Micro.blog is a Community of Creators
Manton Reece explains how Micro.blog is serious about preventing abuse and harassment:
the platform was designed, from the beginning, to prevent abuse and harassment. Your microblog is your own, where you are free to write about whatever you want, but we protect the timeline, where you can @-reply others, through a variety of tools and curation. We have community guidelines that are enforced.
I don’t believe tools, curation, or community guidelines will ever be able to police the public park as well as the walls of a private garden. But Micro.blog was not designed to be a public park. To participate on Micro.blog (hosted or unhosted) you have to be willing to create a blog, put your name on it, and stand behind it. Accountability is the wall that will protect Micro.blog against the kinds of anonymous harassment observed on public social networks like Twitter that are just festering with throwaway accounts.
“On Micro.blog, you control your own content.” But your content keeps you in check.
But won’t there be anonymous Micro.blogs?
Sure, but I believe anonymous Micro.blogs will be the minority. People like to put their name on the work they have created, and they want to be proud of that work. This is where the community guidelines come in. Micro.blog is a community of creators, and the creators help protect the Micro.blog community they are proud of.
But what about the Micro.blog hosting fees?
Not everyone has $5 a month or the skills needed to setup a micro blog of their own. Won’t these barriers to entry prevent the mass adoption of Micro.blog — excluding a large swath of well-meaning people from participating on the platform?
Many people are looking for “the next Twitter”, but it’s not enough to replace Twitter with a new platform and new leadership. Some problems are inevitable when power is concentrated in only 2-3 huge social networks — ad-based businesses at odds with user needs and an overwhelming curation challenge.
When you design your platform for everyone you have include everyone; good and bad. To participate in Micro.blog you have to be accountable for your own blog, but blogging is not for everyone. Micro.blog does not have to be a Twitter replacement, it does not have to be for everyone. By remaining small Micro.blog remains a community of creators, self curated without the need for ads.
Twitter and Micro.blog can coexist, and do through cross-posting. If your goal is to include everyone you can try to build a better Twitter.