Social Media

A look at social media and the issues surrounding this technology.

Tech Under Pressure After Parler Goes Dark, Twitter Drops

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Tech Under Pressure After Parler Goes Dark, Twitter Drops

The bans were strongly criticized by senior lawmakers in Germany and rance. Chancellor Angela Merkel argued lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech, not technology companies, while rench inance Minister Bruno Le Maire said that the state should be responsible for regulations, rather than “the digital oligarchy,ȁ and called big tech “one of the threatsȁ to democracy.

The big tech companies justified their actions by citing posts stoking riots in the U.S. capital last week and sought to avoid further incitements to violence. The bans underscore the power these companies hold over how information is disseminated and the impact their decisions have. Before, it was their stance to allow incendiary speech from Trump and his allies that drew heavy criticism from the left.

Regulatory risks for social media companies will persist even though emocrats will control the Congress and White House, Bank of America analyst Justin Post wrote in a note to clients. Twitter is also likely to see some usage decline as a result of dismissing the president, he wrote.

The Block Editor Is Getting Lots Of Hate – Renard’s World

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The Block Editor Is Getting Lots Of Hate – Renard’s World

— one that she hoped to share with her readers in a timely manner. “What the hell is this?ȁ She said; her facial expression was filled with bewilderment.

WordPress had replaced her old Classic Editor with the new Block Editor.

In the past, Sophia tried out the Block Editor; she did not like it because she thought that it was unintuitive and that it took her way too long to create a simple blog post; what she was able to do via the Classic Editor in fifteen minutes’ time took her over an hour with the Block Editor.

Sophia remembered reverting back to the Classic Editor.

I am kind of glad that my Facebook was vandalized

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I am kind of glad that my Facebook was vandalized … 🦨

It really gave me a kick in ass to get off social media, delete old accounts and replace them with much locked down accounts that follow far fewer people. Probably 2/3rds of the people I was friends on Facebook I hadn’t seen in years, and there just was so much obnoxious politics. I really don’t care that the President went to the bathroom or what he tweeted today.

With my new, semi-secret and secure accounts I can follow what I want and not be bombard with ads or content that I don’t really care about. I might occasionally post pictures from camping trip on Facebook, but I don’t expect to post much on there, and none of the silly things or witty remarks I used so frequently place on there.

I DELETED* my social media accounts πŸ—‘

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New Years Resolution: I DELETED* my social media accounts πŸ—‘

* With an asterisk.

I like social media but not what I’ve been seeing lately. I particularly like Instagram and Facebook for scrolling through and looking at pictures of beautiful and interesting things like beautiful landscapes, harvesting of game, farming and off-grid living. But I don’t like how the majority of my social media feeds lately have become about:

CONDEMN THAT HORRIBLE PERSON WHO FRIED THEIR NEIGHBORS’ CAT
AND EAT IT WITH FRENCH FRIES AT MOTHER-IN-LAWS HOUSE

MAN DIDN’T WEAR MASK – KILLED 100 PEOPLE WITH COVID VIRUS
WITHOUT ANY SYMPATHY TO VICTIMS – ARREST HIM !!!

BIDEN’S PENIS WAS MEASURED ON LIVE TELEVISION
AND IT’S PROVEN LONGER THEN TRUMP’s DICK – DAILY KOS

I came to the realization that the reason I am seeing such posts, is because I have such awfully political Facebook friends and follow the wrong channels on Instagram. Not that I blame my real-world friends that much — many of them truly are good people in person — but they share things, and the Facebook algorithm pushes forward on the most controversial and most political feeds that grab attention. I came to the realization that I probably need to dump these friends and start over without friends but only following pages/groups that are explicitly non-political.

So today, representing the new year, I decided to start over. Delete all my social media accounts with all their legacy connections and feeds. I have no more friends on Facebook – I am only following non-political pages and groups – like farms, pickup truck, redneck/rural, off-grid, outdoors pages. No more politicians, no more state or local government agencies, no more news reporters or pages. I will follow the local divisions National Weather Service, but I am refusing to follow town or state leaders on my personal accounts.

I also fully locked down and made my new accounts private, and will no longer be posting on social media in an automated fashion (Twitter) or by hand (Instagram or Facebook). I find that the nature of these platforms is triggering to me, it encourages me to be extra argumentative and mean-spirited with people. Also, it’s not possible on Instagram or Facebook to moderate comments, and one of my real-world friends comments, which I deleted and he re-posted when I was offline in the Adirondacks could have got me in trouble with work. He’s a nice guy, does a lot of great things for our little town, but he’s been on seriously bad my Facebook shitlist (or block list) from time to time.

In contrast, with the blog, I have full control both over content, layout, and comments. I can disable comments on any post at any time, and to have your comment appear, I have to to approve it first. The potential controversy of a post doesn’t move it up on my blog feed, things are controlled either by date order, or how I choose to lay it out. I also had basically given up on Twitter for a while,Β due to clutter, and now that I’ve closed out my current public account for a new private one for monitoring certain accounts — I retired the blog feed too.

I think getting rid of the politics and the alarmist, shouting posts on my social media will make me a lot happier. Banning myself from posting on social media, will make me happier and allow me to focus on the medium where I have actual control — my blog.

New York Leads Suit Against Facebook

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New York Leads Suit Against Facebook

New York is leading a 45-state coalition in a lawsuit alleging social media giant Facebook is operating as a monopoly, Attorney General Letitia James on Wednesday announced.

The anti-trust suit also includes the Federal Trade Commission. It alleges Facebook has stifled competition through the purchasing of rival companies and has not improved or maintain privacy for users.