Big change to Social Media and the Web

Hi, this is my first post on Substack 👋 I also post on my blog although usually only about once a year!

This year I feel it's notable enough to mention a big change to social media and the web - I was a fairly early adopter of social media, back in school days (in the 2000s) I ran my own Invision Power Board forum before Facebook, MySpace and Bebo were even a thing - at that point, moderation wasn't too big an issue, we moderated ourselves, and communities were mainly those we knew and felt connected to.

The web was also very much about de-centralised websites. StumbleUpon and Digg referred you to websites created by all. They were also hosted by a large range of hosting providers with decentralised DNS. Now, these days, the majority of traffic comes centralised from a few big players.

Sadly, the web itself is also now unsearchable. Google now pushes larger brands like Forbes (also see Forbes Marketplace: The Parasite SEO Company Trying to Devour Its Host) above niche content and promotes lengthy regurgitated AI generated content over what is actually useful. Tried to get a recipe lately and had to scroll through miles of fluff to find the recipe? There's tonnes of posts discussing this kind of thing such as The Man Who Killed Google Search.

Signing up for Facebook was originally about sharing updates and photos with new uni friends, not scrolling through a feed of fake news.

Now, meaningful content from friends and communities is rare, I feel the exceptions are Substack, Hacker News, Strava and possibly LinkedIn. The rest has sadly become toxic driven by politics and negative content, I am not a fan of this direction of Social Media and have no interest in agendas being targeted into feedback loop echo bubbles.

I left Twitter (X) as soon as Elon Musk acquired it, this has been replaced by Bluesky but it feels a bit too similar so we will see. I left Reddit as soon as Third Party API access was blocked. I am now reducing my usage of Meta by removing my use of Facebook and Instagram, I will likely keep Whatsapp for now until I can switch all groups to RCS.

You also can no longer know what is real or fake thanks to the rise of AI generated content, it has been left unchallenged and unverified with regular people being oblivious to it. Now Zuckerberg and Musk are removing the checks it will inevitably get worse - I don't want to be fed this content and hope AI will be referenced correctly and used as a tool for good.

While writing this post, I found Stewart Lee has written the perfect article An information dark age is upon us. I’m logging off. It's better for everyone to disconnect and focus energy on positive growth for ourselves than being drawn into negative content loops.

Before I end, I'd like to also note I have no interest in TikTok which was today blocked by the US only for Trump to agree for it to be allowed at least for now. I just hope sites like Substack which I like for written content stay clear of dopamine video feeds and focus on meaningful content.

Cheers, Jacres ❤️