Rage in the Propaganda Machine
Back to basics?
I DO NOT "do" (or 'play') social control media. My wife doesn't either (she blogs in her site instead, this was earlier today) and her site quit using social control media, including Mastodon, which is waning anyway. And apropos Mastodon, the trend seems universal; it looks like people are moving on regardless. So she and I are both very happy to see social control media dying, though we didn't quit because it was dying but because it seemed like the right thing to do. When I posted some graphs today I showed that all the "FOSS" social control media (not just Mastodon, also Diaspora and others) was not only losing momentum but also losing a ton of users. It's like a downward spiral and eventually a lot of what's left in Mastodon will be bots (Mastodon is especially notorious for those!).
"The graphs show it is in decline," a friend told me. I said we need to tackle FOMO ("Fear of Missing Out") and debunk it - that is to say we need to tell people that if they quit these platforms they won't miss anything important. Conversely, for those who never joined, there's nothing to benefit from by joining. It's like smoking.
"I suppose there are more who are aware of the public health issues with it," a friend told me. "However, more need to become cognizant of the real issue, that of it being a weapon. FOMO and other harmful gimmicks to produce 'engagement' cultivate unhappiness and dissatisfaction."
People do not need Facebook (and similar) to share birthday photos if they go through the minimal effort of setting up a blog (many people can help and know how to do it for a friend) or an online photo gallery. Ours has received 5,915,148 views since it was set up and there was no need to hunt down "friends" or fake 'friends'. There's a Web address for the gallery and those interested can visit it.
By 2025 we suppose the dominant social control media might be some worthless 30-second videos people scroll through, and not because those are informative but supposedly entertaining (or dangerous).
There has never been a better time to quit social control media. Start living. Stop wasting your life dancing for Musk or Xi or Zuckerberg. █