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

European Patent Office Management Mocked for Trying to 'Bribe' Staff With a Little Food
The Office is having a crisis; a little breakfast treat won't solve it
The Corporate Media Intentionally Overlooks How Google's Debt Trebles in Just Over a Year
We'll soon see how much more money Microsoft has borrowed
(Trigger Warning) Jeremy Bicha & Debian-Edu, TecKids, Ubuntu incest scandal at DebConf25
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part X - Deliberately Violate European Patent Convention (EPC), Tolerate Cocaine Use in Management, Hide That From Staff and Stakeholders
The "Alicante Mafia" (as staff calls it) is a disgrace to Europe
Apparently Last Day for Nearly 1,000 Confluent Workers IBM Laid Off Last Month
IBM is a dying company pretending to be strong because of its age
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, April 30, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, April 30, 2026
Microsoft Debt Rose Almost $50 Billion Since We Moved to Debian
GAFAM has a new name for debt
Google News Sloppy Again
Today was disappointing
SLAPP Censorship - Part 62 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley Issue Astounding Copy-Paste Masterpiece Asserting Publicly-Accessible Embarrassing Facts Must Remain Hidden
Are Garrett and Graveley twins separated at birth but joined by GNOME and Microsoft?
Links 30/04/2026: Barrage of Lawsuits Against Slop, Microsoft's Stock Crashes
Links for the day
Microsoft Says Mass Layoffs Are Coming and Puts a Price on Them
Microsoft will shrink
Upgrade Successful
we had a downtime of only 1-2 minutes overall (for two reboots)
Links 30/04/2026: Slop Industry Cannot Keep Up With Bills, "The World Is Getting Too Hot to Feed Itself"
Links for the day
Then Come the DDoS Attacks
Is someone trying to 'kill' Techrights?
The Register MS Running Spam Pieces for Huawei, a Banned Company
Money does not excuse bad behaviour
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, April 29, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, April 29, 2026
Gemini Links 30/04/2026: Outdoor Time, Old Computers, and Joining Geminispace
Links for the day
In Past 6 Months IBM Lost About 100 Billion Dollars in 'Value' While Debt Ballooned to 70 Billion Dollars
Welcome to a universe of fake finances and phony accounting based on fictional assets with made-up 'worth'
Dr. Andy Farnell on Weaponising Morality Against Technofascism and Slop
It's longer than a "tweet", so social control media addicts are likely mentally unfit to read it
Six Months
Techrights will be around (and active) for a very long time to come
If We Move Everything to Devuan...
IRC, Git, Apache and so on
Why We Publish "The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt"
We intend to report the facts, fearlessly, until real and lasting solutions are reached
SLAPP Censorship - Part 61 Out of 200: Garrett and Graveley Must Understand That Reporting Women's Issues in the United States of America (“the US”) is Not Impermissible
when you cover Microsoft corruption and have real effect
Weeks After Mass Layoffs of Red Hat Engineers We Learn of European "Buyouts" and Layoffs at IBM
At Microsoft, they tell us there are merely "buyouts", but they don't tell us what happens if you say "no!"
OS Upgrade Tentatively Scheduled for Tomorrow
We have some contingencies in case the upgrade goes wrong
Campinos is a Lame Duck President This Year at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The strikes are not ending. If anything, they intensify further.
Links 29/04/2026: LLM Chatbot Usage Goes Down Sharply (as Do Stocks Associated With Them), Microsoft's Circular Financing Accounting Fraud at Risk
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Returning to an Exodus and Farewell APU
Links for the day
Slop Has a Long Way to Go Before It Gets Basic Facts Right
Please do not rely on slop for anything
The Corrupt Lecture the Non-Corrupt - Part IX - European Patents That Are Illegal (But Serve Non-European Monopolists in Exchange for 'Quick Cash')
People who shamelessly violate the European Patent Convention (EPC) have the audacity to lecture workers on "ethics"
Canonical is Selling You, Ubuntu is a Data-Collecting Platform
Canonical is looking for money in the wrong places
Links 29/04/2026: "Snowden Affair 13 Years Later" and "Landmark Data Center Pause"
Links for the day
Seems Like Only Techrights Covered IBM Laying Off About 33% of Confluent Staff
How can such a large round of layoffs evade today's media?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, April 28, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Gemini Links 29/04/2026: Bad Diet, New Middle Ages, and Temperature Model
Links for the day