Bonum Certa Men Certa

Social Control Media is a Passing Fad, We Should All Go Back to Blogging and Subscribing to RSS Feeds

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Summary: The whole "social control media" phenomenon has been oversold or promoted using lies; in reality, as a mountain of evidence serves to show, it's a way to manage society at a macro scale

When a lot of people/groups rely on AWS and Facebook (or Twitter) for their "activism" it'll be people like Bezos and Zuckerberg (and/or Jack Dorsey) who decide -- along with their "billionaire class" -- what kind of activism is "permissible". But even if one steps out of their monopolistic platforms and picks so-called 'free speech' platforms it's just a false promise [1, 2]. The same goes for Free software-based and decentralised/federated platforms, as personal experience taught me [1, 2].

"Even IRC is a lot better (e.g. healthier to the mind and better for society) than 'social' control media and that's why IRC survived/endured so many decades."After more than 15 years of social control media participation (Digg, Netscape/Propeller, then Identi.ca, Twitter and more) I've come to the conclusion that nothing can ever replace personal sites with RSS feeds, self-hosted feeds, accessed by native (locally-run) RSS readers.

Derek Taylor might think that his own instance of Mastodon will enhance his free speech; but once many other instances block his own he too will realise that not only does he lack the right to an audience; some platforms will go out of their way to prevent him from communicating with people (on platforms other than his own).

The whole "social control media" thing (or social control networks) is a false promise. It makes people less sociable, it leads to conflicts, it balkanises the Internet (or just the World Wide Web), and it needs to be replaced. The sooner, the better. Even IRC is a lot better (e.g. healthier to the mind and better for society) than 'social' control media and that's why IRC survived/endured so many decades. ⬆

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