Revolution.Social

Jeff Jarvis on the Death of Mass Media, Twitter vs. UberMedia, and Section 230’s Brilliance

13 snips
Oct 23, 2025
Jeff Jarvis, journalist, professor, and author who traces media from Gutenberg to the web. He discusses the Twitter vs third‑party app clash and how API control shaped the web. He explores Section 230’s role in protecting expression. He compares Medium’s curation to Substack, and talks about Black Twitter’s platform migrations and the promise of federated, open alternatives.
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ANECDOTE

Black Twitter's Cultural Reclamation

  • Jarvis describes Black Twitter as a community that reclaimed Twitter's affordances despite the platform not being built for them.
  • He points to the Black Twitter Summit as evidence the community still persists and adapts.
ANECDOTE

UberMedia, TweetDeck, And A Missed Fork

  • Jeff Jarvis explains he invested in UberMedia and lost money, linking that episode to Twitter's API lock-down.
  • He suggests an independent TweetDeck might have led to an earlier federated ecosystem.
ADVICE

Keep Protocol Projects Independent

  • If funding a protocol project, make it independent of a single platform to avoid takeover and capture.
  • Jarvis advised Blue Sky should be an independent company rather than a Twitter-owned project.
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