This is going to be a one-off rant (just to say what I have to say). Having seen tidbits of whatever trash Mark Zuckerberg (aka Fuckerberg) wrote (to summarize, I used to be a Facebook shareholder just as a social media play, but dumped it in 2020 when the company refused to be more socially responsible after the whole Cambridge Analytica ordeal plus the disinformation aspects that were allowed since Meta was making their money off of that garbage).
Because I don’t want to pull myself down into that spiral of social media negativity and general enshittification (which is only going to get worse post January 20th when an actual convicted felon is annointed to be #47 in the US) for the long haul, I’ll just say that anything that is owned by Meta, will become another haven for disinformation and propaganda by the bad actors (aka oligarchs, plutocrats, autocrats, etc) especially if you end up in the politics part (which I am actively trying to excise from Instagram since my main use of it is to follow a few content creators and some who are part of those communities).
Over on the Threads side, I’ve been forcing the algorithm to feed into Japanese travel/food accounts in order to fend off the politics side. But I’m not an actual active user on that side. It’s just a pre-emptive to deal with the aggressive algortithm that is employed. My actual Facebook and Instagram accounts have been deactivated for years (and I warned most of the folks who I once engaged with often on there in the past, to think seriously about no longer using the platform; most of them thankfully stopped as well).
Unfortunately, many others have way too much of themselves on these platforms which is like fodder material for the massive training Meta (plus other companies who can scrape that info) will do with AI/ML. Remember with these companies that offer “free” services, you are the product where any of your personal information (that is divulged) is sold. Being in a non-EU country (in the EU, there there is at least some effort to have some meaningful protections), I take these companies privacy policies with a huge block of salt. And think about this in the AI context where your personal likeness, your voice, etc can be used by these oligarch run companies that have an insatiable appetite for more money and power.
People like Zuckerberg are sick in the head because what they have isn’t enough (and will never be enough). It’s also sick watching all of these corporate executives (including Tim Cook of Apple) bend the knee to a convicted felon. Someone wrote this meme: “Donald Trump is an unrepentant racist, a grotesque caricature of all the worst aspects of our society, and an embarrassment to the office of the Presidency, and I look forward to working with him”. This reveals the reality of large parts of our society today; little moral standing and a lack of courage to stand by those personal ethics/morals (because the money and power is more important). I get it; they also need to do business, but it is beyond disgusting (most of these folks have lost what respect I may have had forever).
While I have a recreated Twitter account, I don’t use it for obvious reasons. On a similar note, I decided to create an account on Bluesky (but not to actively use as well except maybe just post “Furmily” stuff to help promote some of Shiori’s creations). But without any follows or tapping into any specific interests, the algorithmic “Discover” feed is around 90% politics focused (things I don’t care to read about anymore). I swear, the internet used to be such a promising thing, but it’s been weaponized and turned into absolute top tier garbage where there are hoards of people across the world that can only doom scroll it everyday and be completely wound up in those silos. LIFE IS TOO DAMN SHORT TO BE LIVING THAT WAY.
In the mean time, I am just liking some food and travel postings to train the algorithm to just provide a feed there that is far away from the political bullshit (which is just going to go off the charts bad after January 20th because I believe what little remaining guardrails exists won’t stand up to what is coming down the pike; I mean if a convicted felon is at the top, that means the rule of law is dead — and these criminal enterprises will see what they can get away with early on). The legislative branch may just end up being “Kabuki Theater” when all is said and done. I thought about just running my own federated server but why would I want to even subject my time to a sea of trash that is about to be dropped on everyone? Thanks but no thanks.
And these oligarchs who have multi-millions – billions… they could do the world good, but are so damn greedy that they want it all. And the general masses of people (especially in the US) have been brainwashed into thinking that social safety nets are a bad thing by the ultra-wealthy club. It’s actually comedic level with how the very wealthy have managed to turn the everyday struggling working class against each other in this whole left/right/liberal/conservative clown show while they and their businesses get away with paying little to no taxes. Anyway, end rant.
