Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community
I want to endorse the argument presented by Ian Delaney in this post, with one caveat: it is descriptive of social media as it currently exists. He observes, "where is transgression in social media? It is simply not allowed to exist in many cases... Minority views are excluded by the machine - only the recommended and personalised is allowed through. The stuff that dulls and comforts the political imagination." If you don't believe this, go read Boing Boing, Gawker or Kottke for a while and report back. So - crucially - the liberal democracy model of social media is flawed. What we need, want and must have is something more like the community of communities model referenced the other day - a model where dark recesses of cabals and dissent can exist. And it also requires an attitude where people are encouraged to investigate and explore these recesses for themselves, rather than to sit passively like a television audience waiting for reality to be streamed into the home.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Mar 29, 2024 11:34 a.m.

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