Our Social News Feed

What made original Twitter great. There were no ads or algorithms and the people most interested in the public conversation were using it. Journalists, politicians, celebrities. But also nobody bloggers whose writing went viral based solely on human retweets. Everybody had an equal shot, only dependent on the number of people we could convince to follow us. It was very egalitarian. Some still call it microblogging, but it was really a collectively curated news feed. Lots of links out. You saw a limited part based on who you followed, but our networks overlapped and you'd most likely eventually see what was really popular.

This is the democratic attention machine that a decentralized social media network used by everyone makes possible. No wealthy owners or corporations getting to have final say over what gets boosted or shadowbanned or hard to find via search. No way to buy eyeballs via advertising. A norm of balanced moderation to prevent harassment but also maximize access to all. That's the promise of the fediverse or #SocialWeb.