THE likelihood of successfully establishing decent signal-to-noise ratio (s/n) in social control media is very low. Really, really low. I should know. I've been on those things since the identi.ca days, and prior to it Digg.com (if that count as social control media). Prior to that I used to habitually access USENET and I communicated there quite a lot (I had published almost 100,000 messages/posts there). But to actually get one's news from open forums such as these (Reddit included) is a bad idea. I've quit reading "timelines" as a source of information because of low accuracy rates, cruft, self-promotion (the whole "selfie"-type thing) and I've come to realise, based on occasionally agonising experiences, that it doesn't matter so much if it's centralised or not and even whether proprietary or not, free speech still won't be respected and the entropy ratios (e.g. s/n) will still remain low. Self-hosting may sound alluring and seductive an alternative, but pods or instances still need to connect to one another (and that can be denied, depending on the taste of obstructionist, protectionist, over-sensitive peers).
"What I always say to people who ask me about social control media sites is similar to what I'd tell smokers or potential smokers..."Mr. Lunduke said he'd quit social control media altogether this year -- his new year's resolution -- citing even Richard Stallman with the whole "Stallman was right" spiel.
Stallman has long had his own notes in his own site with his own RSS feed. Anyone can subscribe to these, even anonymously (no man in the middle), and Stallman is in complete control. Well, sort of. No 'deplatforming' anyway.
"The tobacco industry has begun faking novelty, calling cigarettes (consumption medium for the drug) "electronic" and the drug "e-liquid" (as if the drugs are a technology and chemicals are somehow "smart")."I can recognise the reality that many people do like social control media and appreciate so-called 'timelines' on a so-called 'phone' (spying devices that can also make phonecalls; Mr. Lunduke has decided to quit those too this year). So I carry on posting in social control media; I don't pick news from there (not anymore), but I use some platforms to disseminate posts we've published.
We've already explained why Techrights itself totally lacks presence in social control media and why social control media ought to be treated as merely a vast pool of hearsay. What I always say to people who ask me about social control media sites is similar to what I'd tell smokers or potential smokers; "not a user? Good! Don't ever bother! Never start."
"...last month Twitter bombarded the news with claims that it was exploring decentralisation and "Open Source" (that's just vapourware; they'd never shift their platform to such a topology)."The tobacco industry has begun faking novelty, calling cigarettes (consumption medium for the drug) "electronic" and the drug "e-liquid" (as if the drugs are a technology and chemicals are somehow "smart"). It helps skirt regulations/bans. Similarly, the 'incumbent' social control media giants have begun openwashing; the Linux Foundation (LF) is helping -- as recently as this week -- Facebook et al (LF sponsors) paint mass surveillance as "confidential computing" (euphemism with inverted meaning!) and last month Twitter bombarded the news with claims that it was exploring decentralisation and "Open Source" (that's just vapourware; they'd never shift their platform to such a topology). These are the real electronic or digital tobacco giants. ⬆