How to Build (and Destroy) a Social Network [Content Made Simple]
Issue #310: RIP metaverse, AI coverage, and more.
TOP OF THE WEEK
How to Build (And Destroy) a Social Network
Quote:
It’s hard not to see Bluesky and its recent evolution as an opposition movement to Musk’s version of Twitter. The platform revolves around replicating the joy of Twitter’s early days: the informality, the in-jokes, the feeling of familiarity, and an overall lack of toxic users. My timeline is chaotic, but earnestness abounds. The decisions about content-moderation issues such as blocking and banning are happening in real time and, for now, are driven by the values of the community. At present, those values seem to be to build the polar opposite of whatever it is Musk has turned Twitter into. At its small size, it’s a lovely place—one user described it as a poster’s “Valhalla.”
Commentary:
Interesting reflections on Twitter and its new competitor Bluesky from Charlie.
THE TRIVIA QUESTION
Mother’s Day was first celebrated in America in what year?
Answer at the bottom.
HITTING THE LINKS
Link #1: Meta is making life even harder for its metaverse creators
RIP the metaverse. We hardly knew ye. :D
Meta is positioning the change as the shutdown of a feature that doesn’t meet its standards. “As we’ve refocused our development in Worlds toward improving the overall quality of the platform, we’ve taken time to also revisit some legacy features that aren’t quite living up to our renewed quality standards,” Meta wrote in its v109 update notes. “As part of this effort, we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the event creation tool in Worlds.”
Link #2: Why I'm having trouble covering AI
This is helpful reflection from Casey.
All of this is on my mind lately for a couple reasons. One is that I recently spent some time talking with AI safety researchers who I thought made a convincing case that, no matter how much time executives and regulators spend warning us about the risks here, the average person still probably hasn’t grappled with them enough. These folks believe we essentially need to shut down AI development for a long while, invest way more money into safety research, and prevent further commercial development until we’ve developed a strategy to avoid the worst outcomes.
Link #3: LinkedIn Posting Best Practices for 2023 [Infographic]
Interesting stuff if you care about LinkedIn!
THE FUNNY PART
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Trivia Answer: 1907—in a Methodist church in West Virginia.