Bonum Certa Men Certa

Jack Dorsey's Decision is a Wake-up Call: Social Control Media is Just a Toxic Bubble

Video download link | md5sum de4b7461663b0f628ad09b1e6e8d2c47)



Summary: The state of the World Wide Web (reliability, preservation, accessibility, compatibility etc.) was worsened a lot more than a decade ago; with social control media that's nowadays just a pile of JavaScript programs we're basically seeing the Web gradually turning into another Adobe Flash (but this time they tell us it's a "standard"), exacerbating an already-oversized 'bubble economy' where companies operate at a loss while claiming to be worth hundreds of billions (USD) and generally serve imperialistic objectives by means of manipulation like surveillance, selective curation, and censorship

THE traffic one gets in Twitter is rapidly decreasing, based not only on my own experience (as alluded to in the video above) but also the experiences of friends whom I regularly speak to. Some of them only get about 10% the "engagement" they got 5-10 years ago. Social control media is in general a bit of a bubble; it was a thing back in the days, but people shift over to things like TikTok at YouTube's expense, looking for a new experience (under Alphabet it became like television, there's no "You" in YouTube) and Facebook keeps buying companies in an effort to stay relevant. Jack Dorsey's departure from his leadership role isn't due to some scandal; it is likely based on what he's seeing and not telling shareholders. It's not often that we see founders leaving their 'baby' (see "India-born Parag Agrawal replaces Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO"; "Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Steps Down From C.E.O. Role"; "Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to leave social media company"; "New Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is central to Jack Dorsey's plans to revamp social media") unless that baby has slim chances of surviving.



"The media rarely discusses those sorts of issues because it has a stake in the status quo."As we'll note in the next batch of Daily Links (outline above), Twitter's founder and chief is stepping down. Most of Twitter's history was just endless losses and lawsuits, including a lawsuit from shareholders (over Twitter faking its popularity). In recent years Twitter raised money from criminals in exchange for reputation laundering and it had actually made a bit of money for a few years by giving a platform to extremists who spread hate and misinformation.

Regardless of factors like audience size, we're increasingly refocusing and shifting emphasis to self-hosting (IRC, videos, textual publication etc.) while adopting simpler protocols. Twitter became JavaScript-only about a year ago (almost as bad as having a Flash site) and YouTube did the same around the same time if not earlier. From Web pages they've moved to "web" "apps" and from social they've moved to social control. This isn't what the open Web was about or what the World Wide Web was originally for (when a British scientist based in Switzerland wanted to share his papers over the Internet).

The media rarely discusses those sorts of issues because it has a stake in the status quo. Any shift or change is very expensive to those who are accustomed to being the centre of attention.

Recent Techrights' Posts

The Week to Come
Planning ahead
LLM Slop Has Only Been a Boon for Misinformation Online
The very same companies that were supposed to maintain quality (again, not limited to Google with PageRank) are now actively participating in generating and spreading slop
When They Tell You It's Free, Does That Mean No Charges (If So, Who's Paying and Why)?
there's "no free lunch"
Pushers of systemd Rewrite History (Richard Stallman Said UNIX "Was Portable and Seemed Fairly Clean")
Unlike systemd
 
Gemini Links 28/07/2025: Bila Yarrudhanggalangdhuray and Running pkgsrc in a FreeBSD Jail
Links for the day
Microsoft Turns News Sites Into Spamfarms
Is the site The Register MS the next IDG?
The Register MS/The Register US
On Saturday I contacted them for a comment (before issuing criticism)
Hacking revelations at Vatican Jubilee of Digital Missionaries
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 27, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 27, 2025
We're Going to Focus Less on the Molotov Cocktail-Throwing Microsofters and More on Patents
We can get back to focusing on what we wanted to focus on all along
Just Trying to Keep Web Sites Honest (Journalistic Integrity)
the latest articles in LinuxIac are real
Links 27/07/2025: Political Affairs, Data Breaches, Attacks on Freedom of the Press
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: Hot in Japan and Terminal Escape Codes
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: More Microsoft Layoffs Coming, Science and Hardware News
Links for the day
Links 27/07/2025: FSF Hackathon and "Hulk Hogan Was a Very Bad Man"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 27/07/2025: DAW Mixer Chains and Simple Software
Links for the day
The Register MS is Inventing or Giving Air Time to New Conspiracy Theories so as to Distort the Narrative As High-Profile Agencies Fall Prey to Microsoft Holes
But the problem is holes, i.e. Microsoft making bad products; the problem is Microsoft
Most Editors at The Register Are American, Including the Editor in Chief, a Decade-Long Microsoft Stenographer (Writing Prose to Sell Microsoft)
It's not easy to tell where the site is based (we tried) because it's hiding behind ClownFlare and CrimeFlare hasn't been well lately
"New Techrights" Soon Turns 2 (A Few Days Before the FSF Turns 40)
We have a lot more to say about LLM bots
When Silence Says So Much
Garrett, a 'secure' boot pusher, will need to defend himself in the UK High Court
The Register in Trouble
There is not much that can be done at this point
Trajectory of The Register: From News Site/s Into "B2B"... and Into Microsoft Salespeople
Something isn't right at The Register
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 26, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 26, 2025
Misinformation in Social Control Media
Social control media passes around all sorts of tropes
Slopwatch: Fake Linux 'Articles' and Slopfarms With "Linux" in Their Names/Domains
throwing bots at "Linux" to make some fake articles
Links 26/07/2025: Amazon Shutdown in China, Russian Economy Slows
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: History of Time (1988) and Gemini Games
Links for the day
Links 26/07/2025: 50 Percent Tariffs in Amazon, Dying Intel Offloads Network and Edge Group (NEX)
Links for the day
Doing My Share to Tackle Online Slop and SPAM
Trying my best to 'fix' the Web
Blaming Programming Languages for Users' and Developers' Bad Practices
That's like blaming cars for drivers who crash into things
Slopwatch: Fakes, FUD, Duplicates, and Charlatans Galore
The Web as we once know it is collapsing. Some opportunists try to replace it with low-quality slop.
The Register UK Seems to Have Become American and Management is Changing (Microsofter as Editor in Chief)
The Register 'UK' is now controlled by the Directions on Microsoft guy
Many People Still Read Techrights Because It Says the Truth, Produces Evidence, and Does Not Self-Censor
Unlike so many other sites
The Register is Desperate for Money, According to The Register
I decided to check how they're doing as a business
Microsoft Finally Finds a Use Case for Slop?
Create low-quality chaff to shift the media's attention?
Microsoft Windows Lost 400 Million Users in a Few Years, Why Does The Register Double Down on Windows With New US Editor?
days ago they hired a new US editor
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 25, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 25, 2025
For Libel Reform One Must First Bring (or Raise) Awareness to the Issues and Their Magnitude
I myself know, from personal experience
Links 26/07/2025: Rationed Meals in the US and TikTok Repels Investments (Too Toxic)
Links for the day
Gemini Links 26/07/2025: "Bloody Google" and New People in Geminispace
Links for the day
Response to Solderpunk (Father of Gemini Protocol) About the Gemini Community
Solderpunk responds to non-sequitur
HTML and the Web Used to be Something a Child Could Learn, "Modern" Web is a Puzzle of Frameworks, Bloat, and Worse
When the Web was more like Gemini Protocol