Glossary
Context collapse
When content created for one audience is encountered by another audience that lacks the context to interpret it correctly.
A joke shared with friends gets screenshotted and goes viral, read literally by strangers. A nuanced academic argument gets stripped to a single inflammatory sentence in a quote-tweet. Context collapse is structural to social media: every post is potentially visible to every audience simultaneously. The result is a strong incentive to either flatten communication (no nuance) or self-censor. Context collapse is one reason public discourse has become coarser as social media has gained share. See also: self-censorship.
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