Please note your nearest exit

In a song from the 1979 Talking Heads album Fear of Music, the singer idealises heaven as a bar where ‘nothing ever happens’. It’s an interesting metaphor, a place where the band play your favourite song all night long. Not only is everybody perfectly synchronised, but the party repeats in perpetuity. However, there is something slightly disconcerting about this idyllic portrayal.

When this kiss is over
it will start again
It will not be any different
it will be exactly the same
It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all
Could be so exciting
could be this much fun

Heaven by David Byrne and Jerry Harrison

Hell has been described in similar terms. In Black Mirror’s White Bear, the protagonist is forced to re-experience daily punishment and forced amnesia for the crime of killing a child with her partner. This hellish idea and the previous depiction of heaven share a common basis: both are psychological effects caused by infinitely repeated human experiences. The former is presumably meant to be joyful (although I doubt it) and the latter obviously tortuous. For me, the quote that best encapsulates mental anguish is ‘hell is other people’, from the play No Exit by Jean-Paul Satre, in which three people are locked together in a room for all eternity as punishment for their transgressions. Eschewing red-hot pokers and brimstone, the author identifies the real source of torment as our relationships with those we share our existence with, the Other.

Hot takes and cold comfort

The social media landscape is currently experiencing an unprecedented upheaval. Two of the most important networks, Twitter and Meta, are in turmoil. I was never a Facebook user. Even though I created an account back in the day, I never used it. I viewed Twitter as a news aggregator for 10 years before posting. In that time I have never given much thought to my lack of engagement. It was (at least at the beginning) because I felt uncomfortable having an open conversation with a sibling, friend or co-worker in a public platform with no privacy. I admit I’m still nonplussed how some people seem completely at ease with sharing intimate details about their lives, and those of their families and friends, with random strangers on the internet.

As these platforms evolved, posters could use hashtags to self-assemble into distinct identities based on gender identity, profession or just about any type of niche personal preference. Regular denouncements of ‘the other’, whether they be the wrong gender, the wrong skin-colour or the wrong religion, have become the raison d’être of many posters, wholly consumed in their passion to extinguish any wrong-thinking. Protected by armies of followers, these truth-warriors are empowered to vanquish their opponents with impunity. No evidence is required for a guilty charge in the court of public opinion, fuelled by unquestioning self-belief, unencumbered by alternative views or introspection.

This polarisation, and the outrage economy it feeds, amplifies unrealistic caricatures that are not representative of society in general. It is intended to stoke divisions, not heal them. It also drowns out valid concerns about racism, sexism and impartiality. It extinguishes debate about important social topics. Far from democratising the internet, it has siloed communities and weaponised attacks by extremists. Tim Berners-Lee’s original idea for the web was a read-write function, in which the truth would emerge from a multitude of inputs from various contributors. This quaint idea was not borne out, with the possible exception of some technical sites. The web really struggles with collaboration, open debate and free speech. The lack of an edit feature in Twitter is an end point of this logic. The post’s author is unable to revisit or refine their arguments. Nonetheless, posts and screenshots of posts can be shared as evidence of wrongdoing due to the ease in which they can be faked or reproduced out of context. Unfortunately, no sector of society is immune to mud-slinging on the internet these days, mainstream or marginalised.

However, there are cracks appearing in the status quo. Zuckerberg seems oblivious to people’s complete lack of interest in virtual living (at least at present) and the likelihood is his empire is failing. Elon Musk’s shine has been tarnished by his support of clearly deranged right-wing troublemakers since acquiring Twitter. However, the average user may only be vaguely aware of these issues. I don’t think that Twitter is dead, not yet anyway, but it has lost it’s ‘town square’ feel, despite never really deserving that accolade. Twitter’s troubles are nonetheless opening up much needed discussion on free speech and the moderation of hate-mongers.

You’ve got to federate

The fediverse is a series of linked servers for web publishing. It’s different to monolithic platforms like Twitter, Meta and Instagram in that it is not owned by a single entity and exists in a distributed form based on the ActivityPub protocol. It’s only confusing in the context of the infantilisation of users and sophisticated manipulation by tech companies in recent years. The fediverse was largely brought into being by marginalised, left-wing folk with the requisite computer skills, as a refuge from discrimination on mainstream platforms.

The biggest issue at the beginning were challenges around user adoption and engagement, the same for any new network. However, the integration of hordes of Twitter leavers presents a new and perhaps greater challenge. The left-leaning fediverse must now accommodate those with different political views and interests. Whether or not the federated aspect will facilitate or hamper integration remains to be seen. The Irish instance mastodon.ie experienced a huge rise in users in the last month or so. Many users comment on the respectful interchanges there, in contrast to the typically fiery ones on Twitter (dubbed ‘bird site’ on Mastodon). Notwithstanding the abandonment of the instance by at least one high profile member due to the alleged mistreatment of fellow users, the atmosphere is thus far mostly convivial. (I pay a small recurring donation and would encourage other users to do the same to support their chosen instance).

Mastodon has many useful features allowing the user to curate their timeline, which is split into posts by followers, the local instance e.g. mastodon.ie, and the federated stream (all timelines). It is possible to filter your timelines to remove unwanted content (terms and hashtags) and posts can include content warnings to avoid ‘triggering’ readers, although this feature is not consistently applied and is seen as controversial. New users are flooding into Mastodon and other fediverse instances, some viewing it as a gold-rush or a land grab. Many are positive about the potential for civilised participation, for example Marcus Hutchins and Jeff Jarvis, although it’s probably too early to say for sure.

The curation features of Mastodon and the approach of each instance’s moderators will be key to the continued success of the platform. Ideally these features would not be needed, but that’s just plain unrealistic. I think Mastodon’s rapid expansion will eventually bring the type of confrontations associated with mainstream social media. Perhaps the distributed nature of the fediverse will protect against the worst of these effects. It’s important to accept that all platforms will experience some problems.

In No Exit Joseph Garcin repeatedly attempts to leave the room in which he is incarcerated with two others. He is surprised to find the door is unlocked during one desperate attempt. Nevertheless, he is forced to acknowledge his demons and accept his fate. In the end, he decides to stay.

Eh bien, continuons…