The internet's "town square" is dead
The web hasn’t had its artisanal moment. Right now, giant, ad-based networks created by six men that everyone begrudgingly uses with diminishing emotional returns, control the vast majority of the web.
Sublime • Notes on Scale + Quality
It is because a universal public square cannot be a community that the parameters of the online speech debate are stuck. The conflict between the “marketplace of ideas” framework and the “communal norms” framework seems irresolvable because it is irresolvable.
Ari Schulman • Why Speech Platforms Can Never Escape Politics | National Affairs
Social media intensify this kind of communication without community. You cannot forge a public sphere out of influencers and followers.
Noema • All That Is Solid Melts Into Information
Social media “used to be more of a place for conversation and reciprocity,” Stern said. Now conversation isn’t strictly necessary, only watching and listening.