[yosito]

The thing I don't like about mainstream social networks is that they control not just what you say and what you see, but also how you say it and how you see it. Meta says we're all gonna share our thoughts and opinions via short texts posts on Instagram now, so that's what *we're gonna do.

Don't like it? Well, too bad, because that's how the app works now. Oh, and by the way, you can post whatever you want, unless the algorithms decide it's against the community standards, and even then, only the posts of upstanding digital citizens that promote the narrative they want will actually be shown to others.

And literally all of your online interactions are going through a few tech companies now. You don't have freedom of speech, expression or even thought, unless you comply with the Meta/Alphabet approved narrative.

*There is always the option to not participate if you prefer to sit in a closet with your Raspberry Pi.

[heresie-dabord]

> you can post whatever you want, unless the algorithms decide it's against the community standards

To the extent that social media is like a village (a medium-to-large number of people expressing themselves), there have always been community standards in any society.

> mainstream social networks

People who sufficiently resent aspects of broader society can find smaller groups. These smaller groups will themselves have community standards.

The expectation of unfettered freedom of speech is at best naive, especially when the things people say incite violence.

[yosito]

> there have always been community standards in any society.

When Meta says "community standards" they aren't actually community standards at all. Meta unilaterally decides what their "community standards" are. I've had posts about lighting a campfire for my family, and showing off vegetables from my garden flagged as "violating community standards". We're not even getting into sex, religion and politics, which I also believe are areas of life that we need to be able to have open conversations about in public forums, rather than having an unaccountable organization unilaterally decide for us what is right and wrong.

> The expectation of unfettered freedom of speech is at best naive, especially when the things people say incite violence.

Given the tendency for violence to be associated with calls for free speech, I understand how you could assume that I'm talking about speech that incites violence. But actually, I'm talking about much more innocuous things like talking about non-traditional relationship styles, alternative lifestyles, body positivity, open medical data, thought experiments and well thought out challenges to the status quo.

[falloutx]

I have become less and less concerned about freedom of speech since I have been on the internet. If an app wants to delete my posts, thats okay for me unless I am paying them. Governments in the past have had full control of the information flow, and I don't think that has changed. Whatever freedom of speech we had is now maligned by really annoying and vocal people. Internet just feels hostile. I spend most of my online time on Nintendo games now, they don't let me say more than 4 pre chosen cheers and I am perfectly fine with it.

[classified]

That's what you get for making yourself dependent on a megacorp's "free" service.