this post was submitted on 04 Oct 2026
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They also spread the truth as well even when government and media have conspired to obscure it. Social media has led to people beating companies, governments and politicians simply by providing an avenue to share reality. Social media defends democracy and protects democracy. There has always been an enormous power balance issues between the elites and the peasants and social media for the first time is allowing the peasants to speak to each other rather than the only voice being the elites through their media platforms.
That's what the tavern was for...
You know, the place where the elites couldn't manipulate the topics of conversation and shared sentiment by adjusting algorithms and shadowbanning ideas they don't like...
Your main point might hold if people were mostly using fediverse platforms, but such is not the case
My guy... Social media ARE the elites media platforms you Dingus.
They aren't letting people do shit, they are all censored and monitored to ensure we stay fractured and disengaged
He seems stuck at what social media was in 2012 and hasn't realized how they are now.
Yet in principle the social benefit described (amplifying voices of the unheard) isn’t entirely out of reach for social media as a category, especially if we can escape the era of closed platforms. Open alternatives are still relatively new. There is a plausible future in which closed platforms are left behind and we become much more capable of keeping mass public manipulation in check.
Exactly but I think for most people social media = the ones used by the masses, the "social normiedia", like Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter = Arab Spring because it lets them use cheap SMS flipphones!
Now that Saudi Arabia basically owns Twitter that will never happen again. Not to mention when they hacked in ~10 years ago to get data on dissidents.
Alternative Social Media like mastodon or Bluesky are also pretty fractured
They did. That's why they spent so much effort to ruin the internet these past few years.