It's been too fucking long since your last post, and then you drop this banger. I mourn my presence on Twitter. It was never perfect, great, or even good, but I had build friendships, and the product management community there was great (although after 2017, it lost a lot of its mojo).
I left Twitter in December when the ElonJet shit was happening with Musk being asinine to journalists. I missed it, but I got over it.
When I left Twitter, I added lines to my hosts file to essentially prevent my computers from accessing Twitter.
In 2017 when I left facebook, I began using the hosts file to block all the tracking and surveillance shit they hit you with. There was about 450 lines of servers, domains, ad trackers, ad distribution networks, and the like to block.
For twitter, I just redirect twitter.com and www.twitter.com to 0.0.0.0 and as far as I can tell, they do not have the web wide surveillance to block.
And that folks, is why I will NEVER in a million years be on Threads. It could be fucking awesome, everything Twitter was before the election of the Tangerine Mussolini, and I will not go there.
In many ways, I owe Musk a thanks for getting me off my social media addiction. Twitter was the hardest to leave. I put up with a lot of shit there the last few years, but Musk broke my habit.
I've been trying to get people to recall why so many of us chose to ditch Zuck and Faceplant in the first place as well as reinforce tgat he helped tank the 2016 election in favor of the orange faced fascist wannabe but I keep seeing "oh it so nice. Such a breath of fresh air!" b.s. Well ya know whay folks? If you've been hanging out in the catch trap of a park toilet a regular old fart seems like fresh air too. Tganks for putting into words what I've been feeling and for the kitten pucture!
This is the first post or article anywhere I’ve seen (not on Threads or Twitter though since I do have a soul, so I don’t go there!) that doesn’t fawn all over Threads and/or poopoo Mastodon. I’ve yet to see anyone sitting openly that Threads is bargain-basement Masto with a billionaire flare. You’ve put my anger and incomprehension about his whole situation into words (oh so many words! ✊).
Thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one who had avoided the Z-ray that was clouding people’s minds. I haven’t deleted my Facebook account because I *can’t* — it won’t let me. So I just haven’t touched it in years. And I have absolutely no intention of joining Threads because it is obviously the same thing, only with some sort of attractant poured all over it. But Face* actively aided and abetted at least 3 genocides (the Rohingya in Kenya and Myanmar, and the Uyghurs in China). There’s just no coming back from that.
Thank you so much for this post. I actually hadn't known about the whole "abetted real world genocide" aspect of Zuckerberg. Sickening.
I like Mastodon. I am frustrated at how many brands et al are so happy to run into another walled garden owned by a monstrous billionaire who can burn it all down at a whim.
Wow. This is one of the best articles I have read on the subject. It's like Jaron Lanier downed some pre-workout and let the anger translator fly. Love it. Keep it up!
I am all in favour of Igor Murky and the Blandroid having a fistfight, as long as it doubles up as a lion wager. In the 19th Century, it was a common occurrence for people to perform all manner of strange things in a cage full of lions. For money, often, but also for a laugh. A very odd laugh, perhaps, but one with a certain frisson.
These lion wagers included dances, formal dinners, tightrope walking, and, yes, boxing matches. Mostly, the lions just gawped at the stupid primates being morons, but on rare occasion, some idiot got eaten.
Now, I'm not saying that the Fuckwit Fraters wouldn't milk this PR opportunity for all it was worth, but if they're going to relentlessly pursue good press (and they will, regardless), we may as well have the off-chance that they will be brutally devoured by a pride of hungry lions. The poor things will probably need their stomachs pumped afterwards, but I would still argue this would be a net benefit for all concerned.
I tried Ghost many months ago, and in the end I decided to go for Substack, but there are 3 things I would like Substack to have that Ghost has:
1- Human support. Substack relies almost 99% on a bot (except for Substack VIPs), and although the bot says they pass the issue on to a human support team, it can take months for them to reply, if they reply at all. On Ghost, in my experience, a human answers, fast.
2-In substack, the posts are in /p/, and in Ghost they are not. So if we migrate from a blog to substack, all internal and external links to our new Substack will not work. Goodbye, SEO.
3- In substack, posts have limited urls, and not in Ghost. Therefore, if we migrate from a blog to substack, all internal and external links (which are somewhat long) to our new Substack would not work. Goodbye, SEO.
Note that I haven't talked about the economic issue, which is something that seems to worry quite a few people. I simply think they are two different business models. Nor that Substack is a proprietary system, and therefore more closed. Ghost is open source SaaS.
It seems to me that Ghost doesn't put non-follow links, Substack does, at least at first.
Everything you said is true and bad, but I just want to emphasize one item from your long list:
"He happily ran ads advocating for rape, beheading, and genocide against the Rohingya."
AIDED AND ABETTED A LITERAL, REAL WORLD GENOCIDE, FOLKS.
Real.
World.
Genocide.
Just sayin'.
Also, in a just world, Mark Zuckerburg would in prison for a very long time for treason. But I'm old enough to know that's not how the world works.
It's been too fucking long since your last post, and then you drop this banger. I mourn my presence on Twitter. It was never perfect, great, or even good, but I had build friendships, and the product management community there was great (although after 2017, it lost a lot of its mojo).
I left Twitter in December when the ElonJet shit was happening with Musk being asinine to journalists. I missed it, but I got over it.
When I left Twitter, I added lines to my hosts file to essentially prevent my computers from accessing Twitter.
In 2017 when I left facebook, I began using the hosts file to block all the tracking and surveillance shit they hit you with. There was about 450 lines of servers, domains, ad trackers, ad distribution networks, and the like to block.
For twitter, I just redirect twitter.com and www.twitter.com to 0.0.0.0 and as far as I can tell, they do not have the web wide surveillance to block.
And that folks, is why I will NEVER in a million years be on Threads. It could be fucking awesome, everything Twitter was before the election of the Tangerine Mussolini, and I will not go there.
In many ways, I owe Musk a thanks for getting me off my social media addiction. Twitter was the hardest to leave. I put up with a lot of shit there the last few years, but Musk broke my habit.
I've been trying to get people to recall why so many of us chose to ditch Zuck and Faceplant in the first place as well as reinforce tgat he helped tank the 2016 election in favor of the orange faced fascist wannabe but I keep seeing "oh it so nice. Such a breath of fresh air!" b.s. Well ya know whay folks? If you've been hanging out in the catch trap of a park toilet a regular old fart seems like fresh air too. Tganks for putting into words what I've been feeling and for the kitten pucture!
This is the first post or article anywhere I’ve seen (not on Threads or Twitter though since I do have a soul, so I don’t go there!) that doesn’t fawn all over Threads and/or poopoo Mastodon. I’ve yet to see anyone sitting openly that Threads is bargain-basement Masto with a billionaire flare. You’ve put my anger and incomprehension about his whole situation into words (oh so many words! ✊).
I love you!
You haven't seen my threads then. Wanna be friends? lol For real though -- I have been railing against this to mostly crickets. It's upsetting.
You should read Ed Zitron, he was spot on in his shredding of Threads. I also think Ryan Broderick had it nailed to.
Like you, I was tired of all the hagiography and whitewashing of Zuck's balls until I read those two (and now Catherynne has this banger)
Stating openly, not sitting... thank you autocorrect! 🙄
so fucking good. i will be sharing this with everyone i know.
Thank you. I was beginning to think I was the only one who had avoided the Z-ray that was clouding people’s minds. I haven’t deleted my Facebook account because I *can’t* — it won’t let me. So I just haven’t touched it in years. And I have absolutely no intention of joining Threads because it is obviously the same thing, only with some sort of attractant poured all over it. But Face* actively aided and abetted at least 3 genocides (the Rohingya in Kenya and Myanmar, and the Uyghurs in China). There’s just no coming back from that.
We could fix so much by just not letting either of them out at the end of the cage match
MZ's weird land of legless virtual sadness will probably occupy many Ph.D. theses on abnormal psychology/billionaire studies/sociopathy for decades.
This is the god damn single best piece of writing I've read in 2023.
Thank you so much for this post. I actually hadn't known about the whole "abetted real world genocide" aspect of Zuckerberg. Sickening.
I like Mastodon. I am frustrated at how many brands et al are so happy to run into another walled garden owned by a monstrous billionaire who can burn it all down at a whim.
Wow. This is one of the best articles I have read on the subject. It's like Jaron Lanier downed some pre-workout and let the anger translator fly. Love it. Keep it up!
Bravo! And Thanks! A lot!
I am all in favour of Igor Murky and the Blandroid having a fistfight, as long as it doubles up as a lion wager. In the 19th Century, it was a common occurrence for people to perform all manner of strange things in a cage full of lions. For money, often, but also for a laugh. A very odd laugh, perhaps, but one with a certain frisson.
These lion wagers included dances, formal dinners, tightrope walking, and, yes, boxing matches. Mostly, the lions just gawped at the stupid primates being morons, but on rare occasion, some idiot got eaten.
Now, I'm not saying that the Fuckwit Fraters wouldn't milk this PR opportunity for all it was worth, but if they're going to relentlessly pursue good press (and they will, regardless), we may as well have the off-chance that they will be brutally devoured by a pride of hungry lions. The poor things will probably need their stomachs pumped afterwards, but I would still argue this would be a net benefit for all concerned.
Zuck is a horrible human being who has shived the human race as expertly as a Yakuza oyabun.
Love your stuff -- keep it coming!
I tried Ghost many months ago, and in the end I decided to go for Substack, but there are 3 things I would like Substack to have that Ghost has:
1- Human support. Substack relies almost 99% on a bot (except for Substack VIPs), and although the bot says they pass the issue on to a human support team, it can take months for them to reply, if they reply at all. On Ghost, in my experience, a human answers, fast.
2-In substack, the posts are in /p/, and in Ghost they are not. So if we migrate from a blog to substack, all internal and external links to our new Substack will not work. Goodbye, SEO.
3- In substack, posts have limited urls, and not in Ghost. Therefore, if we migrate from a blog to substack, all internal and external links (which are somewhat long) to our new Substack would not work. Goodbye, SEO.
Note that I haven't talked about the economic issue, which is something that seems to worry quite a few people. I simply think they are two different business models. Nor that Substack is a proprietary system, and therefore more closed. Ghost is open source SaaS.
It seems to me that Ghost doesn't put non-follow links, Substack does, at least at first.
Despite all that, I'm on Substack (for example, in <a href="https://dempresa.substack.com/">Derecho empresarial</a>, <a href="https://emprender.substack.com/">Emprender</a>, <a href="https://carreras.substack.com/">Carreras</a>, <a href="https://liderar.substack.com/">Liderazgo</a>, <a href="https://cienciasocial.substack.com/">Ciencias sociales</a>, <a href="https://humanidades.substack.com/">Humanidades</a>, y <a href="https://chamberly.substack.com/">Sectores</a>) because:
-There are some things it does very well, like Notes.
-I hope it fixes those flaws (the blogosphere is still huge, and someday they'll realise that it's worth migrating bloggers, not just twitterers).