In 2023, Twitter will diminish in relevance.
In response, news organizations and journalists will learn to stop asking, “What is the new Twitter?” and start running spaces of their own that provide safety and value without being vulnerable to the whims of unhinged billionaires.
That doesn’t mean that each org will have to run its own Twitter, because these spaces will connect to a wider ecosystem and be enabled by new aggregation apps that emerge in 2023.
This new type of app isn’t a platform itself but instead pulls together various platform and content streams to offer a single, seamless networked experience. It’s more like a podcast app or SMS or an email inbox — that is, compatible with certain content types published by multiple sources, instead of providing a single, walled-garden experience.
The technology underpinning these apps will be protocols — RSS, ActivityPub, and others, along with APIs and webhooks — allowing disparate communities and platforms to publish side by side in one place. This is how we get network effects while offering real choice in community, publishing tools, moderation, and filters.
Let me give you an example of how this will work. Imagine an app — let’s call it Chirper. It’s one of many that launch in 2023.
Chirper users connect the different accounts they have in various communities, just as you might connect your bank to Paypal. And it provides each of the core benefits of Twitter in very different ways.
Once you’re using Chirper, you can:
Most importantly, Chirper is not a single monopolistic space run by a thin-skinned, VC-backed CEO who takes all of our data in exchange for begrudgingly speed-learning moderation principles on the cheap, yet again leaving marginalized people to be abused on their platform.
In the Chirper world, there is still a need for human-based moderation on a platform/community level, but this doesn’t need to scale in the ways that single platforms do.
Chirper isn’t just a pipe dream. Tweetbot creator Tapbots is already working on an app called Ivory to turn Mastodon into a simpler, Twitter-like experience. European lawmakers may also use the implosion of Twitter to put pressure on platforms to adopt open protocols.
We have to face the truth: We cannot trust closed platforms to keep us safe, protect our data, or act in the best interests of journalism. The economics of Silicon Valley just don’t work that way. We need to see beyond single platforms to an ecosystem of spaces, some of which we can build and control, and then we can decide when and how the benefits of network effects outweigh the drawbacks.
In 2023, journalism starts to realize that the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter. Instead, we can go beyond the current restrictions to tear down the fences and turn these walled gardens into a park.
Andrew Losowsky is the head of community product at Vox Media.
In 2023, Twitter will diminish in relevance.
In response, news organizations and journalists will learn to stop asking, “What is the new Twitter?” and start running spaces of their own that provide safety and value without being vulnerable to the whims of unhinged billionaires.
That doesn’t mean that each org will have to run its own Twitter, because these spaces will connect to a wider ecosystem and be enabled by new aggregation apps that emerge in 2023.
This new type of app isn’t a platform itself but instead pulls together various platform and content streams to offer a single, seamless networked experience. It’s more like a podcast app or SMS or an email inbox — that is, compatible with certain content types published by multiple sources, instead of providing a single, walled-garden experience.
The technology underpinning these apps will be protocols — RSS, ActivityPub, and others, along with APIs and webhooks — allowing disparate communities and platforms to publish side by side in one place. This is how we get network effects while offering real choice in community, publishing tools, moderation, and filters.
Let me give you an example of how this will work. Imagine an app — let’s call it Chirper. It’s one of many that launch in 2023.
Chirper users connect the different accounts they have in various communities, just as you might connect your bank to Paypal. And it provides each of the core benefits of Twitter in very different ways.
Once you’re using Chirper, you can:
Most importantly, Chirper is not a single monopolistic space run by a thin-skinned, VC-backed CEO who takes all of our data in exchange for begrudgingly speed-learning moderation principles on the cheap, yet again leaving marginalized people to be abused on their platform.
In the Chirper world, there is still a need for human-based moderation on a platform/community level, but this doesn’t need to scale in the ways that single platforms do.
Chirper isn’t just a pipe dream. Tweetbot creator Tapbots is already working on an app called Ivory to turn Mastodon into a simpler, Twitter-like experience. European lawmakers may also use the implosion of Twitter to put pressure on platforms to adopt open protocols.
We have to face the truth: We cannot trust closed platforms to keep us safe, protect our data, or act in the best interests of journalism. The economics of Silicon Valley just don’t work that way. We need to see beyond single platforms to an ecosystem of spaces, some of which we can build and control, and then we can decide when and how the benefits of network effects outweigh the drawbacks.
In 2023, journalism starts to realize that the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter. Instead, we can go beyond the current restrictions to tear down the fences and turn these walled gardens into a park.
Andrew Losowsky is the head of community product at Vox Media.
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