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.
Kathy Lu We need emotionally agile newsroom leaders
Kaitlin C. Miller Harassment in journalism won’t get better, but we’ll talk about it more openly
Priyanjana Bengani Partisan local news networks will collaborate
Sarah Alvarez Dream bigger or lose out
Khushbu Shah Global reporting will suffer
Paul Cheung More news organizations will realize they are in the business of impact, not eyeballs
Eric Nuzum A focus on people instead of power
Eric Thurm Journalists think of themselves as workers
Nicholas Diakopoulos Journalists productively harness generative AI tools
Moreno Cruz Osório Brazilian journalism turns wounds into action
Laxmi Parthasarathy Unlocking the silent demand for international journalism
Janelle Salanga Journalists work from a place of harm reduction
Jarrad Henderson Video editing will help people understand the media they consume
Cassandra Etienne Local news fellowships will help fight newsroom inequities
Cindy Royal Yes, journalists should learn to code, but…
Laura E. Davis The year we embrace the robots — and ourselves
Julia Beizer News fatigue shows us a clear path forward
Pia Frey Publishers start polling their users at scale
Dannagal G. Young Stop rewarding elite performances of identity threat
Shanté Cosme The answer to “quiet quitting” is radical empathy
Lisa Heyamoto The independent news industry gets a roadmap to sustainability
Molly de Aguiar and Mandy Van Deven Narrative change trend brings new money to journalism
Cory Bergman The AI content flood
Joshua P. Darr Local to live, wire to wither
Nicholas Thompson The year AI actually changes the media business
Daniel Trielli Trust in news will continue to fall. Just look at Brazil.
Eric Ulken Generative AI brings wrongness at scale
Nikki Usher This is the year of the RSS reader. (Really!)
Jim VandeHei There is no “peak newsletter”
Simon Galperin Philanthropy stops investing in corporate media
Gina Chua The traditional story structure gets deconstructed
Elite Truong In platform collapse, an opportunity for community
Jesse Holcomb Buffeted, whipped, bullied, pulled
Mario García More newsrooms go mobile-first
Ayala Panievsky It’s time for PR for journalism
Parker Molloy We’ll reach new heights of moral panic
Basile Simon Towards supporting criminal accountability
Errin Haines Journalists on the campaign trail mend trust with the public
Mary Walter-Brown and Tristan Loper Mission-driven metrics become our North Star
Sam Guzik AI will start fact-checking. We may not like the results.
Upasna Gautam Technology that performs at the speed of news
Jim Friedlich Local journalism steps up to the challenge of civic coverage
Bill Adair The year of the fact-check (no, really!)
Doris Truong Workers demand to be paid what the job is worth
David Cohn AI made this prediction
Burt Herman The year AI truly arrives — and with it the reckoning
Cari Nazeer and Emily Goligoski News organizations step up their support for caregivers
Susan Chira Equipping local journalism
Danielle K. Brown and Kathleen Searles DEI efforts must consider mental health and online abuse
Jaden Amos TikTok personality journalists continue to rise
Mariana Moura Santos A woman who speaks is a woman who changes the world
Raney Aronson-Rath Journalists will band together to fight intimidation
Tre'vell Anderson Continued culpability in anti-trans campaigns
John Davidow A year of intergenerational learning
Don Day The news about the news is bad. I’m optimistic.
Julia Angwin Democracies will get serious about saving journalism
Jessica Maddox Journalists keep getting manipulated by internet culture
Bill Grueskin Local news will come to rely on AI
Taylor Lorenz The “creator economy” will be astroturfed
Snigdha Sur Newsrooms get nimble in a recession
Sumi Aggarwal Smart newsrooms will prioritize board development
Jennifer Choi and Jonathan Jackson Funders finally bet on next-generation news entrepreneurs
Kerri Hoffman Podcasting goes local
Anna Nirmala News organizations get new structures
Felicitas Carrique and Becca Aaronson News product goes from trend to standard
Andrew Losowsky Journalism realizes the replacement for Twitter is not a new Twitter
Leezel Tanglao Community partnerships drive better reporting
Peter Sterne AI enters the newsroom
Joe Amditis AI throws a lifeline to local publishers
Jessica Clark Open discourse retrenches
Josh Schwartz The AI spammers are coming
J. Siguru Wahutu American journalism reckons with its colonialist tendencies
Anita Varma Journalism prioritizes the basic need for survival
Sue Schardt Toward a new poetics of journalism
Kaitlyn Wells We’ll prioritize media literacy for children
Delano Massey The industry shakes its imposter syndrome
Sue Robinson Engagement journalism will have to confront a tougher reality
Emma Carew Grovum The year to resist forgetting about diversity
Brian Stelter Finding new ways to reach news avoiders
Gordon Crovitz The year advertisers stop funding misinformation
Esther Kezia Thorpe Subscription pressures force product innovation
Al Lucca Digital news design gets interesting again
Jennifer Brandel AI couldn’t care less. Journalists will care more.
Richard Tofel The press might get better at vetting presidential candidates
Matt Rasnic More newsroom workers turn to organized labor
Ben Werdmuller The internet is up for grabs again
Victor Pickard The year journalism and capitalism finally divorce
Hillary Frey Death to the labor-intensive memo for prospective hires
Walter Frick Journalists wake up to the power of prediction markets
Jonas Kaiser Rejecting the “free speech” frame
Karina Montoya More reporters on the antitrust beat
Gabe Schneider Well-funded journalism leaders stop making disparate pay
Valérie Bélair-Gagnon Well-being will become a core tenet of journalism
Dana Lacey Tech will screw publishers over
Christina Shih Shared values move from nice-to-haves to essentials
Elizabeth Bramson-Boudreau More of the same
Andrew Donohue We’ll find out whether journalism can, indeed, save democracy
S. Mitra Kalita “Everything sucks. Good luck to you.”
Mar Cabra The inevitable mental health revolution
Mauricio Cabrera It’s no longer about audiences, it’s about communities
Janet Haven ChatGPT and the future of trust
Wilson Liévano Diaspora journalism takes the next step
Ryan Gantz “I’m sorry, but I’m a large language model”
Nicholas Jackson There will be launches — and we’ll keep doing the work
Amethyst J. Davis The slight of the great contraction
Michael Schudson Journalism gets more and more difficult
An Xiao Mina Journalism in a time of permacrisis
Jacob L. Nelson Despite it all, people will still want to be journalists
Jenna Weiss-Berman The economic downturn benefits the podcasting industry. (No, really!)
Tamar Charney Flux is the new stability
Stefanie Murray The year U.S. media stops screwing around and becomes pro-democracy
Dominic-Madori Davis Everyone finally realizes the need for diverse voices in tech reporting
Francesco Zaffarano There is no end of “social media”
Rachel Glickhouse Humanizing newsrooms will be a badge of honor
David Skok Renewed interest in human-powered reporting
Sam Gregory Synthetic media forces us to understand how media gets made
Emily Nonko Incarcerated reporters get more bylines
Surya Mattu Data journalists learn from photojournalists
Ariel Zirulnick Journalism doubles down on user needs
Ryan Nave Citizen journalism, but make it equitable
Ryan Kellett Airline-like loyalty programs try to tie down news readers
Christoph Mergerson The rot at the core of the news business
Kirstin McCudden We’ll codify protection of journalism and newsgathering
Larry Ryckman We’ll work together with our competitors
Megan Lucero and Shirish Kulkarni The future of journalism is not you
Alexandra Svokos Working harder to reach audiences where they are
Brian Moritz Rebuilding the news bundle
Eric Holthaus As social media fragments, marginalized voices gain more power
Ståle Grut Your newsroom experiences a Midjourney-gate, too
Tim Carmody Newsletter writers need a new ethics
Anthony Nadler Confronting media gerrymandering
Michael W. Wagner The backlash against pro-democracy reporting is coming
Peter Bale Rising costs force more digital innovation
Johannes Klingebiel The innovation team, R.I.P.
Barbara Raab More journalism funders will take more risks
Sarah Stonbely Growth in public funding for news and information at the state and local levels
Amy Schmitz Weiss Journalism education faces a crossroads
Martina Efeyini Talk to Gen Z. They’re the experts of Gen Z.
Masuma Ahuja Journalism starts working for and with its communities
Sue Cross Thinking and acting collectively to save the news
Alan Henry A reckoning with why trust in news is so low
Joni Deutsch Podcast collaboration — not competition — breeds excellence
Jody Brannon We’ll embrace policy remedies
Jakob Moll Journalism startups will think beyond English
Alexandra Borchardt The year of the climate journalism strategy
Alex Perry New paths to transparency without Twitter
Sarabeth Berman Nonprofit local news shows that it can scale
Anika Anand Independent news businesses lead the way on healthy work cultures
Juleyka Lantigua Newsrooms recognize women of color as the canaries in the coal mine
A.J. Bauer Covering the right wrong
Sarah Marshall A web channel strategy won’t be enough
Alex Sujong Laughlin Credit where it’s due
Mael Vallejo More threats to press freedom across the Americas
Rodney Gibbs Recalibrating how we work apart
Kavya Sukumar Belling the cat: The rise of independent fact-checking at scale