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Reddit's volunteer moderators have shared an open letter demanding the company ban subreddits dedicated to spreading COVID-19 misinformation. In response, Reddit co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman released the tech bro statement equivalent of a shrug emoji.

Posted Wednesday on subreddit r/vaxxhappened, the moderators' open letter calls Reddit out for allowing dangerous COVID-19 misinformation to thrive on its platform largely unchecked.

"It is clear that even after promising to tackle the problem of misinformation on this site, nothing of substance has been done aside from quarantining a medium sized subreddit, which barely reduces traffic and does little to stop misinformation," the post read (emphasis in the original).

Among the signatories are the moderators for subreddits r/aww, r/dataisbeautiful, r/EarthPorn, r/Futurology, r/lifeprotips, r/pics, r/showerthoughts, r/tifu, and r/UpliftingNews, all of which have over 10 million subscribers each.

Reputable health officials have continually stressed the importance of wearing a face mask amidst the coronavirus pandemic, as well as maintaining a safe distance from others and getting vaccinated as soon as possible. These are all scientifically proven strategies that literally save lives. Unfortunately, social networking platforms such as Reddit continue to host rhetoric rejecting such measures, allowing coronavirus misinformation to spread, multiply, and actively endanger people.

"The main problem with a concerted disinformation campaign is that such a message attains an air of legitimacy through sheer volume of repetition," read the moderators' letter. "There can be no room for leniency when people are dying as a result of misinformation on this platform. Reddit as a global platform needs to take responsibility here.

"We are calling on the admins to take ownership of their website, and remove dangerous medical disinformation that is endangering lives and contributing to the existence of this ongoing pandemic. Subreddits which exist solely to spread medical disinformation and undermine efforts to combat the global pandemic should be banned."

It's an understandable request. If people are spreading falsehoods that are proven to directly result in serious illness and death, and you could limit their reach, basic decency demands that you'd do everything in your power to do so.

So, of course, Reddit has shrugged and declared the whole thing not their problem, because self-regulation has worked out so well thus far.

"While we appreciate the sentiment of those demanding that we ban more communities that challenge consensus views on the pandemic, we continue to believe in the good of our communities and hope that we collectively approach the challenges of the pandemic with empathy, compassion, and a willingness to understand what others are going through, even when their viewpoint on the pandemic is different from yours," wrote the company's CEO Huffman in Reddit's r/announcements subreddit.

Apparently, as someone choosing to "continue to believe in the good of our communities," Huffman appears to have never used the internet.

Huffman blamed evolving CDC advice for Reddit's lacklustre policy, as though the contested content were just confusion-fuelled debates on what type of mask we should wear rather than rejection of masks altogether. He also stated that Reddit will take action against communities that violate the website's rules such as "encouraging harm (e.g. consuming bleach)," and offered the consolation that they'll continue quarantining subreddits.

Quarantined subreddits have warnings that they could contain misinformation, are excluded from search results, and don't appear in non-subscription feeds such as Reddit's Popular posts. But Reddit has already been doing that for months the whole point of the moderators' open letter is that it simply isn't enough.

Spreading anti-mask, anti-vaccination rhetoric actively encourages harm, especially considering COVID-19 is still killing thousands of people every day in the U.S. alone. But it seems Reddit believes this harm isn't serious enough to warrant harsher action.

Reddit's empty platitudes and clear abdication of responsibility are disappointing, but not all that surprising. After all, it's much easier to step back and pretend you and your $10 billion company have absolutely no culpability in the 625,000 people in the U.S. who have died from COVID-19 to date.

When reached by Mashable for comment, a Reddit spokesperson reiterated that its self-regulation policy is a good thing, actually.

"Reddit is a place for open and authentic discussion and debate," said the spokesperson. "This includes conversations that question or disagree with popular consensus. We provide users with authoritative resources when viewing communities that may warrant additional scrutiny, and continue to action content and users that violate our policies.

"Throughout the pandemic, we have also provided COVID-related resources to support our volunteer moderators, users, and communities, including a dedicated AMA series connecting users with authoritative experts on coronavirus and vaccines, as well as deploying homepage and search page banners directing users to the CDC and r/Coronavirus."

Reddit declined to answer whether it considers anti-mask and anti-vaccine rhetoric amidst a deadly pandemic to be encouraging harm. On an entirely unrelated note, I'm starting a subreddit dedicated to telling people seatbelts and speed limits are a violation of their civil liberties, because apparently I can.

UPDATE: Aug. 26, 2021, 11:27 p.m. AEST This article has been updated to include Reddit's statement.

See the original post here:
Reddit rejects moderators' call for harsher measures against COVID-19 misinformation - Mashable

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The rest is here:
Ajith's 'Valimai' to Vijay's 'Master': Check out the most-tweeted hashtags of 2021 in India - The New Indian Express

Published on August 11, 2021

~Redefines the consumer experience by ensuring no ads on the app

~ Crafts an interesting Direct to consumer experience by empowering the creator community with the freedom to choose their content formats at no extra commissions

Bangalore: Bangalore-based Multi-Verse Technologies Pvt Ltd., has launched MYn, an indigenous application that is geared to reimagine the current/ contemporary social media landscape. MYn is a committed endeavour to elevate a consumers social media experience. Consumers can now discover, create, connect and communicate on a secure end-to-end encrypted system. Further, the app commits to create a no advertisement environment reinvigorating the social media experience with irrelevant interruption. The app has been founded with the philosophy of enabling decentralized one to one conversations/ communication sans the share of vital personal information thereby ensuring/ establishing personal privacy remains at the heart of the development. Promising digital safety, the company has also put into action a 247 content & application monitoring and incident response team, one which has already effectively and efficiently protected many organizations in India.

The contemporary social media milieu offers a singular/ undifferentiated social networking experience. It fails to recognize that each consumer conversation/ interactions are unique to the social environment they operate in. Eg: Conversations in the personal & professional space need to be addressed on differentiated systems. MYn app thus enables multiple segregated personas in one social media application. The application enables alliances of like-minded users across various select personas created to ensure complete user control over information shared, managed from one primary account.

The Persona feature (patent pending) is unique to MYn app as it helps citizens to create multiple profiles under one authenticated user. Each persona allows consumers to create as well as personalize content and communication relevant to these specific groups, like a Public persona for general use, multiple Personal personas for friends and family, Work persona for professional peers. The Live-Local feature, a geo-local profile aspires to engage and collaborate with local businesses and stores. The savvy UI is easy to use and supports seamless, secure data sharing within personas with in-app integrations of multi-media support that include video and voice data.

To further strengthen the social media experience in the country, MYn endeavours to empower the social content creating community. MYn will engage and enable the content creating community by providing them with a no commission system allowing them to post their content as per the format of their choice. The app aspires to provide a direct to consumer approach benefitting the content creator by enabling them to own their content in its entirety and also the commercials/ revenue attached to the content.

Speaking on its launch, Mr. A.S. Rajgopal, Founder & Managing Director Multi-Verse Technologies said, The social media environment of the country has dampened over the time due to various significant vectors like irrelevant information, barrage of advertisements and unappealing content which has limited appeal. With MYn, we present to the country a refreshing opportunity to socialize and network in a cohesive manner while maintaining complete data privacy. We look forward to an encouraging consumer response by promising, creating and providing a non -intrusive space for social interactions & content creation, online.

MYn App is available for download on App Store and Google Play and also offers a secure, internal communication and collaboration system for enterprises and businesses.

Read more:
MYn App launched in India to disrupt the future of social networking - APN News

Nearly half of all countries that have restricted social media access since 2015 are African, making the continent the least tolerant of social media globally, a new tracker says.

Thirty African countries have restricted social media access in this period, out of a total of 66 globally, according to the cybersecurity company Surfshark, which describes Africa as a volatile environment for social media.

Surfshark analyzed social media restrictions in 180 countries from 2015. It collected data through open-source information from Freedom House, which is a nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy on democracy, political freedom, and human rights; Netblocks, which is a watchdog organization that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance; and news reports.

The tracker considers social media as social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, and communication apps including Skype, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Viber.

Social media restriction is one tool that African governments use to stop dissent, with another being complete internet shutdowns. They typically do these during elections and protests.

The practice of limiting social media access is usually the product of anti-democraticgovernments seeking to suppress citizens freedom, the tracker says.

The results are far-reaching, as these actions conceal human rights violations, restrict access to information and negatively impact businesses.

According to the Surfshark tracker, at least 16 African countries have restricted social media access in the past due to elections and at least seven have done so due to protests and demonstrations.

This year alone, at least four African countriesUganda, Senegal, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congohave restricted social media access.

Globally, about one third of countries have restricted social media since 2015. The tracker notes that restriction of social media access is particularly prevalent in countries where state authorities own or control the internet infrastructure.

Sign up to the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief here for news and analysis on African business, tech, and innovation in your inbox.

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African countries that have restricted social media access - Quartz Africa

It's no secret that I've been in love with social media since its very early days. As far back as 2012, I was called one of the most "social CEOs" in the country.

Back then, being a social CEO meant that you used Twitter and Facebook to communicate with Zillow's employees, users and advertisers. I loved how social media made me accessible to a variety of constituencies and it helped me scale.

To this day, I have three screens on my desk, and one is dedicated to social media.

I'm probably a Twitterphile for life, but I don't use social media the way I did in 2012. Nobody does. Facebook and Instagram boast over 3 billion monthly average users (MAUs) combined. Social media has essentially become the web.

But as these horizontal platforms continue to broaden and amass more users, the harder it becomes to discover or strengthen an authentic human-to-human connection. Oftentimes, the content shared is a curated highlight reel of picture-perfect moments, or your platforms become an algorithmic echo chamber with little room for varied discourse.

Thankfully, these broad-based platforms can be used to amplify concerning world issues and important activism. But when logging onto Instagram becomes more anxiety-inducing than enjoyable (especially for the always-connected Generation Z), users are apt to either log off or look elsewhere for a digital reprieve.

Enter the unbundling of social media. I don't believe Twitter and Instagram are in danger of imminently losing large portions of users, but evidence points to many people finding that human-to-human connection on social media platforms that are dedicated to shared interests.

Commonly, a user's connections on horizontal platforms span a wide range of interests. Work friends are combined with workout buddies, closest-knit friend groups with casual acquaintances, and so on. The fragmentation of these groups into category-specific, or vertical platforms feels natural and, in some cases, necessary.

Category-specific platforms are nothing new. LinkedIn, the largest platform for career and professional networking, officially launched in 2003. As of 2020 - it boasted 722 million MAUs. LinkedIn is the place to connect with people interested in your area of work and to manage your career.

These networks have become even more niche over the years.

Strava, founded in 2009, now has 70 million cycling and running enthusiasts on the platform and continues to grow each month. Fishbrain, founded in 2010, now connects over 5 million fishermen and women all over the world.

Doximity was also founded in 2010 for doctors and medical professionals and as of 2018, over 70% of all U.S doctors were on the platform. (Doximity also recently went public - currently trading at a market cap over $10b. So there's clearly incentive to tap into these unbundled audiences.)

The options are endless. Food, fashion, finance, hiking, biking, sports, business, gaming, books, movies, travel, gambling...there could be a vertical social media platform for everyone.

One major advantage of vertical platforms is the ability to build specific feature sets for the audience. Users of AllTrails, for example, can access a massive database of location-based maps and routes for hiking and outdoor activities.

These maps are crowdsourced, reviewed, and vetted by other enthusiasts - and are a feature you would never find on a broad platform like Instagram.

Vertical networks also provide a safe space for these shared interest communities, allowing users to post and engage without the self-imposed curated confines of broader platforms.

Posting every accomplished (or failed) run on my Facebook seems odd - but on Strava, it is natural.

Another advantage: users are likely to strengthen authentic connections within these shared interest platforms: finding support, encouragement, celebration, and solidarity.

At 75 & Sunny, we're currently incubating and investing in new platforms based on this vertical social thesis. Squad, for example, is a new way to connect with only your closest friends. Squad encourages authentic communication through a combination of audio technology and habit-creating notifications.

We're also excited about Path, which provides travel recommendations from your trusted friends - and also a new stealth company dedicated to helping you decide what to stream and watch next.

Last month, 75 & Sunny Labs officially launched Recon Food, a food-centric vertical platform. Recon Food is an online community that is entirely devoted to food and drink lovers. It was co-founded by my daughter Sophia and me as a result of all the time we spent together cooking and ordering new foods during quarantine.

Whether it's a homemade masterpiece (or mishap), or a chef-driven night out, Recon Food provides the digital platform to share these experiences, reconnect, and bond over our shared love of food. It also gives a welcome escape from the social media burnout experienced on horizontal platforms.

It is fascinating to follow this unbundling of social media. I look forward to welcoming the next crop of vertical platform innovators and social media disruptors.

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Originally posted here:
Column: Welcome to the Unbundling of Social Media - dot.LA