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The Digitally Native Podcast - The Future of Social Media in Africa

Discussing Social Media Futures at the Internet Governance Forum in Japan

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5UcLAVj8kzRoXogyRtQgBd?si=IhoyDf68SpuZTR1WK_CC5g

Listen to this episode from The Digitally Native Podcast with Fungai Machirori on Spotify. Earlier this month, I moderated a session at the Internet Governance Forum - held in Kyoto, Japan - on African social media futures. My session panelists were Juilet Nanfuka who works with the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) and Tigist Shewarega of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC). We covered a lot of interesting ground around social media use on the continent and policy implications thereof.

Discussing Social Media Futures at the Internet Governance Forum in Japan

I know it's on Spotify, but it's very interesting. The podcast discusses the challenges and considerations related to the adoption of alternative social media platforms compared to mainstream ones. It mentions that digital literacy, market-driven trends, and network effects play a significant role in users' choices. There's a question about whether to work within mainstream platforms for community empowerment or integrate with alternative platforms like Mastodon. The key to empowering local communities lies in increasing digital literacy and creating tools that address their specific needs.

The debate within the federated social network community is about whether it complements or contrasts traditional social media, with a preference for human relationships over automated mechanisms.

I'm very interested in learning more about Fediverse in Africa. Reply to the post or DM me

2 comments

beatensoup

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Finally got round to listening to this episode.

in the opening minutes, there is a participant (I think called juliet) who remarked "[internet rights community from Africa] could not survive in the fediverse" and there are multiple problems with the fediverse like its unmeasurable nature. There was also another argument made around "virtual signalling" for people who announced their exit from Twitter and then quietly went back to the same place. There was also another argument around African research not being cited in key policy engagement yet non-African research is seen to give "gravitas" to the issues.

My reflection about it is there is a subtle misunderstanding between what fediverse is supposed to be as an alternative to centralized options like Twitter and Facebook. The expectation that the options are supposed to mirror the aspects of the centralized platforms is misplaced. Expecting metrics on almost everything people do on the fediverse is a hangover from Facebook and Twitter.

The expectation that "someone else" will create the platforms and alternatives is evident. I did not hear anyone on that panel point to some instance they are hosting or supporting. Perhaps that is my biggest takeaway -- they focused more on telling others what should be done and less on what are we actually doing ourselves to create the social media ecosystem we want? They said they were in Japan. I can bet you the combined ticket prices and accommodation and visa fees for just the panelists is enough to host a robust fediverse instance for three years.

i am not so optimistic with talk shops like this Internet Governance Forum.

semperpeppe

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I believe the debate around whether the Fediverse is an alternative to Twitter/X/Facebook/Instagram is still much open. I believe there are misconceptions in this regard, as we Fediverse users are not always active on other platforms. I personally have an Instagram account registered a few years ago, but I stopped using it a couple of years ago in favor of Reddit. Then, since I have discovered the Fediverse, I completely ditched that one as well. I resort to YouTube from time to time for the amazing content one can find there. I know I am an outlier though. Most people (especially outside of the Fediverse) are not as concerned with privacy as I am. Also, most people do not really care about using Big Tech social media. They only want the benefits of getting in touch with others. Although I totally agree, I also believe there are abuses we can not overlook, as these companies hold a power that is just not comparable to anything we had in global history so far.

Also, most Fediverse users I personally interact with keep saying that the Fediverse is not meant to compete with other mainstream platforms, but the reality is that the attention/time one has to use a social media is limited. Moreover, currently if you get to the Fediverse is most likely because you are skeptical of Big Tech, you are concerned with privacy, and somebody introduced you to the unfamiliar technical concepts underlying this alternative social media. This means that, although in theory not competing, the Fediverse and mainstream social are indeed competing.

Most of these people are not really engaged in the Fediverse and do not really know what is going on. In Europe, we are experiencing public administrations and governments resorting to the Fediverse because something is changing. The general attitude towards Big Tech is changing. Even if its original philosophy is almost irrelevant in this case, we are experiencing a a positive attitude towards Free and Open Source Software due to increase threats to privacy. One thing that gets portrayed on the public discourse in Europe is that nobody is against Big Tech, rather but they are against dependency from them. European Governments and administrations are understanding that there are all the instruments to create alternatives, but they are currently using it so far to engage only with a small audience and are not sure on how to get a larger outreach. The point is that if you are interested in alternatives, you are already competing. If they don't see it like this, certainly it does not mean that Meta and Twitter/X think the same.

More here:

The degree with which we could understand user's needs, integrate them in applications/protocols, and make available the Fediverse to everyone worldwide is still unknown. Instances are mostly run by enthusiasts with their own money or through donations, with little to no governance mechanism in place. Leaders, politicians, entrepreneurs, and common users, all are worried that this might lead to poor stability as well as lack of moderation, possibly giving all the power on a specific individual.

Still, the point you raise about "the expectation that someone else will create alternatives" is crucial. My perception is that the general public still has to understand what the Fediverse is, how one organization could run an instance and why they might want to. In my opinion, the biggest challenges are still there, like instance administration (scaling, backups, compliance to data regulations, user management, security), financing (cost models of the organizations running the instance, crowdfunding), reasons for running the instance, UX (interoperability with other instances running other applications, mobile apps, UI, customization for local markets).

I fear that keeping the market in the equation is the only thing we know for making online spaces sustainable. There are experiences online/offline that might provide a certain degree of financial sustainability to social spaces (if we think of social media as projects with a social impact). Some get inherited, some others get donated, and so on. But the thing is that on the Internet, organizations run into much higher Operational Expenditure (OpEx) than just Capital Expediture (CapEx) (especially those that run on cloud services).

Are we secretely envisioning a world where social media is only run by volunteers and NGOs? Is this is the case, we need to understand how to make it sustainable. Again, most people out there are skeptical of the Fediverse because they believe in the market and its power to make things sustainable. I have been active in many many social project for the past ten years, and all of them rely on (not a MECE - Mutually Exclusive Completely Exhaustive list):

members are rich
they get donated a building a long time ago and they just kept it forever
some other organizations illegally occupy a building and they defend it with force
they constantly raise funds from people outside through things that do not imply selling products, like fundraising campaigns, events, parties, dinners, and so on
they apply to grants from private foundations, states, or public administrations

Without breaking the law, financial sustainability in this case is based on keeping good relationships with your allies (be those individuals or other organizations) and lowering costs as much as possible (through reducing investment in new equipment/upgrading services).

Lastly, on the role of the IGF. I believe that spaces like the IGF play an important role in terms of inclusion and allow normally misrepresented stakeholder groups to get a voice, increasing the outreach of local projects that aim to empower and protect. Even though you might not have experienced it in this particular talk, there are shut-outs to all sort of initiatives that are very local. There is a connection between global/local. Moreover, just consider that, out of dozens of panels, this was the only talk briefly discussing about Mastodon vs Twitter in the African context, not even about the whole Fediverse, and was only 30 mins long. Plus, there are all the things I have exposed in this post in terms of fundamental skepticism and (probably) big trust in the market. Please, do not create an opinion on the IGF and on the amazing people there are just based on this podcast.