
With sensational, attention-seeking content infecting major social media platforms and fueling concerns over global misinformation, a pioneer in the field is choosing to take things back to simpler times.
The operator of Mixi, an early power in Japan’s domestic social networking services, has launched a new platform that puts personal connections ahead of viral trends.
The new social media platform Mixi2 launched on Dec. 16 and attracted 1.2 million users within its first week.
Most users are Japanese, but the platform also supports English.
Similar to X (formerly Twitter), users can post short messages of up to 149 characters along with images and a repost function allows them to share others’ content.
However, unlike X, which opens to an algorithm-driven “For You” feed that highlights trending posts, Mixi2 displays posts from followed accounts in chronological order.
The original Mixi, launched in 2004, was a social platform focused on connecting friends through diary-style posts and creating communities based on shared interests.
While Mixi2 retains the concept of “connecting people,” it revisits a posting system that is likely novel to younger individuals and familiar to older internet users.
“Showing sensational content increases user engagement and boosts ad revenue, but I wanted to create a platform where people can have deeper conversations and gather around shared interests,” said Kenji Kasahara, director and founder of Mixi Inc.
When Twitter launched in 2006 and Facebook introduced its Japanese version in 2008, both originally displayed posts from followed accounts.
However, it changed significantly with the rise of TikTok, according to Yoshinori Hijikata, a professor of social media studies at University of Hyogo.
TikTok entered the Japanese market in 2017 and quickly gained popularity with its algorithm-driven recommendation system, which continuously suggests content tailored to user preferences.
As YouTube and other platforms adopted similar features, the “attention economy” accelerated, with users posting increasingly sensational content to capture attention.
This trend intensified after entrepreneur Elon Musk acquired Twitter in 2022.
The platform with its extensive user base places emphasis on “impressions”―an advertising and marketing metric that reflects a piece of content’s views and “influence”―as part of efforts to increase revenue.
Short-text social media platforms such as Bluesky and Threads emerged, but they have yet to gain user numbers on the same level as Twitter at its peak.
“Social media recommendations can shape user behavior without them even realizing it and often push information toward more extreme viewpoints,” Hijikata said.
He explained that when users are repeatedly exposed to short, highly stimulating videos in quick succession, they become more prone to addiction.
“Mixi2, which distances itself from this trend, may feel more comfortable for users, but competing with highly stimulating social media is no easy task,” he added.
(This article was written by Midori Iki and Ryota Goto.)