Anti-social social media?

 

New Year, new ways of connecting to explore. I have invested many hundreds of hours over the years in developing my use of social media channels in order to inform and amplify the causes I support, notably :

 language learning and teaching (I was Communications rep for UCML for some years), 

european language networks (I still hold a communications role for EuroCALL)

open education (curating on open practice and through the Open Ed SIG) and

virtual exchange (communications for UNICollaboration - a not for profit organisation) and many other projects such as the #knowhow one in 2017 (illustrated above). 

My use of Twitter has been fundamental to all of these roles. The open nature of the platform enabled me to make connections and build a network. I became proficient at using tools such as TAGS Explorer and Wakelet to curate tweets and provide insights against hashtags which could inform strategic direction for these causes. The networks and connections have made a real difference to my professional and personal life. 

Image from Pixabay CC0

I am very used to internet based tools changing and even disappearing (remember Storify?) but the latest changes on Twitter are without doubt challenging. Musk's impact on the company, the workforce and the integrity of the service are very worrying and often inhumaine. I have covered several bases therefore and, with the help of other open education practitioners I have extended my use of both Discord and Mastedon. Clint Lalonde's blog post is helping me find my way on the latter. He is a wonderful example of the importance of being an open educator - taking the time to log what you learn really helps others. It is a selfless act undertaken out of care. 

The openness of social media has been vital to the visibility of connections such as this, likeminded educators have been able to share wisdom. Sadly we only hear about the more negative aspects of openness such as the use of platforms to spread false discourse and harmful abuse. I have always maintained that we need to be present in such environments in order to understand how they work and call out abuse. In much the same way as bringing light to dark environments in physical spaces. 

I recently attended at #socmedHE22 conference hosted at Northampton Uni by the lovely Hala Mansour where I was able to share my #openbadges work and meet up face to face for the first time in ages with old and new friends for the first time since the first lockdown.  My second attendance at this small but likeminded grouping. Many friends have been contacts through #LTHEchat another vibrant network of open practice which relies on Twitter as a platform. It is clear that many years of interaction will be lost if we all decided to leave en masse. Not something I can bear to contemplate so I stay and curate my Twitter feed with a vengeance to block and mute the voices I cannot tolerate. 

As many uses of social media become "mainstream" parts of organsational communications strategies there will no doubt be further attempts to monetise the content and control the discourse and so those of us who work (unpaid of course) to uphold social justice will have to continue to consolidate our networks, amplify our influence to counter the voices of the powerful, wealthy 1% and treasure our values. Currently I am experiencing Discord and Mastedon as places where this can happen. I hope to see that further through the OER23 conference backchannels too. Once platforms move behind paywalls more people will be excluded from participation and the existing inequities are further widened. I am therefore placing a call to arms for those who are active in this space to consider the ethical implications of their actions. We have much to lose. On a personal note I will also continue to support and advocate for the work of the Internet Archive as a means of protecting years of recent history mediated through social media platforms.