Comment by mannanj | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mannanj | Hacker News Reader

Love this post below that I'll shamelessly copy:

> ... at the moment Twitter is a Trojan Horse pretending to be an impartial public exchange but in reality it is being controlled by political and business interest groups.

We are seeing the transformation of our former beloved social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, dare I say Hacker News in some ways) into Trojan horses for other interest groups.

We all know big news/media has played this role for several years, I reckon that is why most of us went to those sites in the first place. If they play this role now, and are also able to do whatever they please, I ask do we even have any alternatives for open discussion any more? It's a cool argument to say there are alternatives but do those open-source sites count if no one goes there?

Future is in closed invite only communities. That’s where discussions (and disagreements) will take place and progress will be made. Sad but I believe that’s what’s going to happen. Internet is too much noise.

Can you recommend any good ones that already exist?

Locals [1] is an interesting idea that I think solves some of the problem with trolls. The idea is that you can register for different communities but have to pay in order to comment. The community founder gets a portion of income. They claim that since commenters have skin in the game they are less likely to start flame wars or violate local community guidelines (note that each community can have its own set of rules).

https://www.locals.com/

> (...) an interesting idea that I think solves some of the problem with trolls. The idea is that you can register for different communities but have to pay in order to comment.

That is, assuming said trolls have neither the financial means, will, nor funding. Given governments' involvement with troll farms, that settles the latter already. If there is influence to gain or direct on these new platforms, there will be funding available from various interest groups pouring into individuals or bots. Confusing is enough to steer opinion a certain way. You don't even need to convince people. Planting the seeds of division does the job.

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