You’re not wrong, and if BlueSky is so allegedly “philanthropic” (according to them), it’s not like they couldn’t have put their efforts towards improving ActivityPub instead, which is already resisting centralization from the likes of Meta.

And if they weren’t allowed to do so, due to some rule governing investment capital or shareholders, etc., therein lies their problem.

But I think it’s important to understand that Bluesky has, effectively, created a technological poison pill: by building on an open protocol, ATprotocol, the system itself can be rebuilt outside of Bluesky, but in a way where everyone can continue to communicate, and that creates incredible incentives that undermine any evil billionaires, and would actually punish Bluesky (or anyone else!) should they try to enshittify.

Bruh, ActivityPub is right there, and we already have places where people can communicate. And it’s already built in such a way that anyone can make use of it. Currently not so with ATprotocol.

When BlueSky has interoperable servers that anyone can spin up, then this conversation is worth having, but if the protocol at all requires “the next person” to have tons of investment capital to get things running again, it’s still just a billionaire-buyout away.

Normally I’d apply Hanlon’s Razor and give the benefit of the doubt, but Meta lost the right to charitability long ago and deserves no such kindness or respect until they have a long pattern of acting in the public’s interests.

Agreed. Privacy is always a balance between your threat model and useability. If your general location is enough to put you in danger, hopefully you’re already aware of how your data is being sent over the various networks and have measures in place to stay safe.

For most people, knowing very generally where they are isn’t especially useful information to anyone with an interest in surveillance.

“If these issues are not resolved quickly they risk fuelling conspiracy theories and damaging Meta’s reputation.”

Meta has a reputation? Surely, that thing was mutilated beyond all recognition a decade ago. And conspiracy theories are Meta’s bread and butter.

While users who type “#Democrat” or “#Democrats” see no results, the hashtag “Republican” returns 3.3 million posts on the social media platform.

By manually searching Instagram for “Democrats”, rather than clicking on a hashtag, users are greeted by a screen reading “we’ve hidden these results”.

“Results for the term you searched for may contain sensitive content,” it says.

There are also limited results when people search for “Republicans” as opposed to “Republican”.

And I’m sure the “free-speech absolutists” were up in arms. /s

TBH, if you’re searching Facebook for information, all you’re gonna get is ragebait anyway, even when it works. Also, why are you still on Facebook?

Ah, I gotcha. Yeah, I dunno why people think that way. In that case, I do agree that it’s fallacious thinking.

People can be really silly when it comes to technology.

If installing both helped you, then perhaps that’s a good strategy for some. I’m more of a “leave the abusive relationship and cut ties” kind of person, which is why I don’t advocate for both at the same time. People often end up going back to the familiar option, rather than trying something new.

As a side note, that’s not what a fallacy is. Fallacies are invalid logical statements, and I didn’t make any false statements or present any sort of false dichotomy. A false dichotomy would be if I said something like, “You have to choose between Signal or WhatsApp,” which is obviously false because you can choose both.

Though again, that’s not something I advocate on purpose, due to the aforementioned issue I have with “being the product,” and it is not fallacious or deceptive to exclude the suggestion of installing both in light of that additional premise.

And you should call them whiny, scared little babies for doing so. But I digress.

Other people have succeeded in getting friend/family groups to switch to better E2EE options, so I believe that most people who say it can’t be done haven’t actually tried.

Just delete it now. Tell your friends that you’re moving because of all the tech oligarchs that just got handed the keys to the government and the economy. Tell your friends that Signal is run by a 501©3 nonprofit and actually cares about privacy.

I left Meta products in 2010, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. You deserve not to “be the product” anymore.

It would go against their principles and the mission of the non-profit that runs Signal. They don’t store any message data on their servers (unlike WhatsApp), and WhatsApp mines as much data as they can from its users.

How much and to what extent, I can’t say, but allowing Signal to federate would essentially let Meta start mining and storing Signal user data. Fuck that noise.

Escape while you can.

You missed the point. My point wasn’t that it’s “just another format,” it’s that the short-form format is bad for our brains. You can’t cover a topic in 35-60 seconds, and not with enough nuance that some people won’t misunderstand something fundamental.

That’s great that you’ll look for other resources, but many others won’t, and they’ll get their “facts” from TikTok just because you can ingest a lot of content in a very short time. People are not sitting there going, “Hmm, I should look for a longer video or article to see if there’s details they missed,” they’re credulously taking people at their first take and moving onto the next dopamine hit.

And speaking of dopamine hits, the fact that TikTok can suck people in in only 35 seconds should be a warning sign that this is utilizing the same addictive mechanisms as gambling. “Just one more funny cat video to boost my mood… It’s only 20sec long, and I can afford that in my schedule.” Replace “cat video and 20sec” with “pull and dollar,” and it sounds just like a gambling addict.

Think I’m overselling it? When was the last time you can recall somebody committing arson over losing an app?

https://www.tmj4.com/news/fond-du-lac-county/tiktok-ban-blamed-19-year-old-suspected-of-setting-fire-to-u-s-representatives-office

People are acting like drug addicts when people intervene to take away their drugs.

I don’t have to understand the nuances of political and societal situation in a country on the other side of the world, to want to know that there are riots there rn

That you think this earnestly is an indictment of your entire position and only proves mine. If you don’t know why something is happening, I guarantee somebody with an agenda will happily fill in the blanks for you. And they can do it in 35sec.

While the author is presenting a kind of clinically neutral tone, the number of times they mention that it’s “addictive” is the point they’re making, wittingly or not. One could almost expect nervous laughter from the author.

TikTok shaped the internet, alright, but not for the better. The short-burst video format is engaging, but it allows no room for nuance, no room for fact checking or deeper breakdowns. We can see the effects in the rise of anti-intellectual, anti-science, and reactionary rhetoric. FFS, the “person nods and points at reposted video” while silently adding nothing is now a meme, because TikTok “creators” still do (did) it unironically, and people still (used to) eat it up.

If anything, TikTok has abused human psychology and left society the worse for it. I hope Trump fails to prevent the ban, because if not, expect the firehose of disinformation to only grow and attention spans to shrink—a deadly combination.

Interesting that they don’t mention using things like Firefox’s Facebook Container (which essentially puts Facebook trackers in jail) or just outright deleting your Meta accounts. Harder to track what you’re not engaged with.

If you’re actually mad at Meta, do yourself a favor and delete your account; join the Fediverse instead. Friendica is the analog replacement for Facebook, and Pixelfed is the replacement for Instagram. There, EFF. I improved your article.

And if you know someone that says, “BuT mY fRiEnDs ArE aLL tHeRe!” tell them to stop being a whiny little baby and make new friends.

Yeah, if someone is on a Meta product and somehow has the credulity to expect privacy after 20 years of ongoing, invasive, and unrestrained privacy abuses, it’s kinda on that person at this point.

Cool. As if the over-promotion of AI garbage wasn’t enough of a reason to stop using it.

That’s pretty cool! Reminds me in some ways of usenet and how people extended what it was able to do. Now I gotta go ask my uncle, who just sold his setup and shack, what he did with it (he’s getting older, and it’s not as easy to get out there anymore). I always thought he was just tinkering with electronics and chatting with other hobbyists, but sounds like he was potentially doing lots of other things besides.

I wonder if he knows about these online options. Might be able to keep his hobby going in a lesser capacity.

So people pick a topic and just start talking? It’s kinda a niche hobby, so there’s probably a lot of like-minded people, but what if somebody starts going off on a tirade?

Does it matter? That’s the analogy I picked.

I know lots of people are mad, but I just see TikTok as another centralized platform that capitulates to special interests (read: money). I think the ban is a net positive, and I wouldn’t lose any sleep if they banned other centralized social media platforms.

It never feels good to have the rug pulled out from under you, but people will find better ways to communicate. Humans are nothing if not creative problem solvers.