#socialaudio

Clips from my Live-Audio Conversations

I am posting clips from my live-audio Twitter Spaces and Reddit Talks, at Bandcamp.

I hope it will serve as a library of the most interesting moments in my conversations with people who shape our world.

The End of Reddit Talk

Reddit held a town hall meeting today, to announce that it is shutting down Reddit Talk, its live-audio platform.

This is a sad misfortune, beyond the failure of a single product.

Live audio offers social media's redeeming promise: the possibility of virality without polarisation.  People talk to each other instead of posting at each other, favouring mutual understanding over thoughtless confrontation.

It carries the intimacy of a whisper in one's ear, and the authenticity of people expressing themselves in their own voices.

Reddit has effectively abdicated the field to #TwitterSpaces.  We will see how Twitter and Elon Musk exercise their new dominion.

Japan’s Call for a “New World Order”

Japan's constitution renounces the country's sovereign right to wage war.

But those who embrace pacifism can still find themselves beset by others who are happy to brandish fire and the sword.

I spoke with Carleton University Professor Jacob Kovalio, about Japan's call for an alliance of democracies, to halt the march of tyrannies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond.

Democratic Oversight of Social Media Platforms

On Monday 14 November, I will hold a Reddit Talk with European Commission Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager.

We will discuss the EU's Digital Services Act.  Amongst other measures, it will compel large online platforms to:

• Promptly remove criminal content • Combat disinformation • Provide algorithmic transparency • Redress those harmed by unjust decisions

Join our live-audio conversation, and bring your questions for her.

Official Launch of Reddit Talk

I have been hosting Reddit Talk live-audio events for six months, with my colleagues Alex and Willian, at the World News community.  I am delighted Reddit is opening the Talk programme broadly.

Live-audio conversations have an immediacy, intimacy, and sincerity that are too rare online.  They bring people to talk to one another, instead of posting at one another.

As such, they help make social media an instrument for mutual understanding, rather than polarisation.

I commend Reddit's Peter Yang for his decision to open Talk hosting rights to communities across the platform.