The internet has been transformed by social media, and the many platforms are now critical to how we communicate online. The Verge keeps a close eye on everything that’s happening in the social media landscape, covering key players like Meta, X, and TikTok, reporting on new features, following cultural moments, and breaking down the policies that shape how the platforms work.
Erin Kissane’s take on “the dark forest” idea of the internet suggests that context collapse is what makes the internet deranging. So how do you build a network where people matter?
[wreckage/salvage]
So this is NSFW because it’s just gonna holler profanity at you, but if that’s what you’ve wanted — well, Bluesky is the kind of platform that lets you build it.
This seems very useful!
CEO Jay Graber, who was on Decoder earlier this year, marked the occasion with a thread of 20 fun facts, like this one:
Couldn’t get enough of Trust & Safety Tycoon? Cocreator and Bluesky board member Mike Masnick is crowdfunding a card game, inspired by Touring, about growing a social network while running your competition into the ground. It’s called One Billion Users, and if I ever end up playing, I’m totally nabbing the “Hellsite” card.
The platform may not be seeing Bluesky and Threads numbers, but the lines are also going up for Mastodon right now, according to Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko.
Pew Research Center released a report on news influencers who people are increasingly getting their information from.
The report couldn’t have come at a better time, following an election where the role of influencers and podcasters was especially notable. Of today’s news influencers:
- 77 percent have no background with news orgs
- 65 percent are men
- More identify as Republican or conservative than Democratic or liberal
- Far more have a presence on X than on any other platform
[Pew Research Center]
