It's obvious why we hate social media

his is the foreword to Internet Sovereignty, an essay collection and print pamphlet exploring the future of the internet. I am grateful to New_ Public who supported this series as a patron and whose head of editorial, Josh Kramer, wrote this foreword.

For years now, people have been “quitting social media” for a number of familiar and understandable reasons. These range from hating the experience of these apps and websites to feeling like they are unbearably ethically compromised.

What used to be empowering and liberating—a direct window to your friends and family or fascinating people from across the globe who share your interests—has tipped over into something stressful, gross, creepy, or even dangerous for many, many people.

And yet, it’s not like people have logged off completely and subscribed to their local paper. (I realize there is some irony in that many of you are reading this in a printed publication you’ve paid for, and good on you!) In many cases, instead of posting that joke to Twitter, a lot of folks are instead sharing it with a group chat or turning to a private space like Discord. The internet is dead, long live the internet!

The stakes are much lower: nothing’s going to go viral accidentally, no stranger will yell at you, and you don’t have to contend with a never-ending feed that’s primarily designed to maximize the ad revenue that can be generated from your time spent on the app.