What's there to save about social media? (feat. Rabble)

“Connection” was the promise—and goal—of much of the early internet. No longer would people be separated from vital resources and news that was either too hard to reach or made simply inaccessible by governments. No longer would education be guarded behind walls both physical and paid. And no longer would your birthplace determine so much about the path of your life, as the internet could connect people to places, ideas, businesses, collaborations, and agency.

Somewhere along the line though, “connection” got co-opted. The same platforms that brought billions of people together—including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat—started to divide them for profit. These companies made more money by showing people whatever was most likely to keep them online, even if it upset them. More time spent on the platfrom meant more likelihood of encountering ads which meant more advertising revenue for Big Tech.

Today, these same platforms are now symbols of some of the worst aspects of being online. Nation-states have abused the platforms to push disinformation campaigns. An impossible sense of scale allows gore and porn and hate speech to slip by even the best efforts at content moderation. And children can be exposed to bullying, peer pressure, and harassment.

So, what would it take to make online connection a good thing?

Today, on the Lock and Code podcast with host David Ruiz, we speak with Rabble—an early architect of social media, Twitter’s first employee, and host of the podcast Revolution.Social—about what good remains inside social media and what steps are being taken to preserve it.

“ I don’t think that what we’re seeing with social media is so much a set of new things that are disasters that are rising up from this Pandora’s box… but rather they’re all things that existed in society and now they’re not all kept locked away. So we can see them and we have to address them now.”

Tune in today.