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Posted in Protocol, Servers at 3:15 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz
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=> Gemini
Image: Net topology THE TWITTER WALLED GARDENS ARE BACK!
Summary: Manipulative social control mechanisms (falsely disguised as “media”*) — e.g. YouTube, Reddit, Facebook and Twitter — are having a rough time; it moreover seems apparent that their ability to keep eyeballs (user retention) has eroded, as we noted 1.5 years ago
JUDGING by what goes on at Reddit right now, the “masters” are desperate for profitability. They deny people access to stuff that’s already there and has long been there. How long before YouTube starts taking old videos offline unless you pay to keep them online? And what about Twitter? How long before you must pay to use it? Or to access some features? No, Twitter Blue is nothing compared to this. The way things are going, maybe Twitter will go offline this year, maybe next year. There’s no business model (with most of the revenue wiped in less than a year profitability is more elusive than ever) and now people cannot view a tweet without logging in. It’s back to the way it was at the start of this month. That being the case, Google should just delist the Twitter.com domain. ALL OF IT. Don’t make bait for people to create an account for no good reason. At the moment there’s not even a teaser, it just looks like a paywall (with free sign-up). How many people will create an account just to read 50-200 characters of text? We’re checked among us to be sure it’s not a UK- or browser-specific thing, replicating the same behaviour from different parts of the world and it seems like universally (no matter which page is requested) Twitter.com is behind walled gardens again. ALL of it. One theory is that they’re not being targeted by DDoS or “Hey Hi” but are just eager to boast about many new sign-ups. But at what cost? Is Elon Musk preparing to blame something other than himself for the death of Twitter, BOTH as a site AND as a business?
“At the moment there’s not even a teaser, it just looks like a paywall (with free sign-up).”
“It seems to be the case that even with JavaScript enabled it requires login before displaying any tweets,” one person said, but since December 2020 JavaScript has been strictly obligatory to access anything there (unless Nitter is used, but that’s a gateway, a read-only proxy of sorts).
Some people might say that it’s a “defensive” move, but what is being defended against? It seems like a self-harming move. For those who think it’s because of Facebook, well… yesterday and today we saw articles such as this one, asserting “time spent in the [Threads/Facebook] app falls by 71%,” contrary to the FOMO-inducing hype from Zuckerberg and his chums.
=> ↺ this one, asserting “time spent in the [Threads/Facebook] app falls by 71%,”
“Maybe they will find out there’s life after fake “friends” and fake “followers” (a bizarre and superficial yardstick, also volatile and temporal).”
From what we can gather, many people left Twitter, went to Threads, changed their mind, and then gave up on both. In other words they may be quitting social control media altogether. “It looks like that has happened,” one person said, is that “they’ve left Twitter, tried Threads, and then quit.”
Maybe they will find out there’s life after fake “friends” and fake “followers” (a bizarre and superficial yardstick, also volatile and temporal). As a source of revenue those were always just speculative bubbles waiting to implode. This also applies to YouTube, which as a business appears to be floundering; it’s searching for profitability and in the process it’s attacking the users (passive viewers) and the creators.
Thankfully we never depended on any of these “platforms”. █
“Social media needs to burn.” — Cory Doctorow in “Let the Platforms Burn” 2 days ago
=> ↺ Cory Doctorow in “Let the Platforms Burn” 2 days ago
“Rydman claims lies about government are being fed to international media [...] If you go on Twitter and look at the activity of various researchers, social media activists and even journalists, you don’t have to look too long to find these kinds of cases…” — Finnish blog which is sceptical of social control media earlier this week (grain of salt needed)
=> ↺ Finnish blog which is sceptical of social control media | grain of salt needed
“Excessive trust in political knowledge increases on social media [...] This trend may be attributed to the online platforms that provide an environment where individuals can easily find affirmation for their beliefs without necessarily improving their level of political literacy.” — same blog earlier this month, covering disinformation online
=> ↺ same blog earlier this month, covering disinformation online
____* Technically or legally speaking, what all those sites (or “platforms” or “apps”) boil down to is “Digital Sharecropping”, which this site explains as follows: “Sharecropping is a sucker’s game and always has been. To grow your business, you need to own your content.” See the historical meaning of this analogy.
=> ↺ “Digital Sharecropping” | ↺ this site explains as follows | ↺ See the historical meaning of this analogy
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