Fixing Social Media

Social media wasn’t always so bad. It didn’t use to collect so much information. It didn’t use to feed us content we didn’t ask for in an attempt to maintain our attention. Doom scrolling, virtue signaling, algorithmic feeds and misinformation bots are not natural extensions of social media. So what went wrong? And better yet, how can we fix it? Today I’ll discuss all of these topics and more with Suzie Dawson, the founder of Panquake.com. She’s on a mission to solve all of these problems and restore the promise of social media to be a positive force for society and serve the users, not corporations or governments. Interview Notes Panquake: https://panquake.com/ A Personal Message from our Founder (Suzie): https://vimeo.com/770524936  What is Panquake? https://vimeo.com/503223746  The Social Dilemma (documentary): https://www.thesocialdilemma.com/  Mastodon: https://joinmastodon.org/  Fediverse: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/11/fediverse-could-be-awesome-if-we-dont-screw-it  Microsoft’s Decentralized Identity: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/verifiable-credentials/decentralized-identifier-overview Further Info Get your Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons Merch! https://fdsd.me/merch  Send me your questions! https://fdsd.me/qna  Support me! https://fdsd.me/support  Subscribe to the newsletter: https://fdsd.me/newsletter  Check out my book, Firewalls Don’t Stop Dragons: https://fdsd.me/book  Would you like me to speak to your group about security and/or privacy? https://fdsd.me/speakerrequest  Generate secure passphrases! https://d20key.com/#/  Table of Contents Use these timestamps to jump to a particular section of the show. 0:02:18: interview preview 0:05:24: What is Panquake.com and why did you create it? 0:06:25: When and why did social media platforms go wrong? 0:07:55: Why is our relationship with Big Tech such an abusive one? 0:10:09: Are algorithmic feeds inherently bad or just exposing human nature? 0:15:25: How does Facebook learn so much about us? 0:16:24: Without algorithmic feeds, how do I discover new content? 0:17:51: How do you convince people to pay for their social media platform? 0:21:27: What other things do people hate about modern social media platforms? 0:25:53: What does it mean to be ‘shadow banned’? 0:27:32: How can we stop malicious bot behavior? 0:30:39: What’s the best way to implement account verification? 0:34:59: How do we spark a backwards paradigm shift? 0:36:44: What is the role of social media platforms in moderating content? 0:40:00: How does moderation vary globally? 0:41:23: Is TikTok more dangerous to society than Twitter or Facebook? 0:47:21: What is the “Fediverse” and how does it work? 0:53:40: How important is data portability or ownership? 0:58:34: What’s next for Panquake? 1:03:19: Suzie asks ME a question! 1:04:56: Interview wrap-up 1:05:41: patron bonus content and benefits 1:06:43: Swag Shop is OPEN! 1:08:43: Upcoming interviews