In many ways we’re in a golden age of information. YouTube has resources on almost anything you can think of. There’s probably a subreddit for even the most esoteric hobby.
Yet I can’t help but notice how information is increasingly being sequestered onto closed platforms. Communities that might have been a publicly accessible forum in the past are now on platforms locked behind accounts. Some of these platforms even require identity verification for account creation.
Cycling communities like sgcycling or lovecyclingsg on Facebook can contain valuable information, but all that information isn’t discoverable. Meanwhile, communities like bikeforums.net use a traditional forum, which is indexable, freely accessible without an account, and its content is discoverable on search engines.
Companies are starting to use social media platforms for announcements instead of doing so on their website. My regular gym, Boulder+, posts updates on Instagram. Worst still, those updates are often in the form of Instagram stories, which is not visible to non-logged-in users.
Discord is gaining popularity as the platform for communities. I think Discord has its place as a chat room, but it falls short when it comes to being a repository of knowledge. And yet, this is what Discord is frequently being used for. The modding scene of many games use Discord for discussions and technical support. 20 year old forums are being replaced with Discord channels.
Imagine how much institutional knowledge is being siloed away on Discord. It requires an account simply to view content. Some channels even require you to verify your phone number. It’s owned by an external company, who has discretion to ban your account or shut down your channel. It’s not indexable, and information is not easily discoverable.
I’ve also heard from friends how TikTok is helping them discover lots of interesting or useful things. I don’t doubt that, based on the conversations I’ve had about what people see on their feed. However TikTok is even more of an information silo than the other platforms. Not only does it have all of the same discoverability trappings, it’s uniquely designed around transient content. The useful thing trending on your feed today probably won’t be around in a couple weeks, and certainly not in a year. I like the sheer amount of human creativity on the platform, but I detest how none of it has any longevity at all.
This trend of information being increasingly siloed away onto closed platforms is one of the reasons why I publish content on my website. I’m trying to do my small part in making information freely available. To that end, I write posts on my blog and share notes on my knowledge base.