This week, we took a look at why having a diverse PLN is important. For me, being a person of colour, it is very beneficial to have others in my learning community with similar or shared perspectives when it comes to our experiences. Something small that has helped me a lot is seeing content creators online with curly or textured hair recommending products that work well for them. Prior to that, I was extremely uneducated on how to properly take care of my hair, as it isn’t something taught in schools, and most products in chain stores are not made for my hair type specifically. Learning what brands work and most importantly why they work, told by someone with my shared experience was very helpful. It gave me a sense of community looking through comments of women with similar sentiments as I.
Since having a diverse user platform is so beneficial, we should be taking necessary steps to curate such a community. I believe making the platform accessible to everyone worldwide is a great place to start, as well as ensuring that there is no hate speech or negativity on the platform. A good way to enforce this is to have moderators, which many platforms like Discord and Reddit already incorporate. I also appreciate sub-groups within social media because it allows members of a smaller community to connect on specific topics that might not interest or apply to the general public.
Although not all social media platforms incorporate these ideas, they can still promote a diverse community. Apps like Instagram or TikTok use a sort of ‘discovery’ tab that allows creators to reach a wide array of viewers, showcasing more of their content if the audience interacts well with it. This kind of exposure works well to find specific niche communities, as the more you interact with those posts, the more of that content you will see. While Instagram provides a lot of visual content, I find it does not offer as much ground for connection as TikTok, Twitter/X, or Facebook/Meta might. Facebook offers some interactive features like games and reposts, while Instagram offers more direct communication through direct messages and story reactions. While this is preferable for those who already have groups they connect with online, it could be difficult for people who are newly looking for community.
Making inclusive spaces, in my opinion, is the biggest issue online, so while allowing easy communication might be the best way to connect groups, it also opens the door to individuals online with malicious intent. As I mentioned before, moderators would be the best way to overcome this, but it would be a never-ending task unfortunately. Having filtered text alongside that might be more beneficial, as it would help weed out negative comments before they are even posted. Although there are challenges to overcome, I feel hopeful in the direction social media is going in terms of building online communities.
Hi Rose! Thank you so much for sharing your personal experience and opinion. As a person of colour as well I really appreciate you adding one’s own personalized touch to your blog post, it is really admirable to see. I liked your talk of moderators and agree with your points on better filtration. I was also thinking of touching on TikTok as an example of diversity in a PLN because it has so many different ways of integrating and introducing you to new communities like you said, using discovery tabs as a great example. TikTok collects so much data on a single user that it points you in the direction of like-minded or similar people, making it easy to “fit in”, which is what most people want. Great job on your blog!