Would you want to own a social media site?

[Sinistra]

Nope sorry, I deal with enough drama on Facebook as is. I don't think I want to deal with it as an owner of a Facebook-like site. Don't get me wrong I thought about it just for anime fans, but I decided a forum would be a better fit for me.

 

[Debashis]

No, I don't want to own anything related to social media. Because I'm sure it'll draw negativity towards it in some way or the other.

 

[Arantor]

How is a forum different to social media except in scale?

 

[joelr]

How is a forum different to social media except in scale?

I would argue there are significant differences! Algorithmic activity vs reverse chronology reverse, a feed view versus a table view, a strong focus on social connection vs content.

 

[Tracy]

I don't think it really belongs on forums. MAYBE if groups would be the core focus, maybe then it could work. But still highly doubt it.

There can be valid uses for it in niches... I know folks hate to hear the name, but My Militia did an excellent job of pushing IPS's clubs/groups and it getting used.
In the case of my niche, I see it being used by various small astronomy clubs/groups that don't want to take the time/effort to create their own website. One of the main ones that I'll be targeting are the local schools, with each "club" being a private one for that school only and the admins can admit the users that they know/have vetted.

 

[Arantor]

I would argue there are significant differences! Algorithmic activity vs reverse chronology reverse, a feed view versus a table view, a strong focus on social connection vs content.

And I would argue that the algorithmic activity and feed views are simply the logical result of presenting content at that scale.

Imagine, you turn up to a forum with a billion users and tens of billions of posts. The board index if such a thing existed would be monstrously long and need to subdivide into millions of boards.

At that scale, threads having a “board” for categorisation and a title for context are meaningless. Meaning that the only functional relationships are the users themselves, or FB Groups style arbitrary subclassification.

Do not confuse how something is presented for what it contains. As Captain Jack said, “It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom.”

Consider how people form social and even parasocial bonds on a forum then tell me that social media isn’t really the same thing, at heart, with a scale that forces it to repackage things a little differently.

 

[joelr]

And I would argue that the algorithmic activity and feed views are simply the logical result of presenting content at that scale.

Imagine, you turn up to a forum with a billion users and tens of billions of posts. The board index if such a thing existed would be monstrously long and need to subdivide into millions of boards.

At that scale, threads having a “board” for categorisation and a title for context are meaningless. Meaning that the only functional relationships are the users themselves, or FB Groups style arbitrary subclassification.

Do not confuse how something is presented for what it contains. As Captain Jack said, “It's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs but what a ship is... what the Black Pearl really is... is freedom.”

Consider how people form social and even parasocial bonds on a forum then tell me that social media isn’t really the same thing, at heart, with a scale that forces it to repackage things a little differently.

Yes and no. I agree that forums, from a social perspective, heavily overlap with the concept of online groups, which have been around forever in various iterations (hello email listservs!). But I don't think anyone would say that email listservs are the same as social media, at heart but repackaged a little bit differently. You can also argue that a campfire and smores fulfills a sense of community.

That's a lot of repackaging ...

Although social media platforms may offer algorithmic activity because they present content at scale, I don't think it's because of scale alone that they offer such features. They offer it because, technologically and financially, they offer features that aren't accessible to independent self hosted forums.

 

[Arantor]

I think what you see as cause is what I see as effect; the features of that scale are not possible because of that scale, they're *necessary* at that scale because there's simply no other way to approach the content.

Also, I don't think the take here is 'email listservs are the same as social media' but 'they're all different takes on the same basic concept' which is modelling human conversations at different scales and synchronicities.

 

[Lucy Lacemaker]

I wouldn’t it’s too much responsibility

 

[Liam]

As amazing as it would be to be filthy rich, I couldn’t deal with the legal side of things. There’s so many laws and regulations that social media companies need to abide by - and these vary from country to country. I know you can just hire people to look after this for you but the pressure of managing all that would be overwhelming imo.

 

[Arantor]

That part doesn't seem to bother Elon who just does whatever he wants and essentially seems to be daring anyone to try it on if they think they've got a leg to stand on.

 

[Cedric]

That part doesn't seem to bother Elon who just does whatever he wants and essentially seems to be daring anyone to try it on if they think they've got a leg to stand on.

The guy probably neglects legal advice from his 20 lawyers. 😀

 

[Timgab]

No I don't thinks so, all this media people can be so funny. I know mysemf quite well. Any misconduct in content such as irrelevant meme that I do see on social media would most times end in ban. 😁😂

 

[Senkusha]

I've given some thought to running my own social media outlet. I'm frustrated by all the censorship that occurs with all the big corporate social media companies, but the thought of combating all the bot software that's out there right now is keeping this to only a thought right now. It's a lot of work to manage an entire social media presence, and I don't know that many people to form the army to maintain it.

 

[Arantor]

Ask yourself what they have to gain by censorship, and more specifically *what* they choose to censor.

There is no shortage of either end of the discourse spectrum on social media, and it isn’t as silenced as is often claimed by the free speech advocates. Especially as freedom of speech does not imply or grant freedom from consequence. (And there is no shortage of especially-political freedom of speech being used by all sides.)

 

[Empire]

Nope, I would not able to handle it and all the crap that comes with it, You need a very big team or people to work who understand your needs and it can turn bad to worse if you do not take it the right way