"Today’s culture is somehow both mega atomized and blandly conformist, because the most interesting things that are happening are happening below the surface, out of view." ... "For years we were warned that the free Internet would be gated by corporations, but actually it’s been gated by the public. We’ve found our own ways of using networks, contrary to their designers’ intentions. The public sphere is going private. We’re building a secret Internet."

“The problem with social networks, even more of a problem than fake news, is that everybody espouses the same views, but secretly doesn’t believe in them. Nobody says what they really think. Rather, everybody defers to an illusory accord, and this makes for a highly distorted perception of reality. The problem with echo chambers is not that everybody agrees with you but everybody pretends to agree with what you also pretend to agree with.” I am still sitting with the lines above. To what degree does context sensitivity, and the awareness that almost anything on social media can be taken out of context contribute to a healthy, but potentially stifling, stance of reservation? To what degree does a desire to ‘fit in’ (or at least not be ‘on the outs’) with a given identity group lead to an ersatz perforative stance? How would we accurately gauge these things?