05.20.22

Gemini version available ♊︎

Outsourcing Sites to Social Control Media is an Outdated Mindset in 2022

Posted in Free/Libre Software at 4:22 pm by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link | md5sum fab7f7b94ecef2d6a25a5e55a472b20d
LWN and Outsourced Speech
Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0

Summary: Centralised or federated censorship/filtering platforms (also known as “social [control] media” [sic]) aren’t the way forward; we’re therefore a little surprised that Linux Weekly News (LWN) bothers with that languishing bandwagon all of a sudden

THERE is lots to be said about the state of the Web and centralisation thereof. The subject was discussed in IRC today (albeit we’ve lost part of that discussion), but the short story is, LWN has only just joined Mastodon (which I quit two years ago). They’re about 5 years late and they won’t get thousands of followers there (it’s way past the peak by now, suffering a demise like all the other social control media). Many instances shut down, there’s a free speech deficit (it seems to be getting only worse over time), and there are technical overheads, never mind the waste of time associated with all sorts of “peripheral” activities.

“But this isn’t a free account.”“For readers who want to follow our article stream on Mastodon,” LWN wrote a few hours ago, “LWN now (finally) has a presence in the Fosstodon community; you can find us at @LWN@fosstodon.org.”

But this isn’t a free account. There’s a hidden cost and time will show the true cost of such an account, as I explain in the video above. Myself and associates have come to the conclusion that social control media is, at best, a waste of time and a distraction. It can be a lot worse than that.

It doesn’t matter what nature (or topic/s of focus) a social control media site/instance may have, it’s just not designed for productive communication and constructive engagement. That’s why so many instances shut down eventually.

LWN has got itself yet another site to maintain/babysit now; the net gain would be so minimal that it’s probably not even worth it. █

Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Reddit
  • email

Decor ᶃ Gemini Space

Below is a Web proxy. We recommend getting a Gemini client/browser.

Black/white/grey bullet button This post is also available in Gemini over at this address (requires a Gemini client/browser to open).

Decor ✐ Cross-references

Black/white/grey bullet button Pages that cross-reference this one, if any exist, are listed below or will be listed below over time.

Decor ▢ Respond and Discuss

Black/white/grey bullet button If you liked this post, consider subscribing to the RSS feed or join us now at the IRC channels.

DecorWhat Else is New

  1. Links 06/06/2023: OpenSUSE Plans for Leap

    Links for the day

  2. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Bubble 4.0, Neutral News, and Older Bits

    Links for the day

  3. IBM's War on Open (Look at the Pattern of Layoffs at Red Hat)

    By abandoning OpenSource.com and OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice IBM sends out a clear signal that it doesn’t understand or simply does not care about the community of Free software users; its siege against the FSF and other institutions never ended and today we look at who’s being laid off or shown the door (the work environment is intentionally being made worse)

  4. Links 06/06/2023: IceWM 3.4.0 and Liveslak 1.7.0

    Links for the day

  5. Gemini Links 06/06/2023: Apple Might Kill VR, Tea Tea Deluxe 1.2.7 and Tea Land

    Links for the day

  6. IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 05, 2023

    IRC logs for Monday, June 05, 2023

  7. Links 05/06/2023: Debian 12 Almost Ready, Hong Kong 'Cannot' Remember Tiananmen Massacre

    Links for the day

  8. Gemini Links 05/06/2023: New Ship in Cosmic Voyage, Stack Overflow Moderator Strike

    Links for the day

  9. IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 04, 2023

    IRC logs for Sunday, June 04, 2023

  10. Links 04/06/2023: Unifont 15.0.05 and PCLinuxOS Stuff

    Links for the day

  11. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Wayland and the Old Computer Challenge

    Links for the day

  12. StatCounter: GNU/Linux (Including ChromeOS) Grows to 8% Market Share Worldwide

    This month’s numbers from StatCounter are good for GNU/Linux (including ChromeOS, which technically has both GNU and Linux); the firm assesses logs from 3 million sites and shows Windows down to 66% in desktops/laptops (a decade ago it was above 90%) with modest growth for GNU/Linux, which is at an all-time high, even if one does not count ChromeOS that isn’t freedom- or privacy-respecting

  13. Journalism Cannot and Quite Likely Won't Survive on the World Wide Web

    We’re reaching the point where the overwhelming majority of new pages on the Web (the World Wide Web) are basically junk, sometimes crafted not by humans; how to cope with this rapid deterioration is still an unknown — an enigma that demands hard answers or technical workarounds

  14. Do Not Assume Pensions Are Safe, Especially When Managed by Mr. EPOTIF Benoît Battistelli and António Campinos

    With the "hoax" that is the financial assessment by António Campinos (who is deliriously celebrating the inauguration of illegal and unconstitutional kangaroo courts) we urge EPO workers to check carefully the integrity of their pensions, seeing that pension promises have been broken for years already

  15. Links 04/06/2023: Why Flatpak and Wealth of Devices With GNU/Linux

    Links for the day

  16. Gemini Links 04/06/2023: Rosy Crow 1.1.3 and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET

    Links for the day

  17. IRC Proceedings: Saturday, June 03, 2023

    IRC logs for Saturday, June 03, 2023

  18. Links 04/06/2023: Azure Outage Again (So Many!) and Tiananmen Massacre Censored

    Links for the day

  19. Links 03/06/2023: Qubes OS 4.2.0 RC1 and elementaryOS Updates for May

    Links for the day

  20. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Hidden Communities and Exam Prep is Not Education

    Links for the day

  21. Links 03/06/2023: IBM Betraying LibreOffice Some More (After Laying off LibreOffice Developers)

    Links for the day

  22. Gemini Links 03/06/2023: Bubble Woes and Zond Updates

    Links for the day

  23. Links 03/06/2023: Apache NetBeans 18 and ArcaOS 5.0.8

    Links for the day

  24. IRC Proceedings: Friday, June 02, 2023

    IRC logs for Friday, June 02, 2023

  25. The Developing World Abandons Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux at All-Time Highs on Desktops/Laptops

    Microsoft, with 80 billion dollars in longterm debt and endless layoffs, is losing the monopolies; the media doesn’t mention this, but some publicly-accessible data helps demonstrate that

  26. Links 02/06/2023: Elive ‘Retrowave’ Stable and Microsoft's Half a Billion Dollar Fine for LinkeIn Surveillance in Europe

    Links for the day

  27. Linux Foundation 'Research' Has a New Report and Of Course It Uses Only Proprietary Software

    The Linux Foundation has a new report, promoted by Clickfraud Spamnil and others; of course they’re rejecting Free software, they’re just riding the “Linux” brand and speak of “Open Source” (which they reject themselves)

  28. Links 02/06/2023: Arti 1.1.5 and SQL:2023

    Links for the day

  29. Gemini Links 02/06/2023: Vimwiki Revisited, SGGS Revisited

    Links for the day

  30. Geminispace/GemText/Gemini Protocol Turn 4 on June 20th

    Gemini is turning 4 this month (on the 20th, according to the founder) and I thought I’d do a spontaneous video about how I use Gemini, why it's so good, and why it’s still growing (Stéphane Bortzmeyer fixed the broken cron job — or equivalent of it — a day or two after I had mentioned the issue)

RSS 64x64RSS Feed: subscribe to the RSS feed for regular updates

Home iconSite Wiki: You can improve this site by helping the extension of the site's content

Home iconSite Home: Background about the site and some key features in the front page

Chat iconIRC Channel: Come and chat with us in real time

Recent Posts