Has context collapse resulted in decreasing viability of the multifaceted self and are we individually afraid to admit this because we feel trapped and complicit?

Context collapse is the idea that instead of separate spaces in which you operate and may behave contextually differently, you are reduced to broader exposure of most aspects of your life in most scenarios.

Eg, Facebook introduced a situational reckoning for many people whose recreational activities (drinking, partying, board games, tv preferences) were previously privately scoped, but were suddenly tagged in media that everyone (including their boss, etc) could see.


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@cwebber can't we just reintroduce scope? isn't this what we have de facto done by moving to alts?

@trwnh @cwebber to a degree, sure, but this feels like a mitigation more than any kind of real solution, i think?

like: i don't experience too many direct negative effects of this, but i suspect that's because:

a) i've cut myself off from a huge part of social life (along with family connections, community happenings, etc.) just by not being on facebook et al.

b) i've got a job and a place to live where the weirder aspects of my personal life are ignored / safe.

@brennen @trwnh I'm not sure it's always bad, I think that context collapse has also resulted in a *positive* reckoning in some ways; the #metoo movement, in aggregate, can be seen as being facilitated (but not entirely driven by obviously) by a collapse resulting in peoples' shitty behaviors becoming more apparent.

That said, I do think that humans need a certain amount of private contexts for health/well being/personal development too (as you've described making those spaces for yourself!)


@cwebber context collapse seems be a zero sum game at best. As much as it enabled calling out shitty behaviour it has made shitty behaviour more acceptable because "everybody" seems to be doing it. For example, would our politicians actually get elected pre-internet if they openly behaved the way they do now?

I don't think context collapse is a mere consequence of technology either. It was intentional on the part of Facebook and Google in particular.

@brennen @trwnh


it's not accidental. Zuboff, amongst others, details the lengths to which they've gone to protect & extend the ability to harvest 'behavioral surplus'

@cwebber @brennen @trwnh

@msh @cwebber @brennen @trwnh

and where I think I have the most overlap with the aims (if not the methods) of 'ethical' license proliferation is on this point

@msh @cwebber @brennen @trwnh

I feel at home w/ my software freedom peeps here because I know they know you can enjoy substantial freedom all by your lonesome, or amongst a select few

but being 'open' doesn't work like that: radical openness feeds radical scrutiny, and it's just tough luck what that does to your soul

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