At last – a social media conference for Wales 🥳🙄
I was intrigued and delighted to see that a company is holding a social media conference for Wales. I’m a big fan of skilling-up in Wales, and a big fan of digital media. So, naturally, I offered my services for extolling the benefits of open source social media.
I got a thumbs-up on my comment from one of the organisers; though I haven’t yet been approached for my pitch. That’s fine – it’s not my event. But, looking at the existing programme, I can’t help feel as though the organisers have a bit of a blind spot – philosophically – about the downside of traditional social media.
There’s plenty in there for people who think business as usual – surveillance capitalism etc – is the right path to be following. I mean….if your business model is based on propping up the tech giants, I can understand that.
But I see very little there to speak to people who might value a different approach. To take one example – the session on how to maximise the benefits of ‘paid social (advertising) – appears to take as read that it’s a good thing.
One might equally challenge why public bodies in Wales are spending our money to compete with other users in a web of algorithms set up by private sector companies based overseas and likely not paying much in the way of tax in the UK. Particularly when open-source, ethical, ‘hate-free’ alternatives already exist; I’m thinking mostly of Mastodon and Pixelfed but there’s a myriad of others.
The landing page for the Pixelfed website.
Without wanting to repeat stuff I’ve posted earlier, the open source social media platforms are largely interconnected. That means that if you post something on Mastodon, you can also see it on Pixelfed. This functionality greatly increases the reach and longevity of your communications.
They also – mostly – ban hate speech, which means that your experience on these platforms will probably be more pleasant than on Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok.
The lack of paid mechanisms to increase your profile (or your organisation’s profile) can appear to be a headache for social media managers. But the Fediverse rewards organisations that take a long-term approach to building relationships, and as there’s no paid advertising, there’s no short-cuts. Which rewards all the more the people who are engaging in genuine, meaningful and valuable ways.
I would love to see Wales become a leader in open source social media. I feel as though I’m making some slight inroads, partly helped by the Twitter bin-fire, but we are a long way off a true plurality.
Here’s my offer to the event organisers; you book me for a slot, and I’ll deliver a presentation for you. The title? “Why you shouldn’t come to this conference”.
Best wishes to the organisers, and I confidently look forward to hearing from you about my offer.
Social media has energised the way in which we interact, communicate, promote and understand. As with any tool, it has the ability to be used for good, or for ill.
I don’t intend here to detail the way that social media is used to abuse, to pillory, to demean and to spread hate. Nor is this a treatise about whether it’s democratically healthy for social media to be used by political parties or corporate entities to micro-target individuals or small communities with messages which may only be loosely based on fact, or indeed a complete fiction.
Instead, I want you to take a moment to imagine participating in a social network free from hate; one which doesn’t answer to shareholders; and where paid advertising directed by surveillance capitalism is not possible.
Now I want you to take a step further; I want you to imagine that same network, where you can share a picture (same way as Instagram); share a blog post (same way as Medium); share a micro-blog (same as Twitter); share a video (such as with YouTube) – and all the content from all those different platforms is brought to you in one place.
Hang onto your hats – it’s already here!
Unbeknown to most internet users, there’s a quiet revolution taking place on the fringes of the social web which merits close examination.
Fed up with pleading to Twitter, Facebook, Google and other internet giants to take action on abuse and to act on genuine privacy concerns, the open source community has created solutions which herald the dawning of a new era of accountable social media.
And Wales could be at the vanguard of this revolution, thanks partly to some imagination and drive from a boy from Barry who made it in New York, Jaz-Michael King.
The Fediverse
Before diving into how to join the revolution, it’s worth talking about how the Federated Universe (Fediverse) operates.
Unlike the existing social media monopolies, the Fediverse has no central company controlling the flow of content, and deciding what to permit or ban.
Instead, there’s a plethora of small sites – ‘Instances’ – which operate semi-autonomously from one another, but which are linked (federated) so that content can be viewed simultaneously on all federated platforms. Authors retain ownership and control of their content, while citizens can pick and choose the content and people they wish to connect with, free from profit-driven algorithms and their associated echo chambers.
So somebody posting a photo on Pixelfed (a federated photo-sharing site, which looks and feels just like Instagram) will instantly share that image with all their followers, on whatever ‘Instance’ they’re based.
Likewise, someone posting a micro-blog on a federated account (such as Mastodon) will share that post with all their followers across all whole ‘Fediverse’.
No more hate?
Whilst it would be a stretch to say that hate has no place within the Fediverse, it’s certainly no exaggeration to say that it is a far more pleasant place than most conventional social networks.
That’s because most Instances have rules which forbid unpleasant behaviour. The decision about what constitutes acceptable behaviour is up to the administrators or the community of that individual Instance, but if unpleasant behaviour consistently appears unchallenged on a specific Instance, it’s possible that all other Instances could sever ties, effectively inoculating the rest of the Fediverse from the content that’s being posted in the ‘bad’ Instance.
Indeed this has already happened in July this year, where an Instance supporting far-right speech was de-federated by many other instances, significantly limiting its ability to interact with the rest of the Fediverse. The success and growth of the Federation as a movement has been significantly driven by the growing dissatisfaction and loss of trust that the international corporate networks cannot (or will not) manage, and that smaller, locally-driven communities are more able to effectively self-manage.
Toot is also the host for Wales’ own answer to Instagram, via Pix.Toot.Wales, and for a ‘lite’ blogging experience via Blogs.Toot.Wales.
I often see people on Twitter complaining about certain functionalities not being available, including the most basic need for a Welsh language interface; about tools to control or limit abuse, about access to one’s own data and the right to delete it or download it.
My response is: leave the network. The influence we have with the owners of Twitter, Facebook or any other mainstream social media platform is vanishingly small. If complaints by users have implications on profit, they are unlikely to become a corporate priority. Regulation is possible, but is cumbersome, hard to enforce and likely to date quickly.
So we must vote with our feet. We have within our own hands, literally and metaphorically, the means to turn our backs on networks which value profit over privacy, and to champion an open source ethical alternative.
I believe that Wales can demonstrate to the rest of the world that it’s possible to take a stance on this issue. Already facing a crisis in media, we should no longer submit to the whims of global corporate giants. With so much of the information we receive being more or less completely out of the control of the people of Wales, this is one area where we genuinely can, and we should, be taking back control.
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