Speaker 3
I think we're already seeing a sort of balkanization happening. There is this broad trend to centralize everything on the internet through massive networks like Twitter and Facebook that just turned everybody up together in one place. And I think the lesson from that is we are healthier, honestly, if we silo ourselves to a certain extent. And there's no such thing as a global monoculture and there can never be because the realities of living are different in different places. So I feel like we're going to break up into smaller groups, social groups, like Discord has really gotten huge. You post one thing on Facebook, everyone in the world sees it. Now, they're siloed off on these Discord servers, which are kind of like their own BBSs in a way. It feels like we already are returning to BBSs, you know.
Speaker 1
On the next and final episode in this season of Techtonic, I'll ask my expert FT colleagues what they think the future of social media will look like.
Speaker 6
I do think there is a bit of a reckoning now where people realize that they're going to these platforms, but not necessarily for authentic interactions with people that they know and might meet in the real world. They're not the most social of apps anymore, and perhaps people are seeking those interactions elsewhere.
Speaker 1
And could artificial intelligence spell the end for the social media landscape as we know it?
Speaker 6
You have all these bots whose job it is to be as friendly and supportive and engaging with you as possible. And we can't tell who's real and we can't tell who's not real. In which case, the idea that we could get the world together might be fundamentally flawed because you can't trust anything you see out there on the open
Speaker 1
We've made some articles related to this episode free to read on FT.com. You can see links to those articles in the show notes, including a recent Lex column I wrote on Reddit's Business Prospects. This has been Techtonic from The Financial Times. I'm Elaine Moore. I'll show Senior Producer Edwin Lane. Our producer is Josh Gabbitt Doyan. Executive Producer Manuela Ceragos. Mixing and sound design by Sam Giavinko and Breen Turner. The FT's global
Speaker 8
head of audio is Cheryl Brumbly.
