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> The fascist uniformity of modern social platforms

It’s funny, because when Facebook was new my friends and I flocked to it FOR the uniformity! Little did we know we helped contribute to the downfall of the free and fun internet :/

Also democracy, don't forget democracy is also a victim. :P

It is a well known fact that the 20th century was overflowing with amazing democracy. We had democracy coming out of ears back then. Then Facebook came along and destroyed all that vast success humans have had with implementing and upholding fair democratic systems all over the world. It was utopia until 2007-2008 when Facebook went mainstream.

Wait, I got that all backwards. The world is more democratic today than it was in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s or 1990s. Facebook is a recent convenient scapegoat for the same problems humanity has had with organizing fair systems of government for thousands of years, and it's a particularly intellectually lazy scapegoat at that.

I think the comment above yours was mostly joking, or at least deliberately simplifying things.

But since we’re here and I can’t resist, I agree with you that statements like “x is destroying democracy” are meaningless hyperbole. Social media has a role in influencing the outcome of the democratic process, sure, but to say it is ERASING DEMOCRACY is ridiculous. It doesn’t mean anything. We still vote, and those votes still matter.

My nostalgia for the internet of yore and the affects of social media on democracy are pretty much divorced ideas anyway, I really did just mean for my original comment to be a funnysad observation

We may still vote but we aren't the only democracy under strain and the pressures bring put on it are even more exaggerated in other places, like those where Facebook is the internet ala mid-90's AOL, accessed on phones for free or cheap, and separate from general data plans.

Those were also the days when you could run your own mailserver without being subject to Google and Microsoft's arbitrary blacklisting. Days when embedding a url in an email didn't risk it being treated as junk. Days when every barely-more-than-static website wasn't an SPA carved up into components. Days when PHP was gloriously procedural. Days when Perl was still cool.

> Modern social media is cold and hostile.

Υou misspelled "monitized". I tried to play TribalWars. I remember playing this game a decade ago. It was fun. Stil it. There are so many things that could be done with 2 clicks, instead of 10. But, hey, they can be! As long as you buy/spend "premium points". I deleted my account after two weeks playing 30mins per day. To grow further I would either have to spend 1h per day (then 2h, 3h, and so on) or buy the click-reducers. I will go back to my AoE2-AOK)!!

The internet/websites/services have vastly improved. AND the pricing model has too. There are plenty of discussions in HN about "setting the correct price". That sweet spot that will yield YOU (the maker) the most profit. You don't want 1bn customers giving you $1. You want 1k customers that will give you $1.5m instead. This way you got less costs and more revenue. And you got better marketing ("everyone has an android but who can afford a cool $1k rose gold (puke) iphone???)

You want that cute guy/lady? You have to pay! (See Ashley Madison and their business model/practices)(https://gizmodo.com/ashley-madison-code-shows-more-women-and...)

You don't pay? It's ok, someone else will and will get ahead in line, and you then will suffer from FOMO (ok not exactly but you still reduce your opportunities)(gotta make it rain to the company!).

I normally don't call people out for it but you actually did misspell "monetized". ;)

The most interesting thing to note is that MySpace was personal. The smallest facet of what MySpace was, the 50px tall little "Bulletin" feature, was the place where you talk to yourself at everyone. This, however, is what the entire internet has become, the social paradigm shift, thanks to Facebook's sterile data output container superseding it. Facebook is the MySpace "Bulletin" blown to full size, and that's what we've come to believe the web and networking are. The only saving grace for Twitter is that it's where you follow people you DON'T know, and they tend to be industry experts.

These words are so true. I feel the same way. Nothing to add.

This. I miss that refugee camp of misfits, outcast from society, before that which haunted us came back with a vengeance.

There should be a non-cooperate sector of the web. Where all is GPL and this taint on the world could be removed.

A world without newsfeeds and algorithmically/SEO driven culture wars? A world without our social lives being manipulated by shady Big Tech firms and VCs, free of corporate surveillance? A man can dream.

That was the original dream of the internet, except replace these concerns with period-specific equivalents.

Ironically, meekmockmook's sibling comment to mine is [dead] for no discernible reason:

> A world without newsfeeds and algorithmically/SEO driven culture wars? A world without our social lives being manipulated by shady Big Tech firms and VCs, free of corporate surveillance? A man can dream.

FYI you can vouch for [dead] comments (click the direct link to that comment, then click "vouch" at the top). I just did so this one is no longer dead.

Like the indieweb? I think there’s a webring that takes you through it.

https://indieweb.org/

Try the 'small web', I'm enjoying gemini, https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

Here's the thing: gopher & gemini are, in a sense, like Facebook: extremely uniform. In that sense, they are not even BBSes, because it's practically impossible to convey self expression beyond text. Don't get me wrong: one can easily get lost in gopherholes with 20+ years of content, but it's always only content.

In contrast the web of the early 2000s was awesome, because you already could do a lot of really weird things (bouncing mouse trailing balls, anyone?) resulting in self-expressing art-like sites - the pinnacle of these kind of sites were undoubtedly the Flash era.

So yes, depends on what one is after. Maybe both are needed.

Graphics or audio needs some sort of talent and ever-so-tiny amount of skills with some editing program to make it work. Text needs merely a QWERTY (or touchscreen) keyboard, and the ability to compose text in the natural language of your choice (which most are able to do by the age of 10, barring low-literacy areas). In that sense, text is much cheaper to use for self-expression, even though necessarily limited. On the other hand, Gemini/Gopher is near-symbiotic with BBS and IRC-based communities, which are a decent text-based interactive media that could be useful for self-expression in the hands of the right people.

I agree that multimedia-based networked self-expression is limited these days, but maybe something else will spark a Gemini-like comback for multimedia in the future.

> Text needs merely a QWERTY (or touchscreen) keyboard, and the ability to compose text in the natural language of your choice

Writing is a lot more harder, than, for example, drawing. You said it yourself: "by the age of 10" compared to drawing, basically since someone can hold a crayon.

My unstated assumption was that whatever self-expression you put out there, would be at least possible to appreciate by an audience of adult humans.

I understand and believe that children should be allowed to self-express, but quite frankly, nobody is interested in hearing what the child has to say because it's mostly awkward in execution and repetitive. The relatives and perhaps people who work with children professionally will care, but the general public won't unless it's particularly funny, poignant, or whatever.

The bouncing mouse balls, flash animations, pixel dollz, and spinning flame skulls of the 2000s were mostly copied off other sites. So sure, that’s self-expression, but only in the same sense that decorating your bedroom with posters is self-expression. When it’s just text, EVERYTHING on the site is your own words. It’s all from the author. I think that’s a more ‘pure’ self-expression.

If you like the geocities style more, then you can use neocities.

Do you invent the particular words you use for self-expression? Or do you use words people know, hence copying these words?

You need common ground to make it relatable, copying stuff is inevitable.

Reminds me of Howard Beale's closing speech in Network.

What is finished... is the idea that this great country is dedicated to the freedom and flourishing of every individual in it. It's the individual that's finished. It's the single, solitary human being that's finished. It's every single one of you out there that's finished, because this is no longer a nation of independent individuals. It's a nation of some 200-odd million transistorized, deodorized, whiter-that-white, steel-belted bodies, totally unnecessary as human beings, and as replaceable as piston rods... Well, the time has come to say, is dehumanization such a bad word. Because good or bad, that's what is so. The whole world is becoming humanoid - creatures that look human but aren't. The whole world not just us. We're just the most advanced country, so we're getting there first. The whole world's people are becoming mass-produced, programmed, numbered, insensate things...

I try to get away from all that by hosting a site on gopher. Neocities would be another option, if you need the eye candy.

I hate social media, going so far as to delete both my reddit and Mastodon accounts. But this is tempting. It gives me the feeling I used to get when listening to tunes and surfing last.fm

Can you elaborate on why you hate Mastodon as well? I signed up, never really got into it, but kind of always intended to.

I personally don't hate Mastodon but I've never found an instance that clicked for me. Feels like a more confusing Twitter but happy to be re-educated

Is Zeronet what you're looking for? That allows anyone to share their creative content / website with low entry barrier.

BTW: Come say hi. http://spacehey.com/jdb

> It used to be that I could click "browse," find a cute girl's profile, say hi, and set up a date within a few days.

Maybe this digital cat-calling lead to this:

> Modern social media is cold and hostile. Stay in your friend group. Avoid strangers: They're all scary and bad.

People just don't like to be annoyed by random strangers. Especially woman and specificaly when it's about molesting them.

With all due respect, MySpace was a dating site for many of both sexes. They even had a search filter based on physical attributes like any dating site.

I had a female friend set up my profile specifically for this purpose in early 2006. Within hours after signing up a random girl sent me a message to ask if I had a girlfriend. The following week I went out on 3 dates. By the end of the year I met about 30 women in person and probably went out with a dozen multiple times, until shutting things when one became my girlfriend.

Facebook was setup to work differently and I never used it for this purpose, instead moving on to OKCupid when I was single again in 2011.

It wasn't build as a dating-site and it wasn't sold as a dating-place. That some people misused it that way, doesn't mean every user is ok with this and likes to be annoyed by sex-spam. Kinda speaks for that myspace failed so fast...

We have the algorithm-drived services with all their control and reduced friction because some people just can't behave well and must destroy the nice things for everyone.

There are inherent sexual dynamics in any social circle, be it myspace, facebook or the workplace. I don't think the current trend of perceiving any unwanted sexual interest as inherently bad is at all healthy for society.

P.S: i know and remember a lot of my friends who found their S.O. through facebook so it being alive arguanly disproves the assumption behind

>Kinda speaks for that myspace failed so fast...

> There are inherent sexual dynamics in any social circle,

Yes, it maybe there, but no, It's only a problem if people make it one. It's not there by default and unavoidable.

> I don't think the current trend of perceiving any unwanted sexual interest as inherently bad is at all healthy for society.

That's a pretty hostile view.

> P.S: i know and remember a lot of my friends who found their S.O. through facebook so it being alive arguanly disproves the assumption behind

There is a difference between making friends and eventually hooking up with one/some of them, and going out to make victims on purpose.

>Yes, it maybe there, but no, It's only a problem if people make it one. It's not there by default and unavoidable.

It seems to me unavoidable that human would look for sex. The notion that sex is pillar to human endeavour has been a strongly held view of a lot of psychologists. I also don't believe sexual social dynamics are a problem (but im not sure if thats what you were saying).

>victim

This mentality underlies a very unhealthy view of dating imo. You don't have to be friends with someone prior to dating them.

> It seems to me unavoidable that human would look for sex.

Sure. But there are proper ways for it. Legal ways. There are reason why those behaviours more and more get outlawed in different countries.

If someone makes it clear they are interessted in dating, then yes, go for it. But just to exist is not a clear hint for this. Dating is still special case of social interaction, not the default.

> > victim > This mentality underlies a very unhealthy view of dating imo.

This has nothing to do with dating. The victims here are mainly the people who are forced to cope with that crap, but never asked for it, and don't wanna date any of those people for whatever reason.

The joke here is, we do have elaborated spamfilter and adblocker to get rid of all the annoying crap in our mailboxes and webbrowser, and most user accept it as neccessary because ads are just aweful. Yet we still don't have filters for dickpics and sexual harrasment. Quite funny, just because it's Humans doing the same, instead of business?

>If someone makes it clear they are interessted in dating, then yes, go for it.

But showing clear signs of interests is exactly what you seem to be against. If no one is allowed to start an interaction then how is it supposed to start?

>The victims here are mainly the people who are forced to cope with that crap, but never asked for it, and don't wanna date any of those people for whatever reason.

It seems to me like a simple fix; when someone approaches you you tell them "sorry not my type/interested/looking."

Or just block messages from people you don't know.

I'm not keen to destroy all social interactions for the sake of the people who cannot handle them.

> Yet we still don't have filters for dickpics and sexual harrasment.

I see where you're coming from, but I disagree with your solution, which is to just prevent any interaction that's sexual in nature (although dickpics are not the same thing as what op was suggesting).

Molesting? Catcalling? Holy cow, is that cynical. You think the women I met and the friends I made are victims? These are people I still stay in touch with 15 years later. Who said anything about dickpics except for you? The internet has become truly grim if any non-monetized form of looking to hook up or hang out can be considered an act of violence or harassment.

But MySpace was obviously setup to be used as a dating site and was rampantly used as such... Facebook created an environment where this type of activity would be seen as hostile.

But Facebook was also setup as a dating site. You also get recommended friends and interact with people you don't know which facilitates meeting and dating new people.

The fact that it's more hostile now I believe is only because they have switched their focus from a social circle interaction to optimizjng for metrics such as engagement and page views, which afaik generally tends to a more hostile and polarized environment.

There’s explicit marketing and implicit marketing. That you could search the population by age/height/hair color/relationship status meant implicitly, it was a dating site, albeit a crude one.

No one was misusing it for this purpose, it was obviously intended to be used this way by MySpace itself. I agree that not everyone wanted to use it that way and that was part of the friction in the platform... it was kinda meant to be everything to everyone.

> That you could search the population by age/height/hair color/relationship status meant implicitly, it was a dating site, albeit a crude one.

In the first place it means they knew about a problem, and searched for ways to solve it. It does not mean they wanted to enforce it and spread it. Relationship status is a big hint there.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with annoying people who want to be annoyed. But ignorantly bothering anyone just because you can is harmful.

If they wanted to solve it they would remove that feature entirely. Relationship status was there to facilitate. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree here.