Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why Techrights Doesn't Do Social Control Media

More about Social Control than about Media. Standing on one's own means more freedom of speech and no self-censorship.

One-tree hill

Summary: Being managed and censored by platform owners (sometimes their shareholders) isn't an alluring proposition when a site challenges conformist norms and the status quo; Techrights belongs in a platform of its own

AFTER posting more than 670,000 tweets and having coined the term "Social Control Media" (which even Julian Assange and Wikileaks adopted) I decided to no longer use Twitter except to check replies once a day. It had become a massive productivity drain and usually an utter waste of time. I still have stuff posted there, albeit only as copies exported from decentralised and Free software platforms such as Diaspora and Pleroma (Mastodon-compatible).



"It seems pretty clear where Twitter is going with this; it wants to eventually become another Facebook."A decade ago Techrights, Boycott Novell and TechBytes had active accounts in Identi.ca (and two of these in Twitter as well). At some stage it seemed clear that this kind of activity was detrimental to -- not contributory towards -- actual journalism. Techrights never had a Twitter account and character length is still a major limitation. Over the years surveillance and bloat got a lot worse; almost exactly a year ago Twitter also killed third-party tools by deprecating key APIs. It seems pretty clear where Twitter is going with this; it wants to eventually become another Facebook. We probably don't have to explain why Facebook is so bad (many aspects to that).

There's nothing to regret here overall; we didn't participate in these sites and we probably lost nothing by staying out of these. I have personal accounts there, but these express my personal views (on politics) rather than the site's.

"There's nothing to regret here overall; we didn't participate in these sites and we probably lost nothing by staying out of these."Social Control Media (so-called 'social' 'media') is neither social nor media; when people socialise they don't get managed by the billions by one single company/shareholders and media has generally (historically) checked claims/facts. Twitter lacks that.

Social Control Media has sadly 'replaced' the "long form" writings in a lot of blogs. That's a shame really. Quality is being compromised for the sake of speed and concision. When we're trying to actually find/syndicate reliable blogs we nowadays come to realise that many are inactive/dormant. Instead of sites they become "accounts" (on someone else's platform, complete with throttling, censorship and ads); what used to be a site/blog is just some Twitter account that posts and reposts unverified nonsense. Techrights doesn't wish to ever become something so shallow.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft Killed the Term "Open Source" (by Bribing/Taking Over OSI, 'Linux' Foundation Etc.) and Now It Needs to Kill the Brand Linux (Because Windows Just Won't Run!)
Why else would Microsoft falsely describe Windows as "Linux" and "Open Source"?
Slopwatch: Liars for Microsoft, Plagiarism, and IBM Red Hat Markets Slop as "AI"
Today was a bad day news-wise
Slopwatch: Slopfarms 'Think' Redis is "Linux" (RedisRaider)
Today we'll keep it short and to the point again
 
Bigots and Lunatics Who Attack Microsoft Critics, Projecting Their Own Bigotry by Accusing Others of Imaginary Things (Which They're Innocent Of)
"In psychology, projection refers to assigning your negative traits or unwanted emotions to others without being aware you’re doing it."
"The Appeals Committee [at the EPO] Unanimously Stated a Formal Flaw in the Consultation of the General Consultative Committee (GCC) on the Reform"
It's a truly horrifying situation
Links 21/05/2025: Climate Problems and Ceasefires No Longer Foreseen
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Gemini Links 21/05/2025: "Shrimps of Doom" and "ASCII-graphs"
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Links 21/05/2025: GitHub Becoming Slop, MElon as a Drug Addict Considered National Security Risk
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IBM Has Allegedly Just Sacked Mr. McKinsey (McK), Clay Cowan, Its Fourth CMO in a Few Years
To insiders he represented the company that's killing IBM or advising IBM on how to self-destruct
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Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 20, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 20, 2025
Links 20/05/2025: Biden's Cancer, GDPR Changes, and UK Defamation Cases (or SLAPPs) Fail Again
Links for the day
Microsofters Targeting the Wife of the Critic of Microsoft
false claims and loaded statement
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Links for the day
Microsoft a Top Sponsor at Red Hat Summit (IBM Selling Proprietary Spyware and Back Doors in a "Red" Trench Coat)
They both work for Microsoft
Openwashing of Windows, Back Doors, Persistent Surveillance, Keyloggers, Screen Loggers, DRM and So On
WSL is not "Linux", it's Windows
New 'Interview' With - or Talk Coverage of - Richard Stallman in the European Union
automated English translation
IBM Mass Redundancies Likely This Coming Thursday
We're not in a position to judge if that's true or false
Gemini Links 20/05/2025: LLM Scraper Bots in Gopher and "Starmer and the Somewheres"
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 19, 2025
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Skype Fell Off a Cliff (Microsoft Killed It), All Microsoft Has Left Now is Slop and Spaghetti Code
"This isn’t about AI. This is a puppet show to drive stock prices up and down."
The Official SUSE Blog Uses LLM Slop to Compose Fake Articles Promoting Microsoft and Azure
even a little slop spoils the broth
Slopfarms (Machine-Generated Fake News Sites Authored by Bots With Slop Images) Spread GNU FUD
This isn't about Linux (GNU doesn't run just on Linux)
United States Federal Government's Digital Analytics Program (DAP): GNU/Linux Users Represent Close to 6% of Visitors This Year
How far has GNU/Linux gotten? Very far!
The "LLM Ouroboros of Shit" is Complemented by Even Worse Phenomena Caused by Microsoft's Contribution of SPAM and Pollution
Microsoft became a world leader in promotion of LLM slop
The LLM Ouroboros Phenomenon
Fact #1: over time slop gets worse (training set is like some blurry JPEG). Fact #2: People's "smell" for slop improves over time, as they 'train' on slop and can detect it based on prior encounters. Put 1 and 2 together.
Links 19/05/2025: Charges of Blackmailing Over Son Heung-min, Chad Opposition Leader Detained
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Gemini Links 19/05/2025: Ableism, Silicon Monkeys, and More
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How We Defeated DDoS Attacks
One of the best things one can do is migrate to an SSG
Microsofters Issuing Threats to Microsoft Critics Who Blog About Microsoft
So far we see that their "legal strategy" revolves around trying to discredit people like Theodore Ts'o
Links 19/05/2025: Political Catchup and CISA Advisories
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TheLayoff.com Has Begun Deleting Trolls/AstroTurfers Infesting the IBM Section to Discourage On-Topic Discussion About Culls and Maladministration (Bad Strategy)
Moderators have realised there's a problem
Over at Tux Machines...
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IRC Proceedings: Sunday, May 18, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, May 18, 2025