The Final Demise of Social Control Media May be Upon Us (It Ought to be Collectively Abandoned for Society's Sake)
If it keeps going down, prospects of a turnaround or rebound are slim
THIS ship has sailed. The bird (now "X") is dying. Facebook has rebranded as "Meta" and is now jumping aboard the Ponzi boat ("Hey Hi" hype) because it's flailing as "social media" and "Metaverse" is dead in the water. LinkedIn is just mass layoffs after mass layoffs after mass layoffs...
Yesterday we noticed that Daniel Pocock says "social control media" (again) - a term that Wikileaks also adopted after I had coined it ages ago. If this term spreads further (like "openwashing"), then it means we have a positive impact on public discourse.
An associate agrees "because it is really is about control and it is essential that people see the harm it does. The 'fun' or addictive components are just bait on the hook."
Some nations now go as far as banning the whole thing, e.g.:
- Pakistan tells Sindh High Court its ban on X was legitimate amid national security concerns
- Pakistan Plans Total Ban On Social Media For Muharram, PM's Nod Awaited
Even if done for the wrong reasons, the diagnosis seems correct. "Fediverse" has many of the same issues, so it's not truly an alternative, whereas IRC likely is (no federation). Incidentally, we've done a lot better lately, with hardly any trolls/spam and a new record for max users: 79. No need to deal with all sorts of hostile people from other "networks" or "instances" or "troll farms". "Engagement" is the wrong measure; trolls can drive up "engagement", but they're undesirable.
Now, let's get back to Pakistan. To be clear, we don't endorse the Pakistani government or its policy.
They speak of "integrity, security or defense of Pakistan" and "other nations should follow suit if they have any sense," an associate told us. Recall Nigeria banning Twitter after the president got "banned" (US company preventing a foreign leader speaking to his citizens). But by no means do we praise such bans*. The "PPF, however, is full of shit," the associate continues, and "as complained before the subset of topics allowed in social control media is a subset and not free in any manner. You are free to 'tweet' as long as Musk and/or the moderators he has hired agree with and plan to promote the agenda your post can be pigeoneholed into."
"Apropos the free to 'tweet' as long as Musk agrees with your message," the associate continued, an example from this week's news: "The social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, received criticism from researchers after it labeled a link by the investigative journalism group Bellingcat about Russia’s attack on a children’s hospital in Kyiv as “potentially spammy or unsafe.”"
Also see this week's report "Sharp drop in Finns' confidence in public institutions" because "given the demographic split," according to the associate, "that may be due to social control media influence."
For nations to maintain any morsel of national sovereignty, as they objectively ought to, they will need to turn down social control media, if not by boycott campaigns then by informed choices (by members of the public). One approach is to educate the public about the harms of social control media and why shunning it would be an act of solidarity. █
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* We strongly oppose TikTok not because we oppose free speech but because we diagnose TikTok itself as an attack on free speech and we instead suggest using tools that facilitate free speech. To be clear, the West censors a lot too. Russian site blocking: we just block your site. Western site blocking: we tell your site to outsource to social control media ("everyone is doing it!") and all people to use social control media for news. Then we ban or shadowban or derank or suspend your account there. Western censorship is more subtle, but it exists and thrives. It's possible to avoid or reduce censorship, but it takes technical effort.