Bonum Certa Men Certa

How Social Control Media Works: The Case of Twitter, Visualised and Annotated

Zoom in or click below for full view/size

Twitter Visualised and Annotated

A: We suggest you listen to people you quite likely dislike, based on our "Hey Hi" (AI) algorithm, optimised to stir up confrontation

B: We tell you what the news is, according to Twitter Inc.

C: We throw a cryptic clue to 'clickbait' you into a trail of meaningless and out-of-context tweets (because your time is worthless, just scroll on)

D: We throw pop-ups at you to give you the illusion of control, privacy, etc.

E: We decide for you what tweets you need to read (it's not about who you follow, chronological timelines are dead because they put you in control)

F: We've repeatedly asked you to upload more files for the surveillance engines; the more you upload, the more we reward you

G: We want to know what you have in mind and gossip too is good

H: We insist that the more "likes" there are, the more accurate and important it is (not the person)

I: Submit comments, they help us sell ads and keep people in the site more active ("engaged")

J: Talk as if you have "private messages" (but we read everything and relay -- or lose -- this data)

K: Help us categorise people; lists that cluster people help the state control the population

L: Keep your bookmarks dependent on a private company in "clown computing" (vendor lock-in)

M: We always want to keep you totally distracted, addicted and we conflate this with "popularity" or "success" (your online "friends" and "followers")

N: Find random things that corporations think will net them more profits (you're bored, right?)

O: Our site is your "home", the centre of your universe (see logo above; harmless bird)

P: Waste more time in our site, as "engagement" gives us power

Q: Even Christine is starting to understand how annoying Social Control Media really is (it's like a design flaw)

R: We expand your links onto a "card" (even when the links themselves are more descriptive and informative than some site's logo)

S: We give you an illusion that we value your privacy when in fact violating it is our business model

S+: Missing option? Can I have no ads at all?

Extra: You need several megabytes of HTML, CSS, JavaScript and fonts just to render a message or a bunch of messages (at most 280 characters long)

Recent Techrights' Posts

Banning Things Versus Teaching People the Reason/s to Shun/Boycott Those Things
Prohibition has its limits
 
Clownflare Says Majority of Web Traffic is Now Bots, But the Net is Another Story
Bots are to Clownflare what lawsuits are to lawyers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 07, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 07, 2026
The Strikes at the European Patent Office Planned to Carry on for the Entire Year, Maybe Future Years as Well
There's a cautionary tale somewhere
Number of Patent Grants Has Plunged 23% Amid Strikes at the European Patent Office, Today There Are More Strikes (Strike Participation at Over 3,000, More Than Doubled Since Winter)
There is a growing crisis at the European Patent Office
E.E.E. Still Ongoing, the War on Copyleft/GPL Enables That
It also imperils security.
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: Lynx in the 'Modern' Web and 'Overcooked' (Plagiarised by LLM) Code
Links for the day
Links 07/06/2026: Java Needs Seawall, Egypt Blasted for Arbitrary Detention of Activists
Links for the day
SLAPP Censorship - Part 100 Out of 200: Interlude and Outline of the First Half, 3+ Months That Got Us Death Threats Connected to Brett Wilson LLP (and Cyber Attacks That Are Difficult to Attribute)
This week we plan to have a good time
Links 07/06/2026: NASA's Mars Maven Declared Dead, Telegram Founder Pavel Durov Bemoans Russia's Crackdown
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 06, 2026
IRC logs for Saturday, June 06, 2026
Gemini Links 07/06/2026: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) and "Six Days of Play"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Epstein Problem' in Board of Directors of Microsoft, Surveillance Giant Google Under Legal Threats for Online Misuses
Links for the day
Software Freedom Takes a Lot More Than Coding
some of the roles in the Free software community that don't receive (m)any grateful words
Ubuntu is Losing to Other GNU/Linux Distros
"Linux Mint"
Old Articles Explaining That Patents - Especially Software Patents - Are Bad for Innovation
We've omitted more than 50% of the articles we had gathered as candidates for inclusion
European Patent Office (EPO) Crisis: Huge EPO Strikes, Profound Corruption, and Cocaine Use by Managers Tolerated
These strikes won't be ending any time soon
Why GNU and FSF Will Choose AV1 Over AV2 (It's More Widely Supported)
for the foreseeable future they'll stick with AV1
Mass Layoffs (RAs) and PIPs (Excuses to Sack) at IBM: Insiders Tell No Relation to Actual Performance
If many thousands are impacted by this, then certainly it is newsworthy
Links 06/06/2026: LinkedIn Infested With Spies, Ethernet WiFi Router On Pi Pico 2W
Links for the day
25 Years With PalmOS
That my Palm PDA still works in 2026 (not in mint condition but close to that) says a lot about the "build quality" of gadgets 20+ years ago
Why We Dumped Online Shopping (Groceries)
subsidies kept the "online" stuff artificially cheap
Microsoft Fell to All-Time Low in Monaco Last Month
So says statCounter anyway
Lawsuits That Don't Work
Not as expected anyway
SLAPP Censorship - Part 99 Out of 200: Graveley and Garrett Seem to Have Crashed Brett Wilson LLP (Worse Than Taking Russian Oligarchs as SLAPP Clients)
a state of disarray
Microsoft Has Spent Months Preparing Lists of People to Cull in Massive Wave of Layoffs (Allegedly Start of July)
There is some consensus that we're weeks away from mega-layoffs at Microsoft
Gemini Links 06/06/2026: "Competing" With LLMs and "Automation of Any Kind"
Links for the day
Links 06/06/2026: 'Linux' Foundation Openwashing Slop on Microsoft's Payroll, Ukraine Wants Permanent Ceasefire With Russia
Links for the day
50% of the 'Gains' Made by "Quantum" Hype Already Evaporated
"It was all hype about quantum nonsense. Heading back to reality now. Expect sub-$220 after earnings release next month."
Heap of Trash Online, Not Just the Fault of LLM Slop But Enabled by Slop
Google News has just promoted a pair of prolific slopfarms
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 05, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, June 05, 2026