I recently shared a lesson and provocation by KQED asking if the internet was expanding our minds or limiting them.
“Is the internet expanding your mind or making you more narrow minded? Great provocation and lesson about algorithms via @KQED https://t.co/JJYoChsQug #socialLEADia #RaisingDigitalLeaders #medialiteracy #digcit #EmpoweredDigitalLeaders pic.twitter.com/JAKmXevNly
— Jennifer Casa-Todd (@JCasaTodd) April 9, 2022
This has been a question I have been asking for several years writing about perspective taking and filter bubbles in both Social LEADia and Raising Digital Leaders. Lately, I have been a little dissatisfied with my Twitter feed to be honest. Unless someone tags me, I feel like I have been missing out of many of the powerful voices I once had access to. And whereas I felt like my own voice reached many before, I feel like unless I tag people, they rarely see my tweets either. And I have never really felt comfortable tagging people. This is why I will often go to my Twitter lists to see what people are sharing. If I want to see what educators in Ontario are up to, I go to that list, Google Innovators, that one. You get the idea. I do this to take control of what I see online; not allowing an algorithm to do this for me.
About a week ago, my friend Sarah Thomas sent me an invitation to join the Edumatch community on Twitter. Even before I became an Edumatch author, I have been a longtime Edumatch family member and SarahSarah fan, so I jumped in, no questions asked. After all, Edumatch is all about community. It has been great to connect with people there!
Soon, I noticed that I too had the ability to create a community. The two-person icon showed up on my Twitter desktop as well as my app. The way I learn is by doing, so after interacting within that community, I decided to create my own so I could learn more about how it all works. I have never been one to know something perfectly before I try it. Why stop now?
What are Twitter Communities?
The Twitter Communities feature is being advertised by Twitter as a way to have more focused conversations about things that we care about. Their blog, “Talk about your thing with people who get you”, has this to say”
“Think of Communities as places created for conversation where the vibe and tone is set by people who share the same interests and want to have relevant conversations.”
What I know about Twitter communities so far:
Unlike a group message, any tweets shared with the community are PUBLIC and so members need to be aware of a public audience.
I think this is going to be problematic for some people. There are already many people (especially students) who forget that when they post to social media that there is a public audience. Because I have the choice to share to a community, I may forget that anyone online can read my tweet (although responses are limited to the community).
Membership (aka joining a group) can be restricted or open.
I made the mistake of sharing the link with a bunch of people, only to realize that it wasn’t working for me. This is tricky because I don’t necessarily want membership to be open to everyone…or do I? I actually don’t know enough about the feature to know the advantages yet. I do know that there isn’t a way to remove a person. I would have to go and block them from Twitter. The best way to invite people to your community is within the Community itself via direct message. Open means anyone can join and/or be invited. Restricted means a mod team must approved the requests.
When I tweet, I need to decide where I want to share. This is the biggest drawback for me so far. What for example, I wanted to share a tweet widely as well as with the #EmpoweredDigitalLeader community but I had to choose. I can see this as a problem when sharing within my Google Innovator community as well. Often times, its the people outside of that community who would benefit from the sharing. The work around is to use the “Quote Tweet” feature and add your community then (Thanks Sarah for testing this out with me!):
Responses to tweets posted to a community are limited to the community. This is what I see when I reply:
Rules. You can personalize your community rules in the About section. There are three rules there by default.
Moderators. You may add as many people to be moderators as you wish. Moderators are able to hide tweets that break the community rules and accept new members. Having moderators would be particularly important if access to your community is restricted so you can accept requests in a timely manner.
Admin console. You can change the rules, allow members, change settings etc… in the admin console which is the tiny suitcase at the top of the community.
A few wonderings…
Currently I am a part of three very global communities which allow me to gain a rich perspective. Although the rules explicitly state that other than shared interest or purpose, there can’t be any eligibility requirements, (explicitly adding examples such as race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease), I wonder how long it will be before groups naturally gravitate towards each other in this way creating more intense filter bubbles. I guess we shall see.
Read more about Twitter communities directly from Twitter here.
Learn more about the Empowered Digital Leaders course co-taught by Adam Hill and I here and DM me on Twitter if you would like to join the community.