Everyone seems to agree that getting your news from social networks is a bad idea.
Most commentators blame it on the democratic principle that anyone can share news on a social network -- the New York Times and Evan Prodromou's Blog equally -- and of course, since most people are knuckle-dragging morons, they will slop like hogs over those hilarious and amazing posts from EP and ignore the important official propaganda that their social betters have kindly prepared for their edification at the NYT.
Everyone seems to agree that getting your news from social networks is a bad idea.
Anyway, my answer: yes. I have a profile on XBox, Switch, and Google Play Games. I connect with friends on all the platforms. I share achievements and activities and screenshots and sometimes chat.
In my book "ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web", I talk about federating gaming platforms. I think you should be able to connect to an account on Steam from your XBox (or Mastodon) account. Add them to your friends list, and follow their activities.
When did you last attend a technical conference?
#EvanPoll #poll
Finally, I think Fediverse users are generally more protective of their privacy than the general population.
Anyway, my answer: yes. I have a profile on XBox, Switch, and Google Play Games. I connect with friends on all the platforms. I share achievements and activities and screenshots and sometimes chat.
Others were quick to say that they only use social features with real friends and family. I'm not sure why that would be a "but..."; it's the whole point of those features.
Finally, I think Fediverse users are generally more protective of their privacy than the general population.
About 17% of respondents here said Yes. That's much lower. I have a couple of guesses why: first, a lot of commenters didn't seem to consider features like a game profile, friends list, or the activity feed "social features".
Others were quick to say that they only use social features with real friends and family. I'm not sure why that would be a "but..."; it's the whole point of those features.
Interesting results! I don't have great data on this, but the XBox game culture report says about 1/2 of respondents play online multiplayer games. I think you have to have the social features turned on to do that, so I'm going to guess about 50% of XBox users have those features turned on.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/11/19/xbox-culture-of-play-report-gaming-survey/
About 17% of respondents here said Yes. That's much lower. I have a couple of guesses why: first, a lot of commenters didn't seem to consider features like a game profile, friends list, or the activity feed "social features".
Gamers only: do you use the social features of gaming platforms?
#EvanPoll #poll
Interesting results! I don't have great data on this, but the XBox game culture report says about 1/2 of respondents play online multiplayer games. I think you have to have the social features turned on to do that, so I'm going to guess about 50% of XBox users have those features turned on.
https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2025/11/19/xbox-culture-of-play-report-gaming-survey/
Gamers only: do you use the social features of gaming platforms?
#EvanPoll #poll
Evan Prodromou