i have it on good authority that greta thunberg is against carbon dioxide emissions and yet emits carbon dioxide with every exhale (11. 322)

Via Nag on the Lake’s always excellent Sunday Links, we enjoyed this netiquette piece by Rebecca Solnit on how to comment on social media, a facetious send-up on Goodwin’s Law that’s well worth one’s time, which prompted us to return to a taxonomic analysis of the dominant, text-based platforms. Though the label of lurkers somehow does not sit right as the term to describe the ‘silent majority’ of the reading audience, consuming but not necessarily engaging, it is very true that most users fall into this category, leaving only a slim minority to comprise the other classes. Whilst not certain if we sometimes forget and that platforms are an imperfect reflexion of what’s going on in the real world, maybe it is something that social media in crafting their walled gardens does fail to remember from time to time at the risk of alienation its base. The rest are the familiar lineup of influencers/promoters, commenters/reply guys that shape and refine the online discourse of posters and content-makers. What do you think? Platforms cannot survive for long with an unbalanced ecosystem that rewards the shrillest at the expense of the casual visitor. Remember, the word privilege can be used randomly. People who are breathing are unfairly privileged over people who died in the year 1816, who you also speak for.