UK Riots Show the Corrosive Impact (and Collective Cost) of Social Control Media
This also happened in 2011, which was when Twitter received a lot of the blame
This article is apolitical. It won't mention/provide a link to the story, the context, or the full background (as it doesn't wish to take sides, so to speak).
For those who haven't heard already (people already talk about this in our IRC network), Social Control Media and especially the Social Control Network known as "X" (maybe TikTok also) spread some misinformation resulting on people's misguided belief or ill-informed opinions.
Just like in Caledonia, this resulted in violence. Maybe it merely exacerbated it, but we digress and leave that aside (for further debate elsewhere). When it happened in Caledonia TikTok got blocked. Westernised Social Control Networks like Facebook and Twitter (now "X") almost never got banned, except outside the West, e.g. in Pakistan, Nigeria, and Turkey (the last of those blocks Instagram right now).
Can't we all agree that Social Control Media profits from conflict and thus has a financial incentive to fan the flames? Should we not treat all Social Control Media (collectively) as problematic right now in 2024? This isn't limited to the UK riots, as in recent days we also saw people conflating transsexuals with intersex (not the same thing, not even in the context of sport). The latter isn't a choice; it's about how a person is born. The outrage machine does not care.
Anyway, as noted here hours ago, more people nowadays make the wise choice to abandon the hate and rage machines. To quote Jacky Alciné's new write-up again: "This is making me reassess what I'm aiming to "get out" of social media. I'm choosing to treat it as it is; a machine of marketing that has been built as the such and doesn't seem to be changing pending a cultural shift/revolution. It can easily devolve into a silent shouting match and that doesn't help anyone involved. This is influencing my choice to ramp up my personal blogging, which I'm not totally sure can help. I can be selective about how I engage in a way that most social networks either explicitly prohibit or don't support; like limiting who I choose to platform on my own site or even choose to read. My local feed reader is where I keep longer form prose for reading and I'm working to keep social network clients only on my laptop; to make it easier to escape from scrolling mindlessly[5]. I have things I want to get out into the world that are meaningful to me and I resent, at times, the time I'd spend rolling down a feed when I could have spent it working on that instead, or going for a walk, or playing with my dog, calling a friend, writing a letter, playing a video game. So many things that I lose because I decided to hit reply. No longer."
Social Control Networks ought to come with a warning label. Remember who controls "X". █
