Threads in Europe
| | |

Threads in Europe

Byrichard

A few weeks ago Facebook (I refuse to whitewash that company by calling it Meta) decided to blackmail European users. The deal was simple. We were coerced. “Accept to pay for Facebook or we will force you to see ads. This was a lose lose situation that the European Union is now fighting. Imagine being given this choice. If you pay you’re going to be rewarding a company that has abused us.

Facebook Never Apologises for Being Immoral

Facebook enabled the spread of a genocidal message, it enabled the spread of disinformation to get both Trump elected and Brexit to be agreed to. It also experimented with making people more than once. Despite all of this Facebook never apologised.

When I was given the ultimatum of Pay up or you have consented for us to use your data they blackmailed us into either paying “protection money”, or being subjected to targeted advertising. It would give Facebook an excuse to say “But they agreed to us abusing of the data we have on them, and using profiling to manipulate them.

Pay or Be Data Mined

I got side tracked. The real issue is that people being given the choice to pay for facebook, or be manipulated Facebook could say “We gave Europeans the choice, and they chose to give their data rather than their money. This isn’t a choice. There are two to three billion users. It has a monopoly position so we can be isolated by not using Facebook, or exploited, by being on Facebook.

The Nuissance of Algorithms

I created my Threads account to preserve my username rather than out of a desire to use the social network. Instagram, Threads and Facebook all have the same problem. They force us to see crap generated by influencers and strangers, rather than friends. You can pay not to see ads, but you can’t pay to avoid the toxic posts by influencers. By toxic I mean anything that may have a negative effect on our mental well being, whether reminding us of our solitude, of our not being at an event, of not being at the right point at the right age in life and more.

Toxic Facebook

Instagram, for me, and many others, is toxic. I believe that Threads will be just as toxic. I noticed for example that we’re encouraged to like, rather than comment. Years ago I found that social media became far lonelier when people started to like rather than comment, reply or other. A like is a metric, a statistic. A comment is personal.

Social Networks Need to Be Organic

Social networks need to be organic. They need to encourage people to converse with each other, and to converse with the friends of friends. Social network should connect like minded people who have the time for each other, at a manageable scale.

After just a few minutes of using Threads I see posts by people with 4000 or more likes, hundreds of comments and more. My response is “I’m being forced to see content by people who will never reciprocate the attention. I am being spammed by influencers and other toxic individuals.

Of course, I could strive for finding something that 4000 people like, or three hundred people comment on but that’s not what social media is about. Social media is about a convivial intimate conversation between tight knit friends that eventually want to meet in person, rather than stay online. Facebook doesn’t encourage organic social network growth. It encourages the cult of personality. It amplifies the sentiment of being alone and lonely, of being ignored.

The Strength of 2006-2007 Twitter

The strength of social networks, including Twitter is that you started from a blank slate. If you had one friend you saw their posts, and their replies. If you had two friends, then you saw the same. The more active your social network became, the larger your circle of friends and contacts. There was a reward for investing time and attention on a social network.

With Threads we don’t have this. We see posts that are chosen by an algorithm that has nothing to do with our social graph. This is noise, and this devalues Threads because we spend more time dealing with noise, than worthwhile posts by friends.

And Finally

One of the greatest problems with Facebook is that it has a monopoly. It has Facebook, Threads, Instagram and Whatsapp. It has over two billion users. Whether you’re an early adopter, a late adopter, or a normal person, people with similar interests are on Facebook platforms so we’re forced to be there as well. Facebook has a monopoly, especially since the death of Twitter.

It’s a shame that social media has become a fight for attention, rather than an organic conversation between friends, colleagues and people who do specific activities together. Now is the time to use Threads obsessively to become visible, but I believe that I will end up feeling more solitude, rather than less.

The Solitude of Social Media
| | |

The Solitude of Social Media

Byrichard

One of the unique things about Twitter in 2006 and 2007, especially during the first tweetups was that it was a network of strangers who became friends without meeting in person. The people I became friends with in 2006-2007 are still friends now, to some degree. I met them every week at tuttle events and tweetups.


At the same time Facebook was a network of friends from university, which then became friends from work, to friends from various activities. These were networks where, in the first case, you met new people, and in the second you consolidated personal friendships in the physical world online.


This morning I noticed a Fortune article titled ‘People are posting a lot less on public social media’: Creator economy investor says the old web is gone, replaced by ‘people who are professionally entertaining you’.


The entire reason for using social media is to connect with human beings, at a human level, and to develop friendships that go from the world wide web to the physical world. By being about influencers and other charletans Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and other social networks become worthless because it’s the cult of the amateur supercharged. The Amateur who pays to create content for free, so that others can benefit is absurd.


When social media was about human beings connecting with each other, getting along, and then finding the desire to meet in person social media was a pleasant and friendly place to spend time. That’s where social media outshines other media. Social media was about connecting people. Social media was about multiplexing. Social media was about our social networks being our social net worth to use some of the marketing terminology of the time.


“creators thrive when brands are happy to pay them to create content on platforms they’re creating content on,” Lee says.” On paper this is fantastic. On paper dehumanist content creators are creating social media content creators on a platform that undercuts the sense of self, and friendships. Plenty of content on YouTube is sensationalist rubbish. They might get sponsors, and their content might be monetised, but the content is mediocre, at best.


Instagram thrived when it was a network of friends sharing photos with friends. It became absurd when it put forward the impersonal influencer.


The paradox is that I’m curious about a lot of things. If I had found YouTube videos that were worth watching, about certain products, I might have watched them, rather than surfed to articles and blog posts. One of the issues that I find with TikTok, YouTube and other platforms is that the content creators are long winded and disingenuous. They write clickbait titles to force you to watch their content, but in doing so they get me to do the opposite.


I’ve been surfing the web since the 90s so I have seen three or four decades of clickbait by now. I’m tired of the clickbait content. Influencers rely on clickbait tactics to get views, and I find this exhausting. I often browse YouTube for content, but within minutes I usually give up. Everything is sensationalist clickbait.


Most reels on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are awful tabloid crap.


“The reason people follow social media creators, the reason they bother, is partly because of the authenticity,” Kaletsky says. “There’s nothing in the world that’s less authentic than an AI-generated character. So it sort of defeats the point in many ways.”

Social media Fortune article


That’s precisely why I switched away from Social Media. Sensationalist clickbait is not honest. Sensationalist clickbait is not genuine. Social media is so busy getting algorithms to push rubbish upon us that they forget that the reason we use social media is to see what people we know are doing, rather than strangers. The issue is that algorithms are showing content by strangers. That’s not influence. That’s clickbait. that’s spam. That’s irrelevant.


The entire raison d’être of social media is to be a way to see what your network of friends are enjoying and what they think of things. It’s about engaging online, and desiring to do things offline. By keeping people isolated social media is undercutting its entire reason for existing. Why should I use YouTube or Instagram if I am shown irrelevant content?


If I want to know what strangers think, I have the open web. I have search engines, and I have news sites. Since the death of Twitter I find myself blogging more, reading more articles, and doing other things. I reverted to pre-social media habits.


Social media had a reason for being, when it reduced isolation and connected people. Paradoxically Facebook groups do that. I have a deep dislike of Facebook, but that’s where it feels like I could still find an offline community that could lead to in person meetings.


And Finally


I’m tired. I am tired of reading about how influencers are being put forward. I am tired of seeing articles about how influencers are having to keep social media companies happy. I am tired of never seing articles about how social media companies ignore the Return of Investment for ordinary users. One of the consequences of this focus on ROI for “influencers” is that influencers use Mastodon and the Fediverse in the same manner, diminishing the ROI of being on Mastodon instances. The focus should be on connecting people.

The Dystopia of Child Influencers
| | | | |

The Dystopia of Child Influencers

Byrichard

Today I saw the headline “Content creator camps help kids become online influencers” and to me, this represents a nightmare, rather than a dream. It represents a nightmare rather than a dream because the notion of creating content to sell, to influence, and to market, rather than to amuse, inform, educate and entertain seems wrong.


YouTube and Instagram are awful. They’re awful because people are creating content to get views, likes and subscribers, rather than to produce individual videos of special interest. Social media should first and foremost be about connecting people, having conversations and establishing strong bonds, that, with time, become friendships in the physical world, rather than online. People should create content that is fun and entertaining.


On YouTube, Instagram and other platforms people create a video where they keep saying “Don’t forget to like and subscribe, more than once. In some videos they tell us to do this at the start of a video, and again half way through, before telling us to do it at the end. In many circles, and for people of my generation that practice is clearly spamming. I’m curious about views, and comments, but I don’t give a flying duck about likes and subscribes. That’s not why I create content. My aim is to share moments, nice sites, thoughts and experiences. It is not to be a binfluencer. I have no desire to be a binfluencer.


There was a time when I hoovered up YouTube content, watching up to three or four hours a day. Eventually I stopped. At the time content was content, and it was fun and interesting to watch. With Google Prime I found that everything that was being pushed on me was junk with millions of views. In one series of YouTube videos the idiot drew one eyed trouser snakes in everything he did. In another the person always did eccentric things, that eventually bored me. In a third case I saw that an English content creator created a clickbait headline. Before that I liked the content, and after that I blocked the channel from being recommended.


It’s the same with Instagram influencers. I went to Instagram to share nice photographs from my walks and adventuress. With the coming of Facebook, binfluencers, and more there was a cultural shift to the illusion of opulence, rather than ordinary life. As more and more junk was pushed towards me I quit. Is that really what we want to teach children and teenagers?


The Alternative


People shouldn’t be taught to be influencers. They should be taught to be creative artists. They should be taught about the art of film, documentary and television. They should be taught about story telling, about editing, continuity, shot types, sizes and more. They should be taught how to write good scripts and more. They should be taught to create content that is not just about views, likes and subscriptions. They should be taught to create individual pieces that are beautiful to watch, or interesting to watch. It shouldn’t be about selling. It should be about living in the moment. It should be about fun and pleasure.


I recently found a photography group on Facebook where skilled photographers share photographs because of their love of beautiful images. As I look at those images, and given that to have Facebook and Instagram would cost 15CHF per month, rather than 9CHF, I would be tempted to dump Instagram, since so much of that content is influencer garbage.


The Significance


In previous decades film and television were well-funded mediums that people invested their time and money in. There was the notion of being media professionals, of high production values and more. Now we have shifted towards a different age. It’s the age of the Cult of The Amateur, as Andrew Keen called it in the zeros but it’s also the age of community video on an international scale. To a large degree binfluencers are making community videos that have global reach. Instead of aiming for work in film and television people are going for the bottom of the barrel, social media.


It’s the Goal, Rather than the Medium


In the 21st century, whether you use iPhone Pro Max like Apple for its keynote, or a broadcast camera, doesn’t make much difference on a laptop or mobile phone screen. It’s only on 4k, UHD or Apple Vision Pro that it will make a difference. Rather than creating content for the pleasure of working with the medium people are creating content to sell. They’re being trained to spam and market, rather than enjoy the medium for what it is.


The Danger


If you search for influencer on Google News you will find stories about people endangering themselves with horses, dying after liposuction, gyms banning selfies, and more. I just searched for “influencer”, nothing more.


Financial Risk


To be a social media influencer you need to get a mobile phone, probably the highest spec possible. You also need to buy your own camera gear, sound equipment, edit suites, and more. You also need to pay for transport, accommodation and more. Social media influencers take on all of the financial risk, without any of the guarantees on the other side. You might spend thousands on creating a dream experience, but if it’s not picked up by normal users, then that money was wasted.


In conventional broadcasting models people come up with an idea, sell the idea, and it’s someone else that puts the money forward and accepts the financial risk. It might take more time to pitch ideas and get funding but in the end you’re paid as a content creator, for creating content, rather than after the fact, for behaving like a spammer. “Please hit the like button, click the bell and punch the subscribe button” when said in every video, is spam. Writing clickbait headlines is spam. Catering to the algorithms, rather than creating content for the sake of content is spam.


Clickbait Headlines


Almost every video on YouTube that is recommended on the front page is written as clickbait. It uses sensationalism, as well as titles that give a glimmer of what the content is about, without telling you. The headlines are sensationalist, rather than factually relevant. “I crossed the Deadliest Jungle”, “girls smile in front of their graves…”, “10 things you must never do with your watch” and more. All of these headlines are designed to make you click, without giving you the reason behind the click. Clickbait.


A Quick TikTok Mention


Plenty of influencers use TikTok but for me this isn’t a video sharing site. It’s thousands of people doing the same dance to the same song at the same time, to be like everyone else, without anyone having a conversation or dialogue. I saw something about book TikTok and more, but to find these conversations takes time and effort.


Facebook Reels


Instagram and Facebook have reels and I almost never watch them because they’re usually short, tabloid videos. Their only reason to be is to inflate views, likes and spam habits. It is more sensationalist rubbish.


And Finally


Content creation is fun. Creating videos is fun, as is photography. By encouraging people to see themselves as influencers rather than content creators we’re training them to think in a utilitarian and immoral manner. We’re training them to be spammers and scammers, rather than honest content creators. When I was a child we didn’t have edit suites and other technology easily at hand, so we had to improvise. I learned camera work through filming theatre productions and then making copies for those that wanted them. I didn’t have the goal of sharing to YouTube because the internet was still very young. I didn’t try to be an influencer. I enjoyed the media I played with, and eventually it became my career, just at the end of the age of television.


I think that focusing on Social media is a mistake. I think that rather than think of social media, we should create content that is shared via topic driven websites. As a case study I would look at [OnebladeShave.com](https://www.onebladeshave.com/) and their use of video. The videos are hosted and shared via YoUTube but they’re also integrated within their website. Rather than making content for social media, they’re making content that illustrates their product in a number of videos that cover different aspects. I find this approach more interesting because there is no sensationalism, no “like and subscribe” and other junk. You watch a video to get information, and then you move on. That’s how it should be. Liking and subscribing should be a self-driven decision, not a result of nagging.

Podcasts and Social Media
| |

Podcasts and Social Media

Byrichard

When you listen to podcasts, and you read articles, and you visit websites you always see Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and Instagram, to name the giants. In every podcast episode you hear the guests say “You can find me under this name on this network, and the same name on that network.”


The Shift to CrowdFunded Media


With the recent shift from Venture Capitalist Social Media to crowdfunded social media I expect to hear about a shift in where people can be found. I expect that we will soon hear “And you can find me on Calckey at this address, on Pixelfeed.eu with this username, and peertube.social. 


I expect that there will be a shift in where people can be found on various websites and I expect that Twitter, Instagram, and other websites will fade away. 


Dormant


I haven’t deleted Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other accounts, but my eyeballs are no longer there. If something is shared on Twitter, Facebook Instagram or other sites there is a chance that I will never see it. I don’t want to use Venture Capital funded Media anymore. 


VC Funded Media is Declining


Venture Capital Funded Media thinks that users are addicts, rather than valuable users, and this attitude is why they get away with appalling behaviour. Huffman is the most recent one to treat his subredditors and redditors with scorn, rather than respect. Without the user community social media giants are just websites, nothing more. 


A Thought


Decades ago we heard “and you can find this information on Teletext or “and you can find this information on your minitel at 3615…”. Those days are gone, and those mentions are part of a different age. I think that we are going to see the shift away from Twitter, Instagram and other handles, to Fediverse linked accounts. I think we’re about to enter a new era. I look forward to it. 

The Diversification Of The Social Media and Microblogging Environment
| |

The Diversification Of The Social Media and Microblogging Environment

Byrichard

When Elon Musk bought Twitter he signed the start of the Social Media giant’s implosion. A decade earlier Murdoch had done the same thing to MySpace. In the end he sold MySpace for a fraction of what he had bought it for. 


We could cry, and bemoan the loss of Twitter but we could also look around, and see what has happened. For years I said that I wanted to leave Twitter, but no one else did, because despite all of its flaws, it had critical mass. It had the right diversity of people to be a required social network, for anyone using social media. 


Making Social Media Migration Attractive


With the purchase of Twitter by Musk, and the swing by Twitter to the Far Right, it created a legitimate reason for tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands to jump the shark, to join other websites, whether Mastodon, Calckey, Facebook, Instagram and more. It encouraged people to simultaneously look for alternative solutions. It weakened the Twitter brand, but strengthened the use case for similar websites and products. 


When Facebook bought Instagram and WhatsApp we were almost stuck. It provided a reason for people to use Signal, Telegram and Wire, among other apps. When a social media giant buys a website, it encourages people to flee to an open source solution that is free, or at least likely to be taken over by corporate interests. 


Migrate to the Fediverse


It’s easy to keep looking at Twitter, Reddit, Facebook and the giants, but I think it’s more interesting to look at the Fediverse, because the Fediverse is broadening and expanding its use-case. Twitter is not the first social network to be bought, and destroyed by the Right. It’s the most recent. 


This time, though, it feels different, because open source solutions are ready to provide people with an open source, community driven alternative that offers instagram like functionality with Pixelfed, and forum and microblogging with Mastodon, Misskey and spin offs on one side, and BlueSky and its own federation project on the other. 


Your Own Instance


For the cost of Twitter Blue we can set up our own Mastodon instance. For a small monthly contribution we can fund an independent server like calckey, which is part of the fediverse, but built on Misskey, rather than Mastodon. 


Recently I have been frustrated by something specific. Twitter, Facebook and other sites all had scaling issues, which they fixed and ironed out. Now Misskey and Mastodon are growing, and they need to fix those same issues in turn. We’re back to a time where, if we’re using Calckey or other instances they slow down and give error messages due to the server load being too high. We’re back to where we were years ago with the tech giants. It’s frustrating, although if Calckey slows down I jump on to Mastodon Social and vice versa. If one instance is overloaded we can switch to another, until things calm down. 


Fluid Transfers


The beauty of the Fediverse, compared to Twitter, Facebook and Instagram is that if you get tired with one community you can export several CSV files from one instance and pull them into the next. You don’t have to use one server, if the community is not for you. Within a few minutes you can transfer hundreds, if not thousands, of the people you’re following. The instance doesn’t care where you’re following from. It’s only when you get answers or interactions that it matters. 


Towards a Decline of the Centralised Social Network


The Far Right, by controlling Facebook, Instagram, Meta and Twitter has encouraged people to drop their platforms, in favour of Fediverse and BlueSky compatible social networks.  They have shown, for the last time, that centralised ownership of a social network is bad, and that now is the time to move back towards the social web. Now is the time to go back to community driven, open source solutions. Tech giants, and their shareholders have devalued themselves. Rationally no social network should ever sell itself for billions, for two reasons. The first is that they’re breaking the implied contract they have with their user base. The second is that users can migrate within a matter of weeks, days, or even hours. 


When Twitter agreed to be sold to an individual it destroyed the Twitter community’s trust in the board of directors, and by juxtaposition, all social media giants. Twitter was the last giant I was still using. Now that I’m gone, it’s open source, and community funded social networks from now on. 

A Short Lived Interest in Substack Notes
|

A Short Lived Interest in Substack Notes

Byrichard

When I heard about Substack Notes I felt an interest in the project. I liked the idea of a site where we could write long form posts on one side, and short form posts on the other. I liked the idea of having conversations with people and creating new connections. That’s why I use social media and that’s what makes social media social, rather than a news website or some other form of website. 


The flaw emerged in two manners. The first is when content creators showed their huge growth in subscribers. It went from being a social network to an influencer network. It went from conversations on a human scale to lecture hall, or even stadium monologues. It went from being about individuals listening to each other, to influencers talking at people, but no longer being able to hear and interact. It went to being a broadcast platform. 


The second flaw is the FOMO that is caused by giving people with hundreds of paying subscribers a verified tick. It creates a two class social network. You have normal people, using it as a social network, and the others monologuing. 


People like to say “You can use the social network as you like” but this isn’t true. This isn’t possible. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube are aol about the influencers, rather than about individuals. It becomes impossible to find organic conversations because you’re always thrown into a big crowd rather than a small gathering. The result is trolling, but also solitude and loneliness. Social media should neutralise loneliness, not exacerbate it. 


That’s why I like Wordpress.com, and wordpress.org. With both aspects of the same project you have a community, without it being a competition. Social networks should be about conviviality, not a faceless mass. 


Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube force us to see what the mass audience people are doing, at the cost of making ordinary people and creators invisible. It encourages introverts to withdraw, rather than participate. 


Years ago I realised that if you’re an introvert, and you go out to socialise, you’re just there to flatter the ego of the extrovert that everyone is listening to. If you’re an introvert and quiet, or not as well spoken as others you are invisible. You will gain as much, by staying home, as going out. Social media has become the same. 


Back in 2007 I asked “But what about the ROI of Twitter and Facebook users?” In 2023 not only has this question not been heard, but the mistake is spreading. I’d rather work on projects than waste time on networks where I am invisible. 


Conclusion


By showing graphs of how readership exploded for some users on Substack, and by adding “this person has hundreds of paying subscribers Substack created a class system on their social network that I left Twitter to avoid. If Mastodon, Substack and other alternatives all have the same flaws as Twitter, then why do we leave Twitter? Why waste thousands of hours rebuilding a social network? That’s why I am blogging again, because this is an investment of my time, rather than a waste of it. It is an amusing paradox that the pandemic, rather than help social networks thrive, has destroyed them. 

Happiness and Social Media
| |

Happiness and Social Media

Byrichard

It is the turn of the Washington Post to discuss whether people are happier after leaving social media. As with every other article I have skimmed on the topic it discusses addiction and more without discussing the reason for which social media might be bad for one’s mental health. 


Remember that social networks, discussion groups, and collaborating with people in different rooms, countries, timezones is normal, and has been for decades. What makes social media different from other social networks is that social media is algorithm and profit driven, rather than community centric. 


As I skim through this article I see discussions about self-perception, bullying behaviour and more. What I see is not a commentary about social media, but rather a commentary on the cruelty of normal people on the social web. As I like to say, the problem with social media is that the bullies we used to spend time on the web to avoid, have made their way onto the web. The web is now as unpleasant as meat space, as some called it. 


The article discusses body image and instagram but there’s something that people forget, or never experienced. Instagram was a photo sharing app, between friends and friends of friends. We didn’t share images of ourselves, or if we did it was because we were at events together. Seesmeetups and tweetups were events where we would have photos of ourselves, with others. If we posted images to instagram they were of landscapes, travel and more, not individuals. Body image didn’t even come into it for us. 


I left Myspace because the community left, I left Jaiku because it shut down. I left Google+ because it shut down. I left Facebook because it became filled with adverts and reminded me of the life I wanted but didn’t have. I left Instagram for almost the same reason, but also because I was seeing adverts, without feeling human connections with humans, anymore. 


I left Twitter for political reasons. I don’t like what Musk stands for, but I also hate what he is doing to the platform. 


People love to speak about social media as if it was addictive, and as if it was bad for mental health. They are missing the point. The point is not whether social media is healthy or unhealthy, because at the end of the day it’s just people socialising. If they were in a bar or pub we’d think nothing of it. If they were on a balcony or in a garden we’d see them as just socialising. People have lost sight that social media is a group of friends socialising. 


They think that social media is about likes, views, about re-shares and more. It isn’t. It shouldn’t be. Social media is a network of friends of friends, and to leave the network is to leave behind that network of networks. 


Twitter, Facebook and Instagram destroyed that network of networks, and now they’re trying to fix what they broke, whilst blaming what they broke on personal weaknesses, like addiction. Being social, as I have said for decades, online, is not addiction. It’s normal socialising via a different medium. 

On Theory of Knowledge, History and Media Studies
|

On Theory of Knowledge, History and Media Studies

Byrichard

The Goal of the BBC is to Inform, educate and entertain. The aim of Public Service Broadcasters is to provide people with reliable, accurate information that is not biased, that is neutral, in so far as is possible. Recently with the Far Right getting into positions of power, to control the Radio Television Suisse, the BBC and many other broadcasters and media outlets the need for theory of knowledge, history and Media Studies has become essential. 


I would like to throw philosophy into the mix, along with ethics but I think that the three topics in the title will suffice. In theory of knowledge you learn to know what you know, but also to understand what you do not know. You learn about the limits of what you have learned in order to better handle the information that you do understand. It has been years since I studied Theory of Knowledge so I’ll jump on to the next topic. History. 


In history you question information. You ask “Who wrote it”, “When did they write it”, “why did they write it?”, “how did they gain from this information”, “Who had to gain from this information” and more. The point is that history is not just the study of the past. It is the study of veracity. It is learning to contextualise the information we get, within the context of that information. To put it plainly, did the loser, or the winner, write this information. In the age of “Social Media” and endless streams of information every point if view has an outlet. Information doesn’t have to be demonstrable for people to believe it, as long as it lines up with their agenda. 


The idea that we don’t need to, or shouldn’t study history is wrong for the simple reason that we learn historical facts but we also learn how to identify reliable information from opinion. We also learn to see three or four points of view, before digesting the information and coming to our own conclusions. 


The final topic is media studies. When I studied this topic it was a subject that was relevant to media professionals because at the time if you worked in radio, publishing, television of others you need a good grasp of the social context and history of the media, to work effectively. 


Today we are in an age where everyone is an author, a publisher, a presenter, and more. We are in an age where everyone has the same reach as everyone else. The gatekeepers are emotion, algorithms, sensationalism and more. 


Remember, when people read from newspapers headlines gave the who, what, where. how, why, and when answers in the headline, and people would read the article if it was relevant. Remember that back then we bought the entire paper, daily, or simply picked it up in a pub and read. Clickbait headlines don’t give us any information, and yet future generations are growing up with clickbait titles, rather than informative ones. 


Last week Twitter spoke of “legacy” verified accounts, as if they were something to be scorned and avoided. Verified accounts were to ensure that people knew who was authoritative and who was an amateur. Remember Andrew Keen wrote about how the World Wide Web would change our lives, before social media even came on the scene. Musk is an amateur. He thinks he is a media professional but he is just a wealthy amateur with funds. That’s why he’s targeting the memosphere, rather than the broader World Wide Web. 


As Instagram went from being a photo sharing app between friends, to a glossy magazine for influencers, as facebook went from being a discussion forum for uni friends, to a place to play zynga games, and when twitter went from being a glorified chatroom to a Right Wing amalgamator so the age of Social Media ended. 


Twitter, Facebook and Instagram have become tools to spread disinformation and opinions, rather than social networks. Twitter and Facebook were once tight knit communities of friends talking with friends of friends. 


I was triggered to write this blog post because of this article: https://archive.is/hEwOj. 


But their concerns were largely drowned out by Twitter and Substack accounts with collective followings in the millions, who cheered the finding. With a better understanding of the Manufacturing of Consent such articles and such groups would have less of a voice on social media. When Andrew Keen wrote his book he worried about bloggers, but as today proves, the problem is not with opinionated individuals, but opinionated corporations and people with the funds to buy websites like Myspace when Keen was writing, and Twitter, as I write this blog post. The danger isn’t individuals. The danger is wealthy corporations and wealthy individuals with specific agendas. 


By studying Theory of Knowledge, History and Media Studies people would be equipped with the tools to use social media safely. They see the smoke and mirrors. They are less vulnerable to manipulation. 

On Friends, The Series, Being Offensive
| |

On Friends, The Series, Being Offensive

Byrichard

Friends is a television series that aired in the 90s and that still makes millions today, as the show is re-aired. Jennifer Anniston, Rachel Green in the series, says that people today find the series offensive today. I find it ironic, that in a day and age where books are edited to be more politically correct, parties that are immoral, are voted into power.


Brexit, the Tories, the UDC and The US Republican Party are two examples. They represent old fashioned views and yet people not only vote for them but they lead politics. In the age where people are worried about what people said and thought decades ago, people are showing more bigotry in who, and what they vote for today.


If we edit books to be more politically correct, and if we criticise television series and films for representing old fashioned views, then we should edit the bible and Quoran, to make them more representitive of modern values.


Television series, films and books represent the world as it was, and if we have moved on from the values seen in TV series, films and books, then that is the entire reason we study them in the first place, whether through english litterature classes, film studies or media studies. The fact that our values change is part of the academic discussion to be enjoyed.


The danger comes not from laughing about something, but about growing angry, and showing intolerance. Remember that joking about something, offending someone by accident, and apologising is one thing.


Brexit and some political parties are about radicalising hatred against people based on race, religion or national identity. Whether Roald Dahl or Friends shows old fashioned attitudes to one thing is an interesting quirk to be discussed by parents, children, and students.


The movement to divide, radicalise and spread hatred is quite another. Until Drumpf and Brexit I felt that England and the US were making forward progress. With BRexit and Drumpf the US and England took a big step backwards, morally.


Complaining about books, televisions and films is nice, but it’s a desire to change the past. What worries me is that the Far Right is thriving in the US, England, Switzerland and other countries. I want people to vote against the Far Right, in government, rather than worry about how people thought three decades ago. What I see happening now worries me. England voted against Europe and the European identity. They behaved in a xenophobic manner and no one noticed.


Rather than complain about television, books, and films people should vote to keep the Far Right out of power. If the Far Right is in power then the very things that people decry in films, books and television, are shaping government policy in the wrong direction. Vote intolerance out of government.

Thoughts On Decentralised Social Media
| | |

Thoughts On Decentralised Social Media

Byrichard

The web was decentralised for a long time. The internet and social networks were designed around different niches. We had niches for people that did sports in the same area of Switzerland, that wanted to discuss a variety of topics, for music lovers and more. The change brought on by MySpace, Twitter, ICQ, Facebook and other projects is that it centralised all those communities so that everyone was in different communities, on three or four social networks.


That centralisation internationalised certain networks, like Twitter and Facebook, although with a heavy US bias. With the decline of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter the implosion of social networks that happened before is moving in the opposite direction. We are going from a centralised to a decentralised social network landscape.


The more I use Mastodon, the more I take long breaks from the “federation”. People are arguing, disagreeing, and in general trying to impose a vision, onto people, rather than seducing them, and encouraging them to think the same way.


I watched an episode of Northern Exposure that deals with racism, bias and prejudice that I appreciate. In the 90s cultural differences and other differences were a source of discussion, and existential questions. People would explore what they felt, and try to find a new way of seeing things, to make them more open minded. People would aknowledge how they felt, and see about changing their views and attitudes, through discussion.


Twitter is swinging to the Right, and there are adverts every fourth post so it has become less welcoming. Mastodon has another related problem. People are saying “if you don’t think this way then you can leave” and “everyone has to behave this way, rather than that way”. I go to social media to have pleasant conversations and interactions, not to be told what, and how to think.


What I want is not a Twitter, Facebook or Instagram replacement. I want to find a new social network, in person, that uses Signal, or another IM platform, to converse with a small network of friends. I am tired of the big social networks that lack social warmth. I want to find a new community of like-minded people. Not easy, when COVID denialism makes being social a risk.