By "social media" we mean any large computer network that allows people to interact in shared communities. The big ones of course are Facebook, Twitter (X), and Instagram, but we can't forget newer platforms like Discord and Slack.
Dedicated video sites are off-topic here and YouTube has its own separate thread
.
What we should discuss in this OTC topic are news items, business operations, and activities by the networks themselves, not specific things posted by users. Those should go into threads appropriate to the subjects of those posts. For example, if an actor tweets about a film, we'd discuss that in the Media forum topic for the film, not here. If Facebook changes its policies, that could be discussed here.
The politics, motives, competency and wider business activities of the owners and leaders of social media companies (e.g. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg) are also off-topic — except in situations where they are directly making specific policy for the platform.
Talking about a particular Instagram policy change (or a high-profile ban on a specific user) directly announced by Mark Zuckerberg would be acceptable in this thread, speculating about Zuckerberg's wider motivations wouldn't be.
One exception is Truth Social, due to its connection to Donald Trump. As there is a forum ban on US Politics, all discussion of Truth Social is off-topic and posts about the platform may be thumped.
The thread's also not about "dumb thing [public figure] said on [social media platform]". If there isn't a specific thread related to the subject of the statement, then it's probably gossip and not worth talking about.
The hot topic of the day is Elon Musk's bid to acquire Twitter. We first discussed it in the Computer Thread, starting roughly here
, and I am not going to rehash the entire discussion. Instead, I am going to resume from the last post
:
CNBC: Twitter is reportedly taking another look at Musk takeover bid
Twitter's board is reportedly meeting with Elon Musk and may seek to negotiate on his buyout offer. Musk claims to have secured $46 billion in funding to buy the company at a valuation of $43 billion and is preparing to make a tender offer to its shareholders.
While the board has passed a poison pill, it could be facing resistance to that from groups of shareholders and will want to talk things out rather than face a hostile takeover. It's also possible that Twitter's stock could crash if the offer fails to go through.
Another possible topic was originally posted here
.
Ars Technica: EU to unveil landmark law to force Big Tech to police illegal content
Following on from the recently passed Digital Markets Act, which requires large tech companies to unbundle first-party software from hardware platforms, the proposed Digital Services Act will require medium and large social media platforms and search engines to police hate speech and disinformation while adding additional protections for children against targeted marketing.
It also bans "dark patterns", which manipulate or trick people into clicking on ads or other content. The article doesn't explicitly say what that means, but I assume it includes things like disguising ads to look like parts of a site's user interface, hiding "close" buttons, and such.
For large companies, the requirements would go into effect immediately. For medium companies, they would have a grace period to implement the changes.
Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, has warned that Big Tech has become “too big to care.”
This phrase, "too big to care", intrigues me. It's an indictment of the idea that these companies have decided that growth and engagement metrics overwhelm any sense of social responsibility.
In my opinion, a law like this would be impossible in the United States, since it would be challenged (likely successfully) on First Amendment grounds.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 8th 2024 at 5:16:31 PM
That potential for “like addiction” is precisely why we chose not to have a like/dislike feature on our forums many years ago.
As for toxicity and the algorithm, it’s not necessary for any human to deliberately amplify that; it would happen naturally as the systems learn what drives the most engagement. There’s a reason, for example, that funny animal videos are so prominent on YouTube, and no individual human made that happen. It’s collective behavior.
That’s not to say that people aren’t also curating the algorithms, of course, but this is a classic Hanlon's razor case.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 12th 2025 at 9:04:08 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"> That potential for “like addiction” is precisely why we chose not to have a like/dislike feature on our forums many years ago.
I recall Eddy tried out the feature in a thread once and it got such a massive negative he nuked the topic,I swear I did not imagine it!
have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Yup, that happened. Eddie announced it and the mods and admits were in favour, but the response from rank and file tropers was unanimously negative, largely in the grounds it would create an echo chamber.
We once had a like/dislike feature on reviews, and it resulted in people disliking reviews that said bad things about what they liked or good things about stuff they disliked, and liking reviews that said positive things about things they liked or negative things about stuff like they disliked.
Reviews were basically hit with dislikes simply for going against the majority opinion. I hated the system. I gave a like to a negative review of something I liked because the review was at least well-written and made its points well, but overall, people gave their thumbs up/down to reviews that simply agreed with them, regardless of the actual writing quality.
- Initial 500 character limit
- Only supports English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, French and Portuguese
- Will not provide author's names
- Only published if differing viewpoints agree
- Users must be 18+
- Needs to include a supporting link
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"Will be published only if contributors with differing viewpoints agree that it provides helpful context." - This part stands out as concerning to me. Aren't a lot of the cases where community notes are helpful just about literal facts? I don't see how you're going to get "differing viewpoints agree"ing on that.
Xitter uses that metric too, so it seems to work fine. (For all Xitter's other flaws, people seem to largely agree that Community Notes work as intended.)
Relevant article on the subject
from a while ago, in which a guy discusses some of the details of the algorithm.
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Mar 13th 2025 at 7:00:01 AM
Suddenly I'm... still rotating Fallen London in my mind even though I've stopped actively playing it.I feel like saying that is an insult to duct tape.
By the sounds of it, it’s more like the tape has been torn off and replaced with Blue-Tac.
Edited by MagmaTeaMerry on Mar 13th 2025 at 7:15:28 PM
My AO3 profile. Let sleeping cats lie and be cute and calming.I honestly don't know where all these calls that X is "falling apart" come from. It works perfectly fine for me most of the time, just like most other sites. Any site can be brought down by a DDoS attack and that's not indicative of anything.
Obviously, I don't have any insider information about the state of its code base or infrastructure, and I suspect that nobody else here does, either. We shouldn't confuse disgruntled wishful thinking for reality. And yes, Musk has enough personal resources to run it for a long time even if it has zero income, which we know isn't true.
So that this thread doesn't get locked, let us please stick to facts, not speculation or personal attacks on anyone.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 14th 2025 at 8:46:05 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Re: putting all your eggs in one basket - Plenty of people do try to spread themselves out on social media, but it's easier said than done; the more platforms you're on, either the less attention you give each individual one or the more time you have to spend on social media overall. It also depends on where the people you want to follow and interact with tend to congregate. For anything professional you also have to consider where you get the most engagement, best click-through, etc. It's pretty natural to end up with one or two favourite sites, and possibly think others aren't worth the effort.
From what I've seen from content creators, there is a third party thing that allows you to post on multiple social media at once.
This is mainly for their big and/or easy announcements. They tend to focus on one social media for their regular thoughts.
"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."If we want to draw a distinction between active participation and passively observing, the vast majority of my activity is on TV Tropes and various Discord communities, but I use Twitter/X to follow current updates and news across a variety of subjects. Yes, it works fine for that as long as you're a conscientious curator of your feed.
Edited by Fighteer on Mar 14th 2025 at 2:00:59 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Oh the algorithms very much do know what toxic content is, that’s why they promote it. Algorithms are designed to promote not jsut content that gets attention but also content that either keeps you active on the app (even if you move on from that specific bit of content) but also content that promotes the views of the people behind/supporting the algorithm.
I’m pretty sure the Facebook algorithm has been noted to push content based on specific political beliefs over engagement in some instances.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran