Bonum Certa Men Certa

Today is the Last Goodbye to Social Control Media

Video download link | md5sum 37ea9b132fcb09c4c154ef756aa71e0c Ending Social Control Media Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Social Control Media (no matter if it's proprietary, centralised, Free/libre, federated/decentralised, or self-hosted) isn't the future of the Internet; there has never been a better time to leave it all behind, even actively boycott it (it is an awful, unreliable, biased and censorious modality which encourages or at least rewards mean-spirited behaviour, misinformation, and oppression by platform owners)

THE naysayers in Social Control Media want you to think that Gemini has nothing to offer, even though Social Control Media itself is imploding (see what happened to the valuation of Twitter and Facebook lately) and is becoming a net negative, a burden on society and liability to the world.



After nearly a week of significantly reduced activity in Social Control Media I've decided that today, with my main hub for Social Control Media shutting down (it was JoinDiaspora after Identica), I'll quit participating completely. And sure, I might still post only links to new articles that I wrote, but nothing beyond that. And for the coming week/s not even that.

"Here in Techrights we shall be posting more Daily Links, including Gemini links."As a reminder, Techrights never bothered with such Web sites. In hindsight, it was a good decision. Looking back, retrospectively, Social Control Media was always just a bubble, based on the wrong expectation that it would become the future of the Internet. That's clearly not the case, so those who bet on the wrong horse are busy making up new hype/buzzwords/cargo cults like "Web3" or "metaverse" (yesterday we saw "plasmaverse" too).

As we recently noted, in 2019 Web traffic was estimated to have already decreased to less than a quarter of the whole. IPTV and DRM platforms are unfortunately flooding networks and taking up most of the Internet's capacity. GulagTube (YouTube) has meanwhile become more and more like cable television -- a similarity that has many facets and aspects.

Here in Techrights we shall be posting more Daily Links, including Gemini links. Recent work on code has already improved the presentation and utility of such links, which we hope can help tackle webspam.

JoinDiaspora shuts down in less than 9 hours from now (almost as originally planned after more than a decade online!), but I've come to peacefully accept that. I will still post articles, even more frequently than before, but the best way to follow them is RSS feeds (both here and in my personal site; there's a 'proper' RSS feed for Gemini coming soon too, likely in this address). We need to encourage sites to manage things on their own, freely, not via some third party/ies. Reliance on a third party was always risky because third parties have a tendency to shut down when it's least desirable to the "tenants" and they silence "tenants" when that suits any owner/s of the third party. We've seen lots of that over the past week, in response (mostly) to the Russian invasion. We also saw that earlier this year with Gulag/FeedBurner. As Vivek Gite put it weeks ago: "Google decided to kill the last part of Feedburner. Back in the old days, I and many others used FeedBurner. At some stage, Google acquired FeedBurner, and now they are putting it into maintenance mode. Hence, this new change will affect those getting daily emails via FeedBurner when new content is posted here. Therefore I urge you to update your feed. [...] The lesson is evident here, not to trust 3rd party with your RSS feed or content. I will never forgive Google for erasing Google Reader RSS/Atom feed aggregator. I lost many readers because of that move."

Clown computing and Social Control Media have this in common (overlapping threats). It's always about outsourcing operations, data, and even communications.

More people access Techrights over gemini:// and there will soon be 2,200 capsules, a 10% growth in just over a month*. Those who conveniently assume that the World Wide Web is here to stay and thrive for decades to come grossly underestimate the speed at which software changes (or overestimate digital cadence).

_____ * Lupa says that "[t]here are 2176 capsules. We successfully connected recently to 1773 of them." It was 2,000 in the end January and 1,600 in mid January, respectively.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Bing Might Shut Down - Just Like Skype Did - Some Time in the Coming Months/Years (Parts of It Already Shut Down)
they try to bring the losses under control
Microsoft Rumours: This Week's Scale of Layoffs "Higher Than Reported" and More Coming Soon ("A Lot More Severe" Than May's)
The "3%" figure is false
Slopwatch: Sloppy Brian, Brittany Slop, and General Observations
Creative people don't need slop; there's just nothing good about it, slop appeals to lazy people careless about quality
No, Microsoft Didn't Lay Off So Many People Because of "AI" "Innovation" or "Efficiency" or "Era" or "Revolution" Etc.
Debunking one very common lie
What We Do When We Say "GNU/Linux" to People
It talks about "Linux", "GNU", and what it means to say "GNU/Linux"
 
Richard Stallman Still Respected by Many in the Libre Graphics Community
Richard Stallman and Professor Moglen never harmed anyone
If You Read Techrights, Then You Probably Want to Read Tux Machines as Well
That site is more active than this one
Gemini Links 15/05/2025: Forced Music in Publicly Accessible Space and ~silv is Online
Links for the day
Links 15/05/2025: KOSA Censorship (USA Becomes More Like KSA) and More National Cuts
Links for the day
Your Real Ally Would Not Defend the Company of SLAPP and Strangling of Women
who's left to tell us what's true?
Breakdown of Microsoft Layoffs Shows It's About Cost, Not Performance or Hype (Like "AI")
MSN (Microsoft) reposted this with some unnecessary spin
The Lawyers Working for the Serial Strangler From Microsoft on SLAPPing Techrights Have Apparently Lost Their Voice
the moment we mentioned that their media lawyer is leaving they went all quiet in social control media
At IBM, Relocation Can be a Trick or a Trap (IBM Gets Rid of Staff Under the Guise of "Relo")
IBM is not being honest with employees
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
Beyond Mass Layoffs at Microsoft: Entire Units Shut Down for Good
And it's far from over
Links 15/05/2025: Crikvenica, Analog Computer, and Slop 'Hallucinations'
Links for the day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, May 14, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Links 14/05/2025: Fentanylware (TikTok) Harms Kids, Russia Refuses to Defuse
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/05/2025: Poseur Nerds and Mennonites
Links for the day
VS Code Is Not FOSS, And Neither Is the Site "It's FOSS"
VS Code is proprietary spyware of Microsoft, yet this site keeps promoting it like it's FOSS
Links 14/05/2025: Facebook And Instagram Risk Nationwide Bans, Microsoft Subsidiaries Have Mass Layoffs Too
Links for the day
Canonical Will Give You Money Only If You Work for Microsoft!
Only if you are servicing (being a slave to) proprietary forges that Microsoft and the NSA control while violating the GPL will Canonical give you money
If Microsoft Staff That Strangles Woman Pays You to Write Lies, It Will Not End Well
The past couple of years were our most productive ever
Gemini Links 14/05/2025: "Writing My Story with Inspiration from Notable Lives" and People Start Shovelling Up LLM Slop Onto Geminispace,
Links for the day
Microsoft is Very Highly Stressed About Adoption of GNU/Linux at Windows' Expense (on Former "Vista 10" PCs)
What does this tell us?
Slopwatch: BetaNoise (BetaNews), LinuxSecurity, and Slopfarms Still Promoted by Google News
The primary goal is to demonstrate the problem persists
Links 14/05/2025: Google Agrees to $1.3 Billion Settlement After Spying, China Tariffs Don't Work
Links for the day
There Are Also Loads of Microsoft LinkedIn Layoffs Today (Keep Track of the Subsidiaries They Keep Out of Headlines)
Perhaps lost in the smokescreen
There Are Bigger Rounds of Microsoft Layoffs Coming, a Cull of 10% Implemented in Waves (the "3%" Figure is Misleading, Face-Saving)
Last night we said they might do the layoffs in three or at least two waves
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, May 13, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, May 13, 2025
Gemini Links 13/05/2025: Apocalyptic Future and More
Links for the day
Unless a Third of All Microsoft Layoffs Worldwide Are in Redmond (Washington) Alone, Microsoft Has Just Lied to Everyone Via Jordan Novet in CNBC (i.e. the Usual Any Time There's Mass Layoffs and Novet Weighs in With False Numbers)
Maybe when Microsoft said 3% it meant ~6,000 or more in the US alone
McKinsey (McK) is Killing IBM, It's All About Killing This Goose, "National Sales Team 80% on PIP Now" (Preceding Layoffs Without Severance)
PIPs are not based on performance
Links 13/05/2025: Microsoft Breaks Windows Very Badly Again, Mass Layoffs Reported (But False Figures, It's a Lot Higher)
Links for the day
As Expected, Microsoft Uses Media Operative (Jordan Novet) to Downplay the Scale of Mass Layoffs
here we go
2025 Will be a Big Year For GNU/Linux on Desktops/Laptops
with an economy like this, people who don't live in rich countries won't turn to Apple
Signs of Trouble: Microsoft Job Openings for Jobs That Do Not Exist!
Keeping up appearances?
"Special Place in Hell" for Women Who Help Violent Microsofters From Another Continent Attack Local Women Who Did Nothing Wrong, They Just Got Bullied and Deserve Sympathy or Compensation
Nothing says "Brat" like men who attack women, right?
The Numbers Game: 50,000-60,000 Microsoft Workers Laid Off in 2.5 Years? And Debt Still Tripled Under Nadella.
under Nadella Microsoft's debt trebled
The Slow Death of Windows Will Mean the Inevitable Demise of Microsoft
Once people stop using Windows, it'll be hard for Microsoft to sell anything to them
Last Week's Public Talk by Richard Stallman Well Attended and Covered in Technical News Sites
and we're looking at about 60,000 Microsoft layoffs in 3 years
Gemini Links 13/05/2025: Shopping is an Exasperating Nightmare and Making Phones Minimal
Links for the day
23,000 More Microsoft Layoffs by the End of June If the Estimates Are Correct (In Addition to About 6,000 Layoffs So Far This Year)
There's no questions about many layoffs happening this month. It got leaked already. The only question is when (and also how many).
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, May 12, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, May 12, 2025