"There is only that much that can be done by them". How many times have we not heard this statement regarding the helplessness of giant establishments when it comes to grass-root controls. The reason for this is obvious in their sheer size. As the size of corporations increase and as the organization spreads across the globe increasing the customers and the people employed with varied customs, languages, preferences and what not are employed, it is very very difficult to know exactly what one person is doing in the establishment. Now, that is business and we will have this talk some other time. It is like having a dinosaur's body with its pea sized brain.
What I would like to talk about in context is that of facebook, twitter, youtube and the like. With customers varied as is the world, it is a herculean task with a centralized team controlling data into and out of centralized servers. Yes, there are servers in many countries and you would like to call it de-centralized. We will come back to this. If this is the model they still would like to continue then I would suggest these companies to take a leaf out of traditional manufacturing companies. The D&D is made in the parent country. The manufacturing of various parts are made worldwide and assembly takes place in a country which did not participate in any of the other operations. What is happening here is a new variation of scientific management. Wherein specialization is localized and the best locality for a specific job is targeted and optimized. The first step of optimization is the job of zeroing on the place itself. Now, once the manufacturing is done, these traditional companies have a presence in all the states of a specific country at major cities and if possible towns also. This gives the big organization a taste of the local thinking. Now, it is all about targeting in the most optimal way with the differing tastes and cultures in mind.
It is high time these big social media companies learn to localize. Localize normally associated with computers is only language. But, localization is much more than a language. The same language is spoken and written in various ways in a matter of a few 100 kilometers. Now, this knowledge comes if there are teams managing specific local geographical locations. With the amount of ad revenue these companies are reaping, it is a responsibility of giving a bit to the community which makes these websites possible. One of the first steps would be to recruit local talent with a varied specializations so that a majority of the local population is represented. The algorithms can be tweaked to reflect more towards the local taste and reduce the global shit which people dont care. This easily separates the global team with the local team and the local team can curate the ones affecting the local areas more and then move out less affecting issues.
Yes, it is not easy, but that is the way these companies can survive in the future. We now have real federation with the activity pub protocol. Mastodon, pleroma, pixelfed and many more are already on the train. They are working perfectly. You now have people running instances which collect like minded people and share ideas. These instances are at the same time free to expand their vistas by connecting to other like minded ones or related ones. There is a bit of anarchy here and I like it. As one of my friends point out, anarchy as a religion is not acceptable. Anarchy in its pristine form is always preferred. With these small groups, it is very easy for administrators to maintain their instances. The rules are laid out in the beginning itself. In fact you know the rules when you join and instance. You know what you are not supposed to do on that instance. If you want to talk about something else then you should search for such an instance and put your views there.
The proprietary ones cannot be as free spirited as these, but, they should try. Because right now, they are struggling. Administration depends more on algorithms. It is an utter failure. There will always be means wherein content can be put back in other ways. And, these algorithms look for content which is gaining more eyeballs. The easy, digestible, shocking, breaking issues get the eyeballs and the algorithm definitely will support it and brings it into the forefront for other users thereby converting them also. If this is what they want, then it is the job of the government to not allow this. If the government wants exactly this, then stopping this rests on the general public and they should act.
What I would like to talk about in context is that of facebook, twitter, youtube and the like. With customers varied as is the world, it is a herculean task with a centralized team controlling data into and out of centralized servers. Yes, there are servers in many countries and you would like to call it de-centralized. We will come back to this. If this is the model they still would like to continue then I would suggest these companies to take a leaf out of traditional manufacturing companies. The D&D is made in the parent country. The manufacturing of various parts are made worldwide and assembly takes place in a country which did not participate in any of the other operations. What is happening here is a new variation of scientific management. Wherein specialization is localized and the best locality for a specific job is targeted and optimized. The first step of optimization is the job of zeroing on the place itself. Now, once the manufacturing is done, these traditional companies have a presence in all the states of a specific country at major cities and if possible towns also. This gives the big organization a taste of the local thinking. Now, it is all about targeting in the most optimal way with the differing tastes and cultures in mind.
It is high time these big social media companies learn to localize. Localize normally associated with computers is only language. But, localization is much more than a language. The same language is spoken and written in various ways in a matter of a few 100 kilometers. Now, this knowledge comes if there are teams managing specific local geographical locations. With the amount of ad revenue these companies are reaping, it is a responsibility of giving a bit to the community which makes these websites possible. One of the first steps would be to recruit local talent with a varied specializations so that a majority of the local population is represented. The algorithms can be tweaked to reflect more towards the local taste and reduce the global shit which people dont care. This easily separates the global team with the local team and the local team can curate the ones affecting the local areas more and then move out less affecting issues.
Yes, it is not easy, but that is the way these companies can survive in the future. We now have real federation with the activity pub protocol. Mastodon, pleroma, pixelfed and many more are already on the train. They are working perfectly. You now have people running instances which collect like minded people and share ideas. These instances are at the same time free to expand their vistas by connecting to other like minded ones or related ones. There is a bit of anarchy here and I like it. As one of my friends point out, anarchy as a religion is not acceptable. Anarchy in its pristine form is always preferred. With these small groups, it is very easy for administrators to maintain their instances. The rules are laid out in the beginning itself. In fact you know the rules when you join and instance. You know what you are not supposed to do on that instance. If you want to talk about something else then you should search for such an instance and put your views there.
The proprietary ones cannot be as free spirited as these, but, they should try. Because right now, they are struggling. Administration depends more on algorithms. It is an utter failure. There will always be means wherein content can be put back in other ways. And, these algorithms look for content which is gaining more eyeballs. The easy, digestible, shocking, breaking issues get the eyeballs and the algorithm definitely will support it and brings it into the forefront for other users thereby converting them also. If this is what they want, then it is the job of the government to not allow this. If the government wants exactly this, then stopping this rests on the general public and they should act.
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Nobody can deter me away from "free as in freedom" concept seeded by Sri RMS. See to it that u dont make fun of my belief. If u think otherwise, no need to comment.