Networked Publics: Social Media Shifts

Digital town halls, like X & Facebook are changing. There’s a social media shift underway. That actually might be good. Here’s why.

Photo by Stijn te Strake on Unsplash

Markets, town squares, public spaces, they have played such a vital role in our societies for thousands of years since we started building cities. These evolved to include digital spaces as the internet became more pervasive in society. From the early days of social media such as blogs and MySpace to then Facebook and Twitter (now X). But these digital town halls are changing.

It’s not just that these more public town halls are facing an exodus, it is that power dynamics are changing, social structures, means of trust in one another and perhaps most importantly, how ideas flow through our societies.

In a time when many feel overwhelmed with geopolitical shifts and the rise of authoritarian and populist leaders, when people are increasingly losing trust in those digital town halls, people are retreating to more closed spaces. That’s not all bad. Or good.

This loss of any meaningful public digital town hall makes it harder to have a sense of the public transcript of societies, making it more difficult to understand broader social currents. In some ways, this can, and has, lead to more private networks that create stronger bonds, but can have costs to a broader sense of social solidarity.

Additionally, as people move to more closed digital spaces, it slows down the movement and evolution of ideas, cultural practices and social changes. It also makes it harder to challenge institutional powers that go awry. And easier for folks with nefarious agendas to organise and take actions that surprise society.

Today, as major platforms stop or severely decrease their moderation, we’ve seen how toxic channels can become. And how those channels that do continue to moderate, maintain a better public dialogue and engagement. So what is happening?

Perhaps the most important word to consider today in how we engage in the digital world is trust. Between one another and with institutions. Consumers have lost trust in major social media platforms because they feel manipulated, for advertising and over-surveillance and now, lack of moderation. The vast amounts of mis/disinformation and the hypernormalization tactics of some political movements along with AI slop is making public digital town halls untenable.

While this is unfortunate and bad in a sense, it may be signalling a shift and change we’ve seen many times before in history. When people mistrusted the systems in place during the time of the printing press, they created new means of communication, using special words and symbols on pamphlets and short booklets only a certain group would understand.

We see this today in people moving to more private platforms such as Telegram, Signal and WhatsApp. To more moderated forums such as subreddits and newsgroups, discords and Mastodon servers. The primary reason they’re doing this is for trust.

This creates a sort of “networked resilience” rather than public protest. Though new social group actions, ideas and behaviours become less visible, they can become more meaningful. This isn’t a protest, it’s more an example of how sociocultural systems react when they dislike how they’re being governed. And people are rejecting how some of these public town halls are being governed.

What gets shared in these digital public town halls has changed significantly over the past 18 months or so. We are beginning to see the formation of a new social architecture. The digital tribes of today are carving out protected spaces for discourse, connection and in some cases, public dialogue.

As social media platforms that drop any sense of being a moderator, these town halls are losing their audience in the public discourse in digital spaces. This means a shift in social capital. Rather than being built on likes and shares, it is being built on new forms of trust, authenticity and intimacy.

This is why we see the rise of BlueSky, Discord, Mastodon and other decentralised applications, commonly referred to as Web3. We may well see even more decentralised apps and tools, but the way Web3 is talked about and “branded” needs to change. Citizens and consumers do not understand the tech speak of Web3, let alone understand what a DAO is or does. BlueSky succeeded because it didn’t use technospeak language.

We are in a sort of liminal period as we seek alternative platforms and tools for engagement. Platforms like Twitter (X) and Facebook won’t just suddenly die. It took MySpace years, yet it still lingers to some degree, as do others. And they may survive, but shift. Twitter (x), is heading towards becoming the next 4Chan of unabated toxicity. Facebook will survive, but how people use it will change, it’s epic growth however, is over.

We will likely see the rise of platforms and tools that allow for what I call “networked sovereignty” where communities can maintain their form of autonomy, yet still participate in the public discourse. These communities will be able to control and modulate their engagement with other communities. This would be helpful to foster understanding and keep people engaged in the way(s) they want to be.

This creates a sort of organic solidarity at scale. What people are seeking is not to disengage with everyone else, but to find ways to do so safely with the ability to stay away from toxicity and deal with abusive behaviours more easily.

I’ll explore more of where this is going in another article. But for now, there is a shift away from the platforms that once enthralled us to now disappointing many. Perhaps this was inevitable and once again, we can look back at history to see where it rhymes in this new era of digital communications.