Two recent events triggered me to reflect on how I use social media. I think it is a healthy exercise. First, I received two unsolicited mails on LinkedIn. Then BlueSky went viral and I created an account. In this post I recap my history of social media use, present my current choice, and conclude with thoughts on why social media are here to stay and why they are so hard to get right.
Media non grata
I left Facebook in 2017. Trump had been elected president, Cambridge Analytica and the dubious influence of social media had become clear. Most of my Facebook feed was about Copenhagen, and I had just moved to Stockholm. So I took a one month break, didn’t miss it, then deleted my account. As I understand from people still on Facebook, Facebook today is a place for corporations to push out commercials and polished press releases. But it has good tools for communities to organise events though it is no longer the place to share party pictures with friends.
I still haven’t forgiven Zuckerberg. So What’s App and Instagram are also media non grata for me.
Thoughtful Dane
Then in 2019 after I left my first job in Stockholm, I had free time, many thoughts, and felt like reconnecting with people. So I created this blog. I wanted to hone my writing skills. I wanted to share my experiences of moving to a city I barely knew with wife and two kindergarten aged kids. But above all, I wanted this to be fun.
So I set up blogging rules for myself. To blog about what I want when I want. That is why I never publish on a fixed schedule. Sometimes it works out that posts go out Tuesdays or Thursdays, but it’s not something I strive for. That is why topics range across all my interests. Every post must have a picture and it’s almost always one of my own. No pictures of kids or friends for privacy reasons.
I strive to write content that people want to read and maybe share but that is a nice-to-have. I find that blog posts often spring from conversations with friends that I then elaborate on and polish into a post. These days I stay connected with friends in 1:1 conversations in messaging apps like Signal and Telegram. I share links and pictures on topics of shared interest and have text based conversations. Then it doesn’t matter if they currently live in Australia, Singapore, Greece, Ukraine or Denmark.
Five years later I’ve passed 200 posts, 9 000 visitors, and 14 000 views. A great thing about having my own website is that everyone can access the content without creating a profile. I pay for hosting to keep it free from inappropriate ads.
An offer I could resist
I’m still on LinkedIn. It used to be a place to stay connected with former colleagues. To see job updates. But people rarely post or engage with content there anymore. Those who do rarely leads to rewarding conversations and new thoughts.
I’ve tired of LinkedIn. The constant upsell to premium. The sponsored content full of AI hype. The paid for job listings that are all polished HR speak. All the information I shared on LinkedIn looked more and more like free content for AI robots to mine. So I have turned off most notifications, hidden most content, and don’t post there anymore. I rarely log in.
What really pushed me over was when I logged in and found that I had received two messages from very attractive looking female CEOs that wanted to connect with me. The issue was, while the profiles were different, the message texts were identical.
Communities of gamers
I am part of several communities of game designers. Communities that have not chosen Facebook as their platform. WRNU (web forum), a forum for Swedish role-players. SpelDesignBabbel (Discord), a forum for Swedish boardgame designers. Indie Game Reading Club (Slack), a US based forum for independent RPG game designers. These are all moderated and full of inspired and smart people.
I also follow Alexandria’s blog feed where mostly Danish RPG bloggers share occasional posts about games they are working on or are playing.
I have found that I don’t enjoy podcasts.
Blue skies
I’ve never been on Twitter. But a few weeks ago when several bloggers I follow hyped BlueSky, I decided to create an account and explore the new platform.
So far so good. I found people and feeds to follow. I shared pictures and posts. Started a few threads with thoughts and reflections. Got some followers and some reactions. Engaged in a couple of conversations with game designers I met years ago that shared what they are working on right now.
Let’s see where this leads.
The initial excitement of reading updates on someone’s personal training program has already worn off.
Internet 2.0
So what is this thing with social media? Why is it so popular? Why so many incarnations? Why is it not perfected yet?
Social media essentially solves one problem: The internet is open but anonymous and un-policed. While we can share information freely, when we don’t know the identity of the sender and the factuality of the information, it is close to useless.
Walled gardens like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and BlueSky provide us with a clear identity and some promise of consequence against malicious users. When whom we encounter are inspired, honest actors, we benefit and stay and the platform thrives. When what we see are dead or faceless profiles speaking bland corporate speak or internet personas speaking hate speech, the platforms turn into soulless cityscapes or festering cesspools where few people are willing to spend time.
Internet 2.0 is not anonymous but a place where every digital actor corresponds to a real human being. Where words and actions in the virtual world have consequences in the real world, people are held accountable. Just like in the physical world. You can put on trench coat, hat, and nose glasses and hide for a while. But sooner or later there is consequence for overstepping the rules of the place you are in.
Green fields
Rather than delegate the difficult task of gating the entrance to this Internet 2.0 to private corporations or state agencies, I would wish for a global standard to define how this works. But I also realise this is an insanely difficult thing to accomplish. Fake profiles flourish on Twitter. Dead profiles lingers on Facebook. AI chatbots soon pass the Turing Test. Even digital signatures in well developed countries like Denmark and Sweden have flaws.
Short of wiring everyone worldwide up at birth with a uniquely coded chip, there is no way to guarantee that a digital actor corresponds to exactly this specific human being worldwide. Even if that might work, it’s not a world I would like to live in.
So choose your walled virtual gardens wisely. And remember to venture out into that amazing but also dangerous and flawed thing waiting outside your front door. It is full of great experiences that you will not find online (yet).
Pictures from my local area. Sunset over Tullinge Lake south of Stockholm on a cold December day.