Bonum Certa Men Certa

Social Control Media is About Social Control and If It Doesn't Ban You It'll Shut Down Everyone's Account (One Day)

Everybody's account will eventually be terminated; those who get banned are just 'ahead of the curve'

Sir... ....We're shutting down the network... It's no longer profitable... But.... But all my 'friends' and 'followers'



Summary: It's time to leave the 'Internet rot' which is social control media well behind us; blogging and RSS/XML may seem like a thing of the past, but they may as well become the future (again; if we make the correct and informed choices)

THE GAFAM 'cabal', companies like Facebook and Google, can censor a lot of news or bias the whole lot for Apple, for Microsoft, even for Amazon (which is buying puff pieces and whole newspapers). Google News is not news but a small slice of the news that's available out there and Twitter no longer pretends to be neutral; the timelines are strictly moderated 'by algorithms', they're not chronological. It's impossible to display search results chronologically for instance; this means that Twitter gets to control what people see and do not see (they also de-platform certain voices). This enables control of narrative, often for Western imperial-corporate agenda; anything outside some convention or norm is laughed out and dismissed as irrational, as TechDirt recently proved when it spoke about Google dropping it over 'standards' (never mind if each and every page in TechDirt contains Google spyware, Google Analytics, and the site's tone has long been positive regarding Google).



"Well, social control media is a passing/dying fad; it won't last forever and many more people will lose everything they wrote (as happened with Google+, which was a cautionary tale)."Once we lose control over information we lose control/sense of reality. Once we lose control over information channels (medium/media) we lose the ability to even find information. We're being spoon-fed some people's agenda and this is exactly what they want; sometimes they even pay for it, as they can afford to buy ads in Facebook or whatever (see how much money Michael Bloomberg sank into GAFAM when he had a presidential bid going; he also has his own news sites). The concept of "timeline" is space for hire/sale.

Society cannot be properly judged and cannot maintain democratic structures if information is dominated by oligarchic structures; we're at least gratified to see some change, such as people who decide to quit Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook. I saw several such examples this week. Well, social control media is a passing/dying fad; it won't last forever and many more people will lose everything they wrote (as happened with Google+, which was a cautionary tale).

We've just noticed that Red Hat's Adam Miller, who has a Red Hat tattoo on his wrist (but now works for IBM, the company that help tattoo wrists with 'barcodes' 80 years ago), is "Getting Back Into Blogging"; we need more of this:

Something I've always told myself is that I'd start blogging again, about tech or just kind of whatever seemed interesting to me at the time. I'm now making a commitment to myself that I will blog once a week. Not every blog post will be the most amazing thing anyone has ever read and it's reasonable to think that a lot of people will simple ignore a lot of what I say and I'm alright with that. If you're here, welcome! If not ... you don't even know this, but that's also cool.


A lot of sites no longer advertise their RSS feeds (even those that already have them set up). Yesterday I saw a good site of an investigative journalist who has not updated his RSS feed in 12 years! What a shame. What a loss. He's relying on Twitter instead.

To control our future we need to control the conversation; let's get back to blogging and RSS feeds. Let's say goodbye to centralised communication platforms that censor us and 'data-mine' our conversations.

Recent Techrights' Posts

On Groupthink, Mindless 'Sheep', and Toxic Online Cults
This week, treat yourself to a life free of social control media
BetaNews is Run and Written by Bots That Make Clickbait
At least one author is doing this
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part VIII
By Dr. Andy Farnell
GNU/Linux Reaches All-Time High in Europe (at 6%)
many in Europe chose to explore something else, something freedom-respecting
 
Links 25/11/2024: Egypt Harasses Bloggers, The University of Michigan Has Become Like a Corporation
Links for the day
Links 25/11/2024: Climate News, Daniel Pocock Receives a Fake/Fraudulent €17,000 Electricity Bill
Links for the day
[Meme] Microsoft: Our "Hey Hi" Hype is Going So Well That We Have MASS Layoffs Every Month. Makes Sense?
Contradiction
Latest Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Are Confirmed, Bing and Vista 11 Losing Market Share
They tried to hide this. They misuse NDAs.
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, November 24, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, November 24, 2024
Gemini Links 25/11/2024: Purity and Cory Doctorow's Ulysses Pact, Smolnet Portal and SGI
Links for the day
Patents Against Energy Sources That Reduce Pollution
this EV space (not just charging) is a patent mine field and it has long been that way
DARPA’s Information Innovation Office, Howard Shrobe, Values Compartmentalisation But Loses the Opportunity to Promote GNU/Linux and BSDs
All in all, he misses an opportunity
Wayland is an Alternative to X
the alternative to X (as in Twitter) isn't social control media but something like IRC
BetaNews, Desperate for Clicks, is Pushing Donald Trump Spam Created by LLMs (Slop)
Big clap to Brian Fagioli for stuffing a "tech" site with Trump spam (not the first time he uses LLMs to do this)
[Meme] Social Control Media Bliss
"My tree is bigger than yours"
Links 24/11/2024: More IMF Bailouts and Net Client Freedom
Links for the day
Gemini Links 24/11/2024: Being a Student and Digital Downsizing
Links for the day
Techrights' Statement on Code of Censorship (CoC) and Kent Overstreet: This Was the Real Purpose of Censorship Agreements All Along
Bombing people is OK (if you sponsor the key organisations), opposing bombings is not (a CoC in a nutshell)
[Meme] The Most Liberal Company
"Insurrection? What insurrection?"
apple.com Traffic Down Over 7%, Says One Spyware Firm; Apple's Liabilities Increased Over 6% to $308,030,000,000
Apple is also about 120 billion dollars in debt
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, November 23, 2024
IRC logs for Saturday, November 23, 2024
[Meme] GAFAMfox
Mozilla Firefox in a state of extreme distress
Google Can Kill Mozilla Any Time It Wants
That gives Google far too much power over its rival... There are already many sites that refuse to work with Firefox or explicitly say Firefox isn't supported
Free (as in Freedom) Software Helps Tackle the Software Liability Issue, It Lets Users Exercise Greater Control Over Programs
Microsofters have been trying to ban or exclude Free software
In the US, Patent Laws Are Up for Sale
This problem is a lot bigger than just patents
ESET Finds Rootkits, Does Not Explain How They Get Installed, Media Says It Means "Previously Unknown Linux Backdoors" (Useful Distraction From CALEA and CALEA2)
FUD watch
Techdirt Loses Its Objectivity in Pursuit of Money
The more concerning aspects are coverage of GAFAM and Microsoft in particular
Links 23/11/2024: Press Sold to Vultures, New LLM Blunders
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Relationship with Oneself" and Yretek.com is Back
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: "Real World" Cracked and UK Online Safety Act is Law
Links for the day
Links 23/11/2024: Celebrating Proprietary Bluesky (False Choice, Same Issues) and Software Patents Squashed
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, November 22, 2024
IRC logs for Friday, November 22, 2024
Gemini Links 23/11/2024: 150 Day Streak in Duolingo and ICBMs
Links for the day