Enshittification rules: there goes the post-platform internet era

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Enshittification rules: there goes the post-platform internet era

16 September 2026

Enshittification, the idea that online platforms, particularly social networks and social media, degrade once they become popular, is a fiction, according to Ruby Thelot, Professor of Design, AI and Media Theory, at New York University.

Because, rather than turning away from from the likes of Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, people continue to embrace these platforms.

Thelot made the claims in comments published at a16z, which were re-posted by 404 Media, and said people are using these platforms more than ever, and are quite happy with the experience. Further, according to Thelot, membership of the platforms is increasing, along with their profits.

But Thelot didn’t stop there.

He said Cory Doctorow, who first used the word enshittification, might have valued Facebook early on, but became resentful as the platform evolved. Thelot believes that people who are about the same age as Doctorow probably feel the same way, but younger people see things differently.

The idea of enshittification, he posits, gives people who should have left a social media platform, reason to stay put and despise being there. Thelot doesn’t mince his words.

Thelot’s comments though are at odds with the emergence of what is described as the post-platform internet ere. This is a shift towards decentralised platforms such as Mastodon and Bluesky, newsletter publishing platforms like Buttondown, and a resurgence of personal websites and blogs.

But the term post platform internet sounds like wishful thinking. There are, of course, adherents. I’m among them. But there is really a mass migration towards decentralised social media platforms?

Hardly.

Mastodon, despite not being that difficult to use, still confuses a lot of people. Bluesky, meanwhile, has seen a decline in active users in recent months.

The main social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Threads, remain for now, just too easy to use, and are also places where most members will find other people they know.

Despite the angst and despair the major platforms engender, a post-platform internet seems, for now, destined to remain a fringe movement.

My Feed My Way will make Instagram feeds overwhelming says Adam Mosseri

14 September 2026

Ange Lavoipierre, writing for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), quoting Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram (IG):

“If you go to a chronological feed, it ends up getting overwhelmed with content from companies, brands, and publishers. Creators get drowned out, and then your friends get drowned out even more.”

These are the words of the Head of Instagram. Can it be Mosseri has no idea how the platform he oversees, works?

Australia’s proposed My Feed, My Way laws give local IG users a choice. They can either see content posted only by the people they follow, in their main feed, or elect to see what the algorithm presents.

If IG users choose to only see what the people they follow publish, how is anyone supposed to see what is posted by “companies, brands, and publishers”, if they’re not following them?

Of course creators — a dubious use of the term in the first place, given the quality of some of their content — who sit squarely in the companies, brands, publishers, and influencers category, will be drowned out: that’s the idea.

As for friends, how do they “get drowned out even more”, if they are the only people an IG user follows? Their content is the entirety of what anyone opting for the “friends only” feed will see. With the possible exception of ads, I imagine.

But if someone is only following two people, both of whom maybe only post something twice daily, how could they feel their feed was overwhelming?

Mosseri is clearly unhappy with the proposed My Feed, My Way laws.

So displeased that he seems to be losing sight of what’s what. He continues to believe the platform is not addictive, while also conceding IG “is too complicated”. In saying that, Mosseri is trying to suggest adding a button somewhere, giving users the choice of what they see, will clutter — clutter even further — IG’s interface.

The last time I looked at the IG app, before deleting it from my phone, there was an option to select “following” or “favourites”. In theory, choosing “following” meant someone would mainly see posts only from those whom they followed. This was only somewhat effective though, provided another option, “snooze suggested posts”, was enabled.

Suggested posts, being content by the aforementioned companies, brands, publishers, and influencers, were slipped into an IG member’s main feed, if the algorithm deemed this was somehow of interest. But the “snooze suggested posts” setting only did so for thirty-days at a time.

Disabling suggested posts also required drilling down through several levels of the settings menu to find. Indeed Mosseri is correct when he says IG “is too complicated”. The Australian government proposal aims to make this a one-step, lasting, action.

Mosseri can take consolation though from Anika Wells, the Australian communications minister, who thinks, as I wrote last week, most IG users will stick with the algorithm:

“The reality is that lots of people will want to choose the algorithm.”

Anyone hoping an unintended, or unspoken consequence, of the My Feed, My Way laws, would result in people spending less time looking at screens, will be disappointed.

But to each their own. I spend quite a bit of time using my phone, while say on a public transport trip. Typically I’ll be reading or sending emails, organising work schedules, or reading news.

And I’m often grateful for the chance to do so during so-called downtime, as it leaves time for doing nothing later on. But I don’t look at any Meta social media/network apps, as I removed them.

But I’m still at a loss to recall what I used to do on a train trip during the pre-smartphone era. Likely I starred out the window and daydreamed, something I still do once I’ve finished using my phone.

Proposed Australian laws allow social media users to opt-out of algorithms

9 September 2026

It’s almost enough to entice me back onto social media. But not quite.

The Australian government is proposing to give local social media users the choice to opt out the algorithms that determine the content they see.

If the laws eventuate, social media companies will be obliged to allow their members to only see content posted by the people they follow, if that’s what they choose.

Anika Wells, the Australian communications minister, thinks however most social media users will elect to keep the algorithm. It seems to me, seeing the content of only those they’re following might feel like going cold turkey for some people, who are accustomed to non-stop algorithm content.

The proposed new laws, which are currently being considered by the Australian parliament, will also compel social media companies, search engines, and AI chatbots, to withhold “harmful” content:

For Australians aged under 18, platforms must take steps to prevent content that promotes eating disorders, misogynistic content, pornography, glorification of crime, bullying and abuse, and any other material that could inflict “serious harm” on children.

In relation to adults, the harms are confined to existing crimes including child abuse, sexual violence, menacing or harassment intended to cause serious harm, support for terrorist organisations or encouraging suicide.

Some people are concerned these provisions may result in curbs on free speech, given the communications minister will have the power to add to the “harmful” content categories.

As of the time of writing, I’ve not heard reactions from the big tech companies to the proposed laws, but I doubt we’ll be waiting long.

Trailer for The Social Reckoning, the bleak follow-up to The Social Network

31 August 2026

A trailer for The Social Reckoning, directed by Aaron Sorkin, which opens in Australian cinemas on Thursday 8 October 2026, and follows-up 2010’s The Social Network, which Sorkin co-wrote.

As I wrote a few months ago, The Social Reckoning is a far darker continuation of the Facebook story. That said, hints of what were to come, namely co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s megalomaniac tendencies, were seeping through in The Social Network.

In this instalment, Jeremy Strong, instead of Jesse Eisenberg, portrays the Meta CEO, and does so with a callous, robotic demeanour, as if Zuckerberg were no more than an AI entity of Meta’s making.

If recent headlines featuring Meta haven’t already, The Social Reckoning may well turn a few people away from Facebook, and social media generally. This would be no bad thing.

Operation Bluebird may yet get new Twitter to fly

28 August 2026

Talk about defying the odds. Maybe. Late last year, Operation Bluebird lunched a bid to “revive” Twitter, the micro-blogging platform Elon Musk bought in 2022.

Operation Bluebird claimed — rather optimistically I thought — they could take control of the Twitter brand, as they believed Musk had abandoned the rights to it, when he renamed the platform X.

X immediately filed a court action opposing the claim, but a US judge has tentatively ruled in favour of Operation Bluebird, backing up their belief X have given up on the Twitter brand.

The ruling isn’t official, but that doesn’t seem to concern Operation Bluebird, who want to go ahead and launch the “new” Twitter.

I’m no power social media user, but I signed up for Twitter early on, and for a time enjoyed using the platform. I have my doubts, but I’d like to see Operation Bluebird succeed.

LinkedIn CringeBot 3000, generating AI slop of the best quality

13 August 2026

Since the volume of slop-in-general is of epidemic proportions on the platform, it makes perfect sense an AI agent write actual AI slop for consumption there.

Show me an intelligent social media platform; I will show you a dead platform

5 August 2026

Jorijn Schrijvershof’s decision to close the Mastodon instance toot.community, which he established in late 2024, highlights many of the difficulties facing instance administrators on the decentralised social media platform:

Every day, I deal with spam, bots, technical issues, abuse reports, and user conflicts. Much of the moderation ends up being about personal disagreements rather than actual rule-breaking.

As I wrote last week, anyone can set up a Mastodon instance if they want to, but the majority are labours of love, including Aus Social, of which I am a member. They’re not money-spinners.

Unlike centralised social media platforms, such as Twitter/X and Threads, Mastodon instances are usually funded by their founders, together with any donations members might make:

There’s also the financial side. I’m very grateful to everyone who donated, but donations haven’t covered costs for a long time. I’ve had to shoulder most of the expenses, time, and responsibility myself.

It’s also a mistake to believe Mastodon is an oasis of thoughtful and considerate discourse. It isn’t always. There’s nothing wrong with robust discussion, but hostility and antagonism is another matter, even if it’s not of quite the same intensity present on other platforms.

Conflict may not be widespread across Mastodon, but dealing with it, as a someone who is effectively a volunteer admin, is time consuming, and disheartening:

More importantly, I don’t enjoy how people interact on social media anymore. Too often, conversations turn hostile or confrontational. A small amount of conflict and bad actors takes up a disproportionate amount of time and energy.

This was this idea, in the early days of Mastodon and Bluesky, that things would be different, better.

People migrating there thought they were leaving conflict and hostility that was rife elsewhere, behind. And for a time things did feel different. Interactions were relatively civil. There were those who feared this state of affairs would not last though.

But social media is social media, no matter what the platform. Wherever people congregate online, antagonism is seldom far away. As with bad news, discord sells.

The operators of the commercial, centralised platforms, relish tension. It brings in the punters, it engages (and enrages) them. And if the conversation only ever goes in circles, who cares?

Someone once said something like “show me an intelligent TV show, and I’ll show you a dead TV show.” I don’t recall the precise wording, but that was the gist of the quote.

Might it have been Kerry Packer or Rupert Murdoch?

It seems though the same principle applies to social media platforms. But antagonism is not restricted to social media, it’s rampant across the web, to the point it seems endemic to the web.

You don’t need to be a detective to work out why either. The low barrier to entry. The ease with which identities can be concealed. These are of course also advantages, but suit bad actors nicely. People, who supposedly, wouldn’t behave so poorly in face-to-face interactions. Supposedly.

And since every last user of a decentralised social media platform is unlikely to adhere to community guidelines, we’re probably going to see more Mastodon instances close. As with toot.community, trolls and disputes between members won’t be solely to blame, but they’ll be contributing factors.

There’s a thought that social media will kill itself eventually. Users are railing against heavy handed algorithms, abundant AI slop, and misinformation, among other annoyances.

But that day seems far off. Big tech will continue supporting the centralised platforms where the problems are at their worst, particularly if they remain profitable.

Sadly, it’s the not so well resourced decentralised social media platforms that are more at risk of being “killed” though, unless they can receive more support.

LinkedIn users can report AI slop, but what about the rest of it?

1 August 2026

Members of the professional network will be able to flag posts they think are AI generated. I haven’t been a LinkedIn participant in years — I have a personal website, why would I? — but it seems to me slop has been a problem on the platform since before AI was what it is.

The threat of toxic content on decentralised social media platforms

31 July 2026

Mastodon is a truly decentralised micro-bloging platform. Anyone sufficiently motivated, and technically proficient, can start their own instance, or community.

Depending on the administrator, instances can be completely isolated, accessible only to its members, or federated, that is, interconnected to all other instances that are likewise federated.

Presently there eight-thousand instances, give or take, and each has, or can have, its own individual community guidelines and moderation policies.

This can mean content permissible on one instance might be unacceptable somewhere else. But if that instance is federated, members’ posts may be visible to just about all Mastodon members.

It’s something that can allow content of a toxic nature to disseminate freely across the Mastodon network, as there are no standard platform-wide moderation policies.

And according to research carried out by Pasan Kamburugamuwa and Olga Scrivner, toxic content is becoming more prevalent on Mastodon.

Tens of millions of people migrated to places like Mastodon and Bluesky, to escape the toxicity that had become rife on other social media platforms. It’s unfortunate, to say the least, that content many consider unacceptable, is taking hold.

Mastodon’s decentralised structure is one of its advantages. For one, it means no single person, or entity, can assume control of the entire network, and do with it as they please.

But decentralisation is a double-edged sword, if it allows people to set up shop in their own corner, and spread content others don’t want to see.

Finding a solution in an environment such as Mastodon’s will be challenging.

Facebook Verified, distinguishing human users from AI accounts, cats, dogs, etc

27 July 2026

The basic, free, verification badge, differs from the more familiar, paid for, Meta‌ Verified blue badge.

To qualify, applicants need to satisfy a number of requirements, including having a Facebook (FB) account that is in “good standing”. They will need to record a short video, which will be compared to selfies previously posted on their page.

I don’t use FB much, but did encounter a number of people using pictures of their pet, say a cat or a dog, as an avatar. Will we then see animals with Facebook Verified badges on their pages? And how many AI-generated accounts might slip through the cracks, and end up being verified?

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