re: Getting rid of social media is a liberating experience

quote:

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That “only difference” makes all the difference, it seems.

It eliminates virtue signaling and most political correctness. It allows for true discussion without fear of reprisal and damaged reputation in your community, or worse, being terrorized.

The nature of conversation is completely different because of it.

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Exactly. Social media is social media because it is not anonymous.

Saying that TD is just social media that is anonymous is like saying basketball is just soccer with an orange ball. Yeah, they both involve using a ball, but they have completely different dynamics.

If you want your definition of "social media" to be any online forum where people can converse and post stuff, that's fine. By that definition, we've had social media pretty much as long as the internet has existed. But that's not what most people consider social media to be, which is why "social media" didn't become part of our lexicon until Facebook came along.

It's the non-anonymity that makes social media what it is. Your social media account is intended to be an extension of your actual life where people you actually know (or don't know) observe you, interact with you, judge you, disagree with you, love you, and hate you. And when I say "you" I mean literally YOU; not just an abstract idea of you or your TD handle.

TD is none of that. I'm not saying using TD is morally superior to using twitter. I'm just saying that they are very different things, and it's the anonymity that makes all the difference.