Manifesting a Feminist Internet

2021 was a pivotal year in the conversation about the accountability and responsibility of powerful social networks. Misconceptions about COVID-19 spread like wildfire across the internet. The impact of misinformation across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit, and Twitter (among other platforms) shook our political systems loose. And reports of Instagram’s toxic effect on teen girls’ mental health went viral, which I had a lot of thoughts on.

On top of all of this, the reports of harassment and abuse against women online continued to skyrocket throughout the year, despite many protestations and despite many still not understanding why there’s a dire need for alternate platforms that don’t do it all.

Overwhelmingly, as I compile my end-of-year thoughts, I can’t help but feel tricked, as a user, by the notion that social platforms are actually “social” places. At their best, big social platforms feed our addiction to small dopamine hits and a vague feeling that we’re all constantly connected. At their worst, these platforms incite real violence in the real world. For me, social media mostly feels empty and unsatisfying, leaving me with the lingering feeling that what I do on, say, Instagram, is either performing, consuming, or sometimes stalking but never socializing.

On the flip side, as a community builder and founder of a social platform myself, I see the collective obsession with connectivity and performance trickle into the industry’s perception of what a “successful” community looks like. Success metrics, for example, center the need for constant communication between community members in order to generate money for ad-based revenue models. But is this what community means? Is this what socialization means? Think about your friends, do you speak to them every hour of the day?

I’m walking away from 2021 with the sense that there’s an undeniable demand for alternate spaces online that are actually social and actually rooted in community. When I say community, I don’t mean extreme user behavior that dictates algorithms to ultimately generate more extreme content. When I say community, I mean a group of people who are united around their shared interests or identities, brought together in an online space to intentionally hang out. Like any healthy relationship, a social media space does not need to be addictive, all-consuming, or something you check every hour of the day. For what it’s worth, there are other business models besides visual advertising too. The monetization of human interactions can be less predatory, less manipulative and more based in the reality of what communities actually look like.

2021 has been an incredible, stressful, and wildly fast-paced year to be building a place like Diem. I’m so incredibly exhausted, excited, and immensely grateful that we are shaping new, alternative spaces that will serve healthy, social communities both on and offline. This week, I actually re-read Charlotte Jee’s essay, “A Feminist Internet Would Be Better For Everyone,” and this quote particularly stuck with me:

“Aspects of the feminist internet are already taking shape. Achieving this vision would require us to radically overhaul the way the web works. But if we build it, it won’t just be a better place for women; it will be better for everyone.”

Here’s to 2022 being the year that building better digital places for women & non-binary folks is viewed not as charity work, but rather as a better reality for us all. Join me in adding “feminist internet” to your vision board?

This article was originally featured in Diem’s weekly newsletter on Dec 16th, 2021, subscribe here.