Bonum Certa Men Certa

Insulting Free Software Users in Social Control Media (Proprietary, Bloated With Opaque JavaScript) is Like Insulting Amish on TV

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 23, 2024

Amish Shoo Fly Pie.

Why bother? Don't take the bait.

THERE is this old (but alas "viral") misconception that for Free software to be further popularised its proponents need to outsource and make "presence" in Social Control Media or Social Control Networks. That's nonsense! If anything, it sends contradictory messages. It also puts those proponents inside the lion's mouth. It's never imperative to hop onboard some transient bandwagon like Twitter (a train wreck).

Similarly, taking on transparency-centric journalism rather than software, it seems quite wrong or at least misguided that Wikileaks is not updating its own site (that it controls) and instead playing games in Twitter (X). It's not just Wikileaks but also the Assange family. They frequently use Google (YouTube) instead of self-hosting their videos, which are controversial enough (some violence and sometimes death contained in them) to merit Orwellian censorship, dictated or demanded from a prolific Pentagon contractor, Alphabet. That's the equivalent of using GitHub, controlled by Microsoft and the NSA, to build Free software. It's a terrible idea, a short-sighted reflex.

It's moreover a bit disappointing to see that Stella Assange uses social control media ("X") to do "Where's Waldo?" with Julian. She'd be better off starting her own site rather than offloading to Alphabet (YouTube), Musk/KSA etc. She and Julian should know better ("Google Is Not What It Seems"), based on Wikileaks' direct experiences with Google over the years.

Wikileaks remains far too dependent on or reliant on the very same companies it need to be fighting, exposing etc. You cannot beat company X (not "X" the company) by leveraging the "services" of company X. If you become EFFECTIVE, as you might do at one point, they WILL shut you down. It already happened to Wikileaks several times in the past. Misuse of power when some threshold is reached is the norm. Live and learn, do not repeat the mistakes others made and hope you'll be the "lucky" one, the exception. Some Wikileaks staff used GMail. It didn't work out too well at the end. The only thing Google did for them was, it informed them they they had been sold out to the US Government (in court).

Too late.

Loud Argument

The bottom line is, if Social Control Media lacks "presence" of Free software advocates, then so be it. It's a waste of time to wrestle with pigs.

The very concept - or the underlying idea - of Social Control Media is deeply flawed. It'll never be media or become social, as it tends to make journalists more lazy (i.e. less accuracy pursued) and it divides an otherwise cohesive society united around common themes. Society needs information instead of hate/conflict that drives up "engagement".

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

The Real GNU Anniversary (Not Manifesto or Announcement) is Today
the development, not the manifesto
GNU/Linux Usage Said to Have Doubled in Oceania
it's hard to discount or dismiss Oceania as a bunch of "coconut islands"
No, Writing Isn't in Decline, Some of the Large and Centralised Platforms Are
Slop isn't really competition, just a passing fad and pure noise
The Reputation Issue Is Not Our Fault
Trying to squash words (and people) merely diverts more attention to them
 
Links 05/01/2026: Slop Ruining Children's Minds, "Complicity of the Press in US Violence"
Links for the day
Microsoft's Windows Falls Below 20% in the UK
After a lot of years of advocacy and hard work
There's No Such Thing as "AI Godfather", Stop Repeating This Pure Nonsense!
Infantile or corruptible media that plays along with slop or uses slop will perish
IBM's CEO Makes No Sense
"IBM CEO Aravind Krishna on what’s really driving tech layoffs"
Gemini Links 05/01/2026: "Poverty and Hunger", "Entrepreneurial Family", "Abandoning Obsidian for Logseq"
Links for the day
Links 05/01/2026: A Shrinking Canadian Economy, Brigitte Bardot's Environmentalism Recalled, Unredacted Epstein Files
Links for the day
Microsoft Allegedly Uses Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) to Hide the Massive Scale of Company-Wide Layoffs
Just like IBM; they meanwhile talk a bunch of nonsense about "AI" to distract from their commercial calamity
Battles Are Won in the Court of Public Opinion
Many "systems" rely on the mere perception or appearance of legitimacy
GNU/Linux Share in Mongolia More Than Doubles
they probably lack any genuine excitement for "hey hi PCs"
Whistleblowing is About Understanding Boundaries and Risks
The bottom line is, people typically find out the truth at the end
EPO People Power - Part XXV - While EPO Managers Snort Cocaine the Staff Compiles 'Insurance Files' to Expose EPO Corruption
In this increasingly authoritarian world we need more whistleblowers
"The European Patent Reform" That Represents a Gross Violation of Laws, Constitutions, and Conventions (in Order to Make the Rich Even Richer, Mostly Outside Europe)
How far and how long will EPO corruption go?
GNU/Linux Distribution "Ultimate Edition" Fixes Its Web Site (Apparently Compromised Months Ago)
they dealt with the issue before media shame and a catastrophe of trust
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, January 04, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, January 04, 2026
Gemini Links 04/01/2026: 64-bit Addressing and 39th Chaos Communication Congress
Links for the day
Windows Was Always the Punchline
What did we count to calculate taxes?
GNU/Linux Surges to About 4% in Peru This Year
one of the poorest counties in America
This Year Our Adoption of IRC Turns 18
We have used IRC for this site since 2008
The Doors Are Closing, Windows Closing Too
Microsoft wants more vendor lock-in, but at risk that this desire will simply alienate and drive away many users
The FSF's Program Manager, Dr. Miriam Sabrina Bastian, Left in October to Lead Climate School
We are not sure why Miriam Bastian decided to leave the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
Outline of Slop, LLMs, IBM, and Things to Come
This coming week and weekend will be very productive irrespective of how much "news" gets published by other sites
Links 04/01/2026: War Without Borders, "Large Hadron Collider Being Shut Down"
Links for the day
Links 04/01/2026: US Imperialism in Greenland and Venezuela, "Climate Protesters Face Greater Risk of Crackdown Amid Rising Authoritarianism"
Links for the day
2026 Should be the Year We All Stop Saying "AI" and Call Things What They Really Are
Don't give anyone the satisfaction of this misguided belief there's any intelligence there
Ponzi Schemes Are Useful (to Corrupt CEOs)
Pathetic, corruptible so-called 'media' is bagging bribes to perpetuate the lies about "AI" (slop)
GNU/Linux at All-Time High in Algeria
In 2026 it hit a new all-time high
Online Mobbing (and Worse) Disguised as 'Free Speech'
People who say they believe in "free speech" have been trying hard to silence RMS and squash the FSF
A 'Cancer That Attaches Itself' to Bulgaria?
"Cancer" is what Microsoft called GNU/Linux
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, January 03, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, January 03, 2026
Body-Shaming Using Fakes
a lot of the people who casually claim "defamation" are themselves defaming loads of people every day
GNU/Linux "Market Share" in Switzerland More Than Doubled Last Year, Based on statCounter
GNU/Linux continues its considerable growth
EPO People Power - Part XXIV - Today or Tomorrow You Should Write to National Representatives (Delegates) at the EPO in Your Country
Keep up the pressure!
Red Hat and IBM Layoffs, Staff Kept Quiet About it, WARN Act Skirted/WARN Notices Avoided
What a terrible company to be in
XBox Layoffs Imminent, More Appalling Sales Figures Published
Expect many layoffs in the gaming division
Slop Still Rare
So far a good start for 2026
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Climbing, Waking Up, and Social Control Media Woes
Links for the day
Links 03/01/2026: Growing Censorship, Another US Invasion, and Will Smith 'Cancelled'
Links for the day
Links 03/01/2026: Twitter Turns From Disinformation Powerhouse to Production and Dissemination of Child Pr0n, "New China Cybersecurity Law Becomes A Reality In 2026"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: Formatting Text for Gopher and Text-only Websites
Links for the day
Unverified Claim: Mass Layoffs at Microsoft to Start Around Week 3 (or 4) of This Month
Let's wait and see if the claim above is from an insider who has inside knowledge
Firefox Fell Below 1% in Asia
less than 1 in 100 Web users is detected/assumed to be using Firefox
Links 03/01/2026: Ryanair Fines and Facebook Misleads Regulators
Links for the day
New Record High for GNU/Linux in Benelux in 2026
If the above trends stand (throughout the year), then we can begin talking more seriously about a post-GAFAM Europe
In the Search Engine Market, Microsoft is Falling Behind Russia's Yandex
The so-called 'AI industry' is a boy that cries wolf
A Year of Relaxation, But Also of Hardcore Whistleblowing
Expect industrial action some time soon
The More Influential Richard Stallman (RMS) Becomes, the More Aggressive Attacks on Him (and the FSF) Will Get
We've meanwhile noticed disinformation being spread in social control media
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High of 5% in Indonesia (Not Counting Chromebooks and Android)
There are also related events in Indonesia and SUSE in particular seems to have been popularised there
EPO People Power - Part XXIII - António Campinos Knows He's Extremely Vulnerable at This Time
Campinos should never have been put in charge
Gemini Links 03/01/2026: New Organisation System (Notebooks) and "2026 Already Off to an Amazing Start"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 02, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 02, 2026