptical about much of the conversation that followed. The consensus seemed to be that social media…
A thought on Meta’s Threads

Jul 12, 2023

in Social media

career capital, Meta, social media, Threads, value

https://startupy.substack.com/p/things-im-thinking-about-67f I think Zuckerberg will be able to build another money making machine with Threads. But alas, this is not the feel good internet I was looking for. More endless scrolling, chipping away at my capacity for concentration. More people incentivized to churn out loads of content to please an algorithm. More user-friendly sameness. More…
Where does value accrue?

Jul 11, 2023

in Social media

distraction, enshittification, mastodon, social media, Threads, twitter, value

I went down a bit of a rabbit hole this morning, following a few links that started with a post from Inger Mewburn that caught my attention: The enshittification of academic social media. Telling academics they can achieve career success by using today’s algorithmic-driven platforms is like telling Millennials they could afford to buy a…
I can’t access tweets or Twitter accounts

Jul 1, 2023

in Note, Social media

access, login, signup, social media, twitter

Update: I just saw this TechCrunch article with the headline: “Twitter now requires an account to view tweets”. However, there’s been no official announcement from Twitter, so maybe it’s a technical error. Over the past couple of days, I’ve noticed that every time I’ve tried to access a tweet or Twitter account, I get redirected…
Streams as organising principle…

May 9, 2023

in Note, Social media
Your Twitter connection will cease to work…

Apr 30, 2023

in Note, Social media

twitter

I’m not upset by this decision; Twitter is a private company that’s beholden to stakeholders, and it needs to become profitable. This idea that it’s a public good is confusing to me. But, as it moves in that direction, it keeps making choices that further reduce its utility for me.
A glorified vector of capital accumulation…

Apr 25, 2023

in Note, Social media

capital, economics, social media, twitter

Great quote that reflects how I’ve felt about social media for a long time. Granted, I got a lot of value in the early days of Twitter and other platforms. But, as that value decreased, I found myself resenting the time I felt I had to spend there.
Collective action problems…

Apr 23, 2023

in Note, Social media

collective action, social media, twitter

Doctorow, C. (2022). How to leave dying social media platforms. Medium. They had a collective action problem. Each of them could figure out what worked best for them, but getting together to decide what was best for all of them was literally impossible… . Online, a lot of us have been unhappy with our social…
Weekly digest (17-23 Apr 2023)

Apr 23, 2023

in AI, Digest, Social media

academic Twitter, BioGPT, ChatGPT, clinical decision making, decision-making, deepmind, feedback, Google, GPT, HealthGPT, higher education, language model, mastodon, Med-PaLM, Open Assistant, open source, openai, professional education, social media, TeachGPT, twitter

Social mediaI had thought that deleting my Twitter account (and also my two Mastodon accounts) would be harder than it ended up being. Even though it’s something I’ve been considering for a long time, I’ve struggled with the idea of deleting more than 10 000 posts that I’ve created over more than a decade. But…
Twitter is a lost cause for academics…

Apr 22, 2023

in Note, Social media

academic writing, blogging, social media, twitter

This platform is a lost cause for academics. Social platforms have become integral to the research infrastructure in a way analogous to conferences, workshops and seminars. Universities and funders need to take responsibility for the upcoming transition rather than outsourcing it to private firms. If you’re committed to using Twitter for external engagement then only…
I deleted my Twitter account

Apr 21, 2023

in Social media

blogging, mastodon, social media, social network, twitter

I deleted my Twitter account about a week ago, but I’ve waited a bit to see if I regretted the decision. There’s a 30-day cooling off period and I didn’t want to write this post, then realise that I’d made a mistake, and recover the account. But the fact is, I don’t miss it at…
Playing around with Mastodon

Nov 5, 2022

in Social media

algorithm, mastodon, microblogging, open source, social media, twitter

I created a profile on Mastodon in 2019, but haven’t done anything with it. I’d check in every now and again to see how the platform was developing and, while I was always intrigued with the notion of an open source microblogging ecosystem, it never really captured my attention. So for a while now, it’s…
On changing my opinions

Mar 4, 2022

in Learning, Reading, Social media

censorship, facebook, information, Lex Fridman, Mark Zuckerberg, news, opinion, podcast, social media

I wouldn’t usually listen to an interview with Mark Zuckerberg but three things changed my mind: This particular interview was recommended by someone who’s opinion I value. Lex Fridman is an excellent interviewer and I generally enjoy the conversations he has with guests. I’ve recently come to question the narratives presented by mainstream media. The…
Social media and performance art

Jan 13, 2022

in Social media

online performance, performance artist, post-social, social media

When we go online, we are programmed to react to engagement triggers — likes, shares, retweets, hearts, and thumb-ups. Social and this addiction of audience have made us addicted to something even harder to give up once tasted: a constant feeling of self-importance.
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier – review

Sep 13, 2018

in Social media

social media

His most dispiriting observations are those about what social media does to politics – biased, “not towards the left or right, but downwards”. If triggering emotions is the highest prize, and negative emotions are easier to trigger, how could social media not make you sad? If your consumption of content is tailored by near limitless…
AI Can Now Identify Racist Code Words on Social Media

Sep 7, 2018

in AI, Social media

algorithm, natural language processing, nlp, racism, social media

“We essentially gathered hateful tweets and used language processing to find the other terms that were associated with such messages… We learned these terms and used them as the bridge to new terms—as long as we have those words, we have a link to anything they can come up with.” This defeats attempts to conceal…
Without anyones permission: The open web and online learning

Jun 4, 2015

in Education, Learning, Open access, Social media, Technology

anil dash, autonomy, cmooc, connectedness, connectivism, David Weinberger, diversity, Doc Searles, mass media, massive open online course, mooc, online and blended learning spaces, openness, stephen downes, technology, The Cluetrain Manifesto, xmooc

As teaching and learning activities move into online and blended learning environments we need to think carefully about how we use those spaces, which is often determined by the features of the platforms and services we choose. One topic in the field on online learning that’s been getting a lot of attention, is the MOOC (the New York…
Using open source software in higher education

Sep 5, 2014

in Education, Social media, Technology

educational software, free and open source software, free software, open source, open source software, Proprietary software, Software licenses, Technology/Internet, Wiki software

Universities and other higher education institutions are increasingly moving towards what many are calling the “connected campus“. While this move brings with it many benefits for students, it can also be expensive to implement. In 2008 I wrote a short post entitled “Open source alternatives to proprietary applications“. This was before the launch of the…