Unsociable media

Greetings from rainy (finally) Lexington, Kentucky!  We went a long time without much rain, but now, thanks to the remains of Hurricane Nicole, we're in for two solid days of rain.  I'm not fond of rain but our lawn and plants are.

But that's not what I stopped by to discuss.  I believe that some time ago I discussed my own social media habits here, and they really haven't changed.  But what HAS changed is how the various services that exist have evolved since then.  So let's get into this.

I'll start with Twitter, which is now owned entirely by tech entrepreneur Elon Musk (also known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, StarLink and the Boring Company, among others).  Since Musk assumed control he fired virtually all senior leadership, laid off a huge percentage of staff overall, asked a certain number of those laid-off employees to return, has flirted with charging for the privilege of being "verified" and creating a cottage industry of celebrity impersonators on the platform, retweeted more than one conspiracy theory and more.

In other words, probably a typical week for Mr. Musk.

I continue to use Twitter but with some caveats that will remain in place for as long as possible.  The main one is that I use a Twitter client, which is third party software, instead of the native Twitter application on my various devices.  The overwhelming benefit of that is that I avoid the advertisements that probably keep Twitter financially viable (until advertisers began pulling back recently, but that's another story) and the "you might like this" tactic that promotes content created by people or entities that I do not follow.  So as long as I can keep using the platform in this way, I don't think it will be a problem.

However, it sounds like the native Twitter app is a real Wild West show these days.  With the sole owner being a true megalomaniac who is a Twitter power user, one can only guess what's in store in the coming days and weeks.  I do worry about content moderation on Twitter, as there appears to be a lot of offensive, false and dangerous information posted there promoting political violence, racist organizations and lots more vile stuff.  Musk claims he wants Twitter to be the public square/town hall where everyone may express themselves freely.  Somehow I can foresee a Congressional commission to look into this, regardless of which party controls which house of Congress.

Since I promote this blog with Twitter posts, perhaps this will be the last item I get to post...

I saw that Meta, the parent company of Facebook (which I have NEVER used), Instagram (which is now only an occasional site I visit and an app I deleted from everything) and WhatsApp (which I used to communicate with a friend who's living abroad currently) is in the process of laying off some 11,000 people.  This is a direct response to Facebook having lost a fair number of subscribers over the past several months.  I don't have a high regard for Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO and founder of Facebook, so that's as much as I'll say on that subject.

I only see TikTok videos that people have posted links to or that friends occasionally send me (they're mostly old guys like me) and I do look at YouTube periodically to see tech reviews and other items of interest.

I suppose this blog is a form of social media, too.  Hopefully no one who visits here finds anything objectionable about what's discussed here.

Have a good weekend.


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