Culture
Opinion: On Hyves, you could be who you were
Cybersecurity expert Mary-Jo de Leeuw reflects on the return of the Dutch social platform Hyves, contrasting it with modern social media driven by algorithms and the attention economy. She notes that Hyves, which launched in 2004 and grew to nearly ten million users before being overtaken by Facebook, fostered genuine contact without hidden agendas or performative content. De Leeuw argues that the nostalgia for Hyves stems from a time when online interactions were about authentic connection rather than curated personal brands, likes, or AI-fabricated personas, allowing users to simply be themselves.
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