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Molly White

What Molly White thinks about social media

@molly-white · 12 positions · 0 changes of mind

Software engineer, researcher and writer, a longtime Wikipedia editor, creator of Web3 is Going Just Great and author of the newsletter Citation Needed, which she publishes on her own self-hosted site.

Molly White did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

5 dated positions, 2024, in their own words. Our reading of what Molly White has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our readingWebsites outside the big platforms have become hard to find at all, and that is a large part of why they can no longer sustain themselves.

    Their wordsWebsites outside of these handful of social networks are harder and harder to even find, and partially because of that, they have a harder and harder time sustaining themselves.

    ↗Fighting for our webcitationneeded.news 1st of 6 in this piece

  3. Our readingWhether the open web survives will be decided by what ordinary people collectively do, not by the companies that profit from it.

    Their wordsBut the platforms do not exist without the people, and there are a lot more of us than there are of them.

    ↗Fighting for our webcitationneeded.news 5th of 6 in this piece

  4. 10 days earlier

  5. Our readingFederation is the real fix for losing your community every time a platform dies, but it does not work yet, so publishing on your own site and syndicating out is the interim answer.

    Their wordsI think federation is the long-term solution to these problems. Eventually, I dream we will be able to seamlessly interact with people across platforms.

    ↗POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented worldcitationneeded.news 2nd of 4 in this piece

  7. Our readingPublishing on your own site first removes the length, format and style limits that every social platform imposes on what you can say.

    Their wordsNext to proper ownership of your own work, my favorite thing about POSSE is that it massively expands what you can publish, far beyond the limitations imposed by most social media (and especially microblogging) platforms that try to enforce some uniformity in post style, length, and appearance.

    ↗POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented worldcitationneeded.news 4th of 4 in this piece

  8. 5 months earlier

  9. Our readingMost people now spend their time online inside a handful of platforms, seeing what the owners of those platforms steer them towards.

    Their wordsMost of us spend our days within the confines of a handful of platforms, wandering around to admire what people have done with the seeds they are allowed in the space they are allotted, with platform owners directing us to the gardens they think we might like — or, more often, the ones they think will keep us within their walls for longer.

    ↗We can have a different webcitationneeded.news 2nd of 2 in this piece