As people and businesses started to switch away from the social media giants, inverse network effects set in: the people you stayed on MySpace to hang out with were gone, and without them, all the abuses MySpace was heaping on you were no longer worth it, and you left, too. Once you were gone, that was a reason for someone else to leave. The same forces that drove rapid growth drove rapid collapse.
The really remarkable thing isn’t just that Microsoft has decided that the future of search isn’t links to relevant materials, but instead lengthy, florid paragraphs written by a chatbot who happens to be a habitual liarâeven more remarkable is that Google agrees.
Microsoft has nothing to lose. It’s spent billions on Bing, a search-engine no one voluntarily uses. Might as well try something so stupid it might just work. But why is Google, a monopolist who has a 90+% share of search worldwide, jumping off the same bridge as Microsoft?
He goes on, analysing how Google is not really an innovator, and most things it has have come to it through acquisition. They wouldnât know a clever innovation if they saw it.
And:
ChatGPT and its imitators have all the hallmarks of a tech fad, and are truly the successor to last season’s web3 and cryptocurrency pump-and-dumps.
I had better not quote any more as itâs way more important you visit both these pieces and see the entire arguments. Farewell to Big Social then.
Though if Cory is right, and my own thoughts have come close, then is there any point to web searching if these chatbots are going to unleash machine-authored crap, complementing some of the already godawful spun sites out there? Search engines should be finding ways of weeding out spun and AI-authored junk, rather than being in league with themâbecause that could mean the death of the web.
Or maybe just the death of Google and Bing, because Mojeek might be there to save us all.
Strange, a reply I wrote in agreement has vanished.
Basically my earlier point was that Google has also destroyed a lot of legitimate publicationsâ earnings through depressing ad prices, diverting income to splogs, content mills and spun sites. Not to mention taking a decent cut for itself.
The whole enterprise is a massive con.
From a legal POV I would even say it was all foreseeable and a negligence lawsuit waiting for someone to take it on. It would be great to close it down.
The original reply linked to this post, which is also saying the emperor has no clothesâexcept this time it’s applied to Google. If Googlers are worried about that, then maybe I’ve cut very close to the chase. The one part which, when attacked, destroys the entire corrupt system.
PS.: Don Marti expresses my point far better than I did.
A Mastodon post about my mayoral campaign policies. No, I didn’t foresee a global pandemic as such (though I certainly was on Twitter perplexed at why the WHO had not declared COVID-19 a global emergency in January 2020), but I did feel there was insufficient resilience in our economy and wanted to advance ideas that would at least put this city right.
Working from home was a way of alleviating stress on our traffic network, or at least help stagger the amount of traffic on the road at any given time. Tied in to that was publicizing real-time about public transport, which I think is starting to happen, to encourage their use.
The expansion of the wifi network meant that Newtown would be next, heading out to Berhampore, the whole idea being to bridge the digital divide for our less well off communities. I had already been into a meeting with Citylink and had a model through which it could be funded. I lived in Newtown as a boy, and I know how little we had in terms of the family budget. And, as we saw in lockdown, internet access was very far from being equal among our communities.
I’m not subscribing to ‘That’s easy to say in hindsight,’ because all these ideas were a matter of record, as well as the reasons behind it. I am subscribing to a degree of cherry-picking but when you consider these were my “flagship” ideas, I’m not even being that picky.
To think we could have set all this in motion starting in 2010 and been ready for 2020. I don’t really sell nostalgia if I’m running for office because that would be disingenuous. You’re being asked to vote on the future, and so many politicians are trying to resell you the past. I’m grateful to those voters who got this and put me in third place twice. We have a good mayor now who’s young enough to get it.
As this wasn’t shared much on social media, I can only assume not many of you share my sense of humour. It’s a fake, of course, since I’m feverish from the first dose of the shingles vaccine (if you look down the side-effects list, I have them all) I needed something to ease my way into my work day. But just imagine âŠ
As commentaries on the New Year’s Honours go, this is a good one about fellow Scots old boy and Tawa guy Sir Ashley Bloomfield.
Engagement on Mastodon is pretty good these days, and there’s no real point to Twitter any more. I still have Dlvr.it content go there since they still haven’t offered any posting options for the fediverse, but that’s largely it. The Lucire account at Fashionsocial.host has far more activity (multiples more) than it did on Twitter despite having a twelfth of the number of followers.
In fact, some of you will have noticed this on my personal site, taking place on December 18.
Before
After
No point keeping icons to things I no longer actively use, and Drivetribe went ages ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if these outward links kept disappearing on others’ sites as people re-establish personal presences, whether self-hosted like this or on a modern equivalent of Geocities. Who needs Big Social?
CBS News’s words: ‘In light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform.’
We’ve already had an account be temporarily suspended over on Mastodon.art but there’s a very reasonable moderator there and the appeal was granted within hours. You can read up on this over at Lucire, which is now on a fashion-friendly instance at fashionsocial.host. (The art account remains open, probably to post covers and photography on, a bit like Lucireâs old Tumblr account.)
With all this fediverse talk, what a pity my Hubzilla account has gone. I was there in the 2010s, probably around the time I signed up for Mastodon in 2017, possibly before. I did get myself a Pixelfed this time, so spot me at [email protected], and Lucire is at [email protected]. Will I use them? Time will tell, but possibly not. I’d still prefer focusing on our own sites, unless we can figure out how to bring this in-house.
Even though Twitter is now in its MySpaceX era, I wonât shut my account. I have scripts that run through it, and I donât wish for some schmuck to come in later and claim my username. Mastodon has taken off this week, my Twitter notifications are at a low, and as I cross-post between them, Mastodon is likely going to become my main social network.
But I get those who donât wish to leave outright. I have a 5,555-strong following including my personal interests on Twitter. However, it does seem that once a social medium becomes a personal-interest one, ironically I lose interest in it! It was the case with Instagram, and Pinterest never held my interest for that long because it encouraged you to post and browse based on your interests! Maybe itâs me, but I prefer to enjoy my interests in the real world, or using them to build up my own sites and publications, not someone elseâs.
Iâm not going to criticize anyone who chooses to stay on a platform for longer than its sell-by date, because that would make me a hypocrite.
Facebook
I donât hide my disdain about Facebook, but it took me over a yearânearly twoâbetween the time it forced me to download their malware (well, they said it was a malware scanner, but there were plenty of suspicious things about it) in 2016 and updating my wall for the last time in 2017. That incident did force me to reconsider using the site, but I hung in there, in part to investigate what was going on, but also because I was still fooled into thinking it could be good for business and our own site traffic. (Those algorithms will see to throttling any links for your work, as they have been doing for over a decade.)
But in late 2017, I wrote a farewell post and stopped updating my wall. People still tagged me, and those went up, but I havenât posted anything on my own wall since. Some work pages still get the odd update but I canât even remember when was the last time I headed in to do anything on my public page. I have frequented the occasional group and looked after client pages but those visits are infrequent.
Instagram
I began using Instagram more for cars and model cars, but by the end of 2019 I had had enough, even for things I was interested in. There were too many ads, and Instagram was still collecting (laughably incorrect) interests on me despite opting out. I went from a multiple-post-per-day user to someone whoâd update with a month in between, then a quarter, and I barely bother now. The last time I visited, my most favoured filters had vanished as well, a long string of feature removals that began with the maps years before. There just wasnât a point to the site any more. But it still took a long time between my initial boredom and frustration with the site to what is currently my last post. Might I go on once more? Maybe, to do a more fitting farewell or to test something.
It also didnât help that Instagram locked Lucire out in 2021 for a week. Lucireâs âGram is still active, but not that active. Weâve never really been bothered with social media as a company, and thanks to Zoho Social, I donât even need to go to Instagram in order to post to it.
But it is a place thatâs polarizing and unpleasant. Iâm all for diverse viewpoints but Iâd like the other party to consider mine as much as I consider theirs. That doesnât happen as often any more. And with Mastodon holding up (only one abusive message so far, unprompted, from a total stranger in Portland, Oregon) why would we stay on Twitter? But itâs only November 2022, Musk has only taken ownership, and I saw the AprilâMay 2022 influx eventually go quiet, too.
Nevertheless, I feel Twitterâs days as my main social media site are coming to a close, with cross-posting between Mastodon and Twitter a breeze. Before, Iâd post mainly on Twitter and let things flow to Mastodon, and check both. In April I began originating posts on both sites. Now in November, there doesnât seem to be much call to originate anything on Twitter, with my own follower count going from 330-odd to over 550. It may be a tenth of what I have at Twitter, but the unpleasantness is gone, for now. My regret is that my personal interestsâin the last year Twitter became my place for interacting with other car enthusiasts, especially in Ireland and Scotlandâarenât really on Mastodon, but it follows the earlier patterns. Once personal interests become a big part, for some reason I donât feel I need the fix any more.
Overall, as someone who owns sites, I would prefer to create something for my readers. That gives me an infinitely bigger thrill than participating in most social media threads. And if I were to participate in social media, it seems fairer to be in the federated system, owning my own data, than being part of a plutocratâs plaything where you hand him a perpetual licence to your mahi.
For starters, Troy reminds us that Dorsey trusts Musk, in order to keep Twitter away from Wall Street investors. Dorsey has said this publicly in a Tweet. He believes this acquisition is about ideology, so Musk doesnât care if Twitter doesnât make moneyâor at least, money will come if the technology is opened up and they can charge for other things built on top of it. Getting data on all of us helps Musk in a big way, too.
Troy posits that Musk believes we need to be on other planets, so we shouldnât help the poor in our quest to get off this rock; but another interesting one is that he believes in a multipolar world order, something Vladimir Putin has talked about. Musk believes in rule by technocracy, Troy theorizes, not by politics. He also believes Musk is a sociopath.
All this is quite fascinating to read. Taking Troyâs words on Putin, Musk and Dorsey sharing the same vision:
All seem to think a âmultipolar worldâ is a good thing, because after all, shouldnât Russia get to do its thing and not be bothered by anyone else? Thatâs âfree speechâ and opposes âcancel culture,â right? So yeah, thatâs aligned with Putin. But Putin himself doesnât support free speech; his government censors wildly, but it does support speech that breaks the hegemony of the Western elites. As do Musk and friends. This is internally inconsistent.
Because of these shared values, Troy foresees Musk teaming up with D. J. Trump at Truth Social and Kanye West at Parler to control the information space.
It points to a pretty dark outcome and a polarizing world, but one which has been brewing for a long time.
We could talk about the failure of neoliberal economics and, therefore, the western hegemony. With all the figure-massaging by China when it reports its GDP, thereâs still no denying that the country has risen vastly in mere decades. And Putin has said as much about wanting to fight back against western hegemony.
Itâs incredibly easy to fall back on âthem and usâ as a concept. Dictators might find it easier to make their positions official (even if there is internal dissent that is driven underground), while the west can broadly talk about diversity while not truly breaking ranks with the neoliberal order. Our Blairite government here is positioned as such while having a social veneer (and a modicum of restraint) based on history and market positioning, while the Opposition will make things that much harder and is more blatant at wanting to do so.
I would have once said China had the potential to be an outlier, raising its educational standards and embracing Confucianism, which has its foundations in free thought and liberalism, balanced with preserving a relationship between state and subject. Perhaps with Hu and Wen things could have gone that way. Under Xi Jinping the aims have changed, and at least one China-watcher I know (who knew Xiâs father and knew of Xi from 1982) tell me that they foresaw this.
Iâm not going to make any bold predictions myself, but the world looks like a place that wonât become multipolar but bipolar, and Twitter is one tool that is going to accelerate this trendâbuilding on top of what Facebook and Google have already done by forcing users into silos. Meanwhile, Baidu et al will no doubt reflect the official positions of their governments.
âChinese Language Weekâ has rolled around again, and if you look on Twitter, there are plenty of Chinese New Zealanders (myself included) and our allies miffed about this. And we get the usual trolls come by.
First up, itâs not Chinese Language Week. Itâs Mandarin Language Week. I have no problem with the promotion of Mandarin as long as thatâs what itâs called. But to promote it as being representative of all Chinese people here is ridiculous and encouraging randoms to come up to us with ‘ni hao’ is tiresome. Thirty-six per cent of us might be OK with it, sure. But not the rest. (To Stuffâs credit, probably because it doesn’t promote a Chinese person as a force in politics, and because it now actually has reporters of colour, this is a great opinion piece from a fellow Chinese New Zealander.)
To me, Mandarin is unintelligible with maybe the exception of five per cent of it. When I watch Mandarin TV, I can catch ‘ćąć’. If Iâm immersed in it, it might creep up to 10 per cent after a fortnight, but that’s with the context of seeing the situation in which it’s used. It isâand Iâve used this analogy beforeâlike speaking Danish to an Italian. Some Italians will get it because they’ve figured out the connections going back to proto-European, but othersâ eyes will just glaze over.
If youâre someone who claims that we appreciate a Mandarin greeting, try saying ‘ÎαληΌÎÏα’ to a Norwegian. Yeah, you’d look multilingual but weâd just think you were confusedâat best.
This is a country that supposedly apologized for the racist Poll Tax, but, as my friend Bevan points out:
We have the P[o]ll Tax Trust but there are not a lot to support the Cantonese speakers and culture, event though it should be. How many programmes have they funded to support Cantonese language? How many of the Trustees have been advocating for the language?
One of the Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust objectives is to preserve the heritage Cantonese language. So they should fund any initiative for a Cantonese language week.
Some initiatives have taken place, which is awesome:
We have been applying for it – in the form of books re the past NZers. Maybe someone can apply for Trust funds for something academic https://t.co/8jr5jI7mE9
But itâs clear that we need to organize something to counter a hegemonic desire to wipe out our culture and language. This is why so many Chinese get what MÄori go through.
The first Chinese New Zealanders came from the south, and were Cantonese speakers, likely with another language or dialect from their villages. Cantonese was the principal Chinese tongue spoken here, so if thereâs to be any government funding to preserve culture, and honour those who had to pay the Poll Tax, then thatâs where efforts should goâalong with the other languages spoken by the early Chinese settlers.
The trolls have been interesting, because theyâre copying and pasting from the same one-page leaflet that their propaganda department gave them when websites opened up to comments 20 years ago.
In the 2000s, I criticized BYD for copying pretty much an entire car on this blog, when it was run on Blogger. BYD even retouched Toyotaâs publicity photosâit was that obvious. The car colour even stayed the same.
Above: The Toyota Aygo and BYD’s later publicity photo for its F1, later called the F0 when produced. The trolls didn’t like getting called out.
Either CCP or BYD trolls came by. The attack line, if I recall correctly, was that I was a sycophant for the foreigners and anti-Chinese.
No, kids, itâs anti-Chinese to think that we canât do better than copying a Toyota.
Nowadays even the mainland Chinese press will slam a car company for this level of copying. Zotye and others have had fingers pointed at them. BYDâs largely stopped doing it.
All this points to is a lack of strength, and a lack of intelligence, on the part of the trolls, with uppity behaviour that actually doesnât exist in real life. ‘I’m so offended over something I have no comprehension over.’
The fact remains that those advocating for Cantonese, Taishanese, Hakka, Hokkien, Teochew, and all manner of Chinese languages love our Mandarin-speaking whÄnau. In many cases, we feel a kinship with them. The trolls are probably not even based here, and have no idea of the cultural issues at stake. Or the fact they already have three TV networks speaking their language.
Is it so hard for them to accept the fact some of us choose to stand up to hegemony and insensitivity, and want to honour our forebears? Are they anti-Chinese?
