Tech / Social Media Linkdump
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<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#the-villains">The Villains</a><ul>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#elon-musk">Elon Musk</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#zuckerberg-facebook">Zuckerberg / Facebook</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#tiktok">Tiktok</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#google">Google</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#others">Others</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#people-being-angry-about-tech">People Being Angry About Tech</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#leaving-the-big-tech-bubble">Leaving the Big Tech Bubble</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#some-good-stuff-now">Some Good Stuff Now</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#and-some-fun-stories-too">And Some Fun Stories Too</a></li>
<li><a href="https://roytang.net/2025/01/tech-linkdump/#bye">Bye</a></li>
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<p>I'd normally be posting these things to the <a href="https://roytang.net/links/">link blog</a> but I have a whole bunch of links for sharing stored up, so I might do these linkdump posts until I am caught up.</p>
<p>This one is mostly about tech and social media stuff. The Big Tech Oligarchy (proper noun) has been in the news lately as they cozy up to the new US president. I'll start with some links about our modern tech villains before moving on to some better things.</p>
<h3 id="the-villains">The Villains</h3>
<h4 id="elon-musk">Elon Musk</h4>
<p>Perhaps our greatest modern-day tech villain, who managed to snag himself control of a country by buying the social media site formerly known as Twitter.</p>
<p>Musk has <a href="https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/elon-musk-admits-to-cheating-diablo-4-path-of-exile-2-3830729">admitted to cheating in video games</a> which is kind of pitiful really. Given all he has "accomplished", why feel the need to lie about this?</p>
<p>In recent days, he <a href="https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/01/20/musk-nazi-salute/">was caught giving a Nazi salute during Trump's inauguration</a>. This was so bad that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/22/24349467/reddit-subreddit-x-twitter-link-bans-elon-musk-nazi-salute">dozens of subreddits are banning Twitter/X links over it</a>.</p>
<p>I recently also found out that Elon Musk had <a href="https://archive.md/t1agy">an anti-semetic, apartheid-loving grandfather</a>. </p>
<p>Molly White writes about <a href="https://www.citationneeded.news/elon-musk-and-the-rights-war-on-wikipedia/">Musk's war against wikipedia.</a></p>
<p>Via <a href="https://mastodon.social/@tofugolem/113834216471922068">@tofugolem</a>, I found this hilarious:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>In response to X/Twitter announcing they are using user content to train Al, Korean users began describing "destroying Elon Musk's testicles with a spinning kick" as a healthy and wholesome traditional activity in order to contaminate the Al training data.</p>
</blockquote>
<h4 id="zuckerberg-facebook">Zuckerberg / Facebook</h4>
<p>Musk is far from the only tech oligarch to bend the knee to Trump. Zuckerberg has seemingly gone full MAGA to please the 47th US president. He has announced that <a href="https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/9/meta_fact_checking_changes_trump_2025">Meta will end fact-checking in the US</a> (in favor of something similar to X's community notes) and later on went on the Joe Rogan show and <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mark-zuckerberg-masculine-energy/">claimed corporations need more "masculine energy"</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.platformer.news/meta-fact-checking-free-speech-surrender/">Casey Newton has more details on Meta's changes on Platformer</a>.</p>
<h4 id="tiktok">Tiktok</h4>
<p>Not even an American tech company! The US Supreme Court upheld the Tiktok ban and the app was briefly unavailable in the US as the Biden admin ended, but came back soon after when Trump promised to make things better, and their CEO attended Trump's inauguration as well, something that feels orchestrated to turn Trump into some kind of savior for the Tiktok crowd. As an unfortunate side of the ban, <a href="https://www.ign.com/articles/marvel-snap-has-also-been-banned-in-the-us-following-the-tiktok-shutdown">Marvel Snap was also briefly unavailable in the US</a> because their publisher is also owned by ByteDance. </p>
<p>An unintended side effect of the ban: <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2025/01/14/tech/rednote-china-popularity-us-tiktok-ban-intl-hnk/index.html">a bunch of American 'Tiktok refugees' joined a Chinese app called Xiaohongshu or sometimes referred to as Little Red Book or RedNote</a>. It is kind of hilarious that they flocked to an app that is even more Chinese apparently.</p>
<h4 id="google">Google</h4>
<p>Google search has been on a pretty big decline recently. <a href="https://archive.is/NW54n">The Tragedy of Google Search - The Atlantic</a>. </p>
<p>Terence Eden tells us that Google <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/01/google-has-no-faith-in-its-ability-to-launch-new-products/">Google has no faith in its ability to launch new products</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Google is in a similar boat today. They have absolutely no confidence that their Gemini AI Assistant is any good. They've run countless tests with customers and it is a dud. But they've invested a lot of money, so it needs to launch. Customers, in the main, decline to install it and they certainly refuse to pay for it. So what's Google's solution?</p>
<p>They have forcibly installed it, jacked up the prices, and made it impossible to remove.</p>
<p>These are not the actions of a company which believes in its own products.</p>
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<h4 id="others">Others</h4>
<p>A row full of tech oligarchs had front seats to Trump's inauguration and many of their companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft donated to Trump's inauguration fund.</p>
<p>Even Tim Apple donated to the fund. <a href="https://ryanleetaylor.com/blog/a-rotten-apple-tim-cook-betrayal-of-lgbtq-rights">Ryan Lee Taylor views this as a betrayal of LGBTQ+ rights</a>. (I was not previously aware that Cook had come out as gay.)</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For years, Cook used his platform to advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, speaking out against discriminatory legislation and positioning Apple as a leader in workplace equality. He seemed to embody the promise that one could be openly gay and wildly successful, using that success to further the cause.</p>
<p>But yesterday, as I watched him applaud a president who threatens to undo all our progress, that optimism has turned to ash. The man who once inspired me has become a stark reminder of how easily principles can be compromised.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.wrecka.ge/bad-shape/">Bad Shape</a>. Erin Kissane writes an excellent article about all of this and how the global platforms were always unfit to govern:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The computer dream’s rapidly evaporating and over-salinated shallows are still keeping the tech industry’s dumbest boats afloat, but the platforms have been scraping bottom for years while their owners slap on layers and layers of patches and bilge-pumps and bucket brigades manned by people from former colonies. The problem isn't (just) turning fact-checking on or off or deactivating a swarm of halfassed AI classifers or ceasing to pretend to act on most reports of misconduct, it's bad shape.</p>
<p>All of which is to say that yes, Zuckerberg is a terrible chump and Musk is a grotesque quasi-Rasputin, and that does matter, but the boards they stand on have been rotten the whole time. Centralized corporate governance of global mega-platforms was always a goofy idea, and we should have given up on it years ago.</p>
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<h3 id="people-being-angry-about-tech">People Being Angry About Tech</h3>
<p><a href="https://www.wheresyoured.at/never-forgive-them/">Never Forgive Them</a>. Ed Zitron writes a long, rambling, heartfelt diatribe about how terrible modern software platforms have become, enshittification and all. I recommend reading it in full, as honestly any single pull quote is insufficient, though I will provide one:</p>
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<p>I don't give a shit if Sam Altman or Mark Zuckerberg knows my name. I don't care about any of their riches or their supposed achievements, I care that when given so many resources and opportunities to change the world they chose to make it worse. These men are tantamount to war criminals, except in 30 years Mark Zuckerberg may still be seen as a success — though I will spend the rest of my life telling you the damage he's caused. </p>
<p>I care about you. The user. The person reading this. The person that may have felt stupid, or deficient, or ignorant, all because the services you pay for or that monetize you have been intentionally rigged against you.</p>
<p>You aren't the failure. The services, the devices, and the executives are. </p>
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<p><a href="https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/why-i-will-always-be-angry-about-software-engineering/">Why I Will Always Be Angry About Software Engineering</a> by Nikhil Suresh:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>To put it very simply, the little things matter. The sandwiches that get sent to hospitals matter. Ritalin supply chains matter, lumbar support in chairs matter, and yes, stupid React widgets matter. They go out into society, and every time someone says "Ah, I just want to get paid", we get another terrible intersection that haunts the community for five generations. I'm going to stay angry about bad software engineering. And you know what, if I leave software engineering some day to finish getting licensed as a clinical psychologist, then I'm going to be angry about terrible therapists.</p>
<p>"Software is worth getting angry about because everything is worth getting angry about."</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://www.late-review.com/p/what-the-fuck-are-we-doing-anymore">what the fuck are we doing anymore</a> by Kate Wagner. On the challenges facing writers on the internet on these modern-day platforms:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The crux of my argument is this: the tools we have used to make our living are no more in any meaningful or honest way. The only available path they will provide us is one of further atomization, barbarism and weaponization. Hence, to me, what has emerged is a new cycle of proletarianization: staff jobs are eliminated, writers go independent on platforms like this one — if that’s even still possible anymore — all while legacy publications pick up, as freelancers making way less money, those people who are already popular on these platforms. </p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="leaving-the-big-tech-bubble">Leaving the Big Tech Bubble</h3>
<p><a href="https://8sided.blog/how-to-disappear-defiantly/">How to disappear defiantly</a>: M. Donaldson on finally leaving Facebook.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I kept floating along because I was already engaging with other untrustworthy corporations—for starters, the desktop computer I’m typing this on, the cell phone plan I have, and the health insurance I require. Perhaps I’m justifying. But the cruelty and suffering that will dramatically increase over the next four years is an awful reality. If I can disengage with any organization kowtowing to the terrible people fueling this misery, then sooner is the preferred alternative to later.</p>
<p>Meta groveled at an impressive, alarming, and unsurprising speed. I won’t go into it here, but Casey Newton has a comprehensive and disturbing round-up of the depths of Meta’s servile prostration—so far!—in his Platformer newsletter. (If you click on only one link to read from this too-long blog post, please make it that one.) Cruelty (in this case, under the gaslit guise of ‘free speech,‘ but without the accountability that exercising that speech entails in the normal world) is now embedded as Facebook policy, and suffering is sure to follow. It’s terrible people all the way down, and I can’t take it anymore. I’m out.</p>
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<p><a href="https://zeldman.com/2024/12/28/valediction-2/">Valediction</a> by L. Jeffrey Zeldman on leaving twitter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The point is that the former Twitter has become a hateful cesspool, not simply mirroring but amplifying its owner’s profound insecurities, god-awful beliefs, and self-serving lies, and forcing that insanity into the public consciousness, whether we avoid X or not.
</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="https://blog.ayjay.org/you-dont-have-to-be-there/">You Don't Have to be there</a>: Alan Jacobs on ditching the doomscrolling habit.</p>
<p><a href="https://buttondown.com/monteiro/archive/how-to-survive-being-online/">How to survive being online</a> by Mike Monteiro.</p>
<p>Note: I myself <a href="https://roytang.net/2020/06/quitting-facebook/">wrote about qutting Facebook</a> myself some time ago, but honestly have since reactivated the account for reasons. I don't post there or anything, and I would prefer to leave, but Donaldson above is correct to say that being able to leave these platforms is absolutely a privilege that not everyone can enjoy. It's not even just the friends and family network effect (I have no idea how I could ever get my parents to migrate to any other platform), but when you have medical or government concerns many institutions/doctors/suppliers primarily use Facebook/Messenger to communicate or make announcements.</p>
<p><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/mishellbaker.bsky.social/post/3lg7sh3sehs2f">Mishell Baker on BlueSky writes about dealing with all of this nonsense happening in the world</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce.</p>
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<h3 id="some-good-stuff-now">Some Good Stuff Now</h3>
<p><a href="https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/01/the-people-should-own-the-town-square/">The people should own the town square</a>: Mastodon is transfering control to a non-profit, with creator Eugen Rochko ceding control, proving tech CEOs don't need to be dicks.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/14/24343614/instagram-alternative-pixelfed-app-launch-ios-android">Fediverse instagram alternative Pixelfed experienced a surge in traffic and new users recently</a>. Their launch of official iOS/Android apps coincided with Meta's right-wing shift, putting them in a good spot to benefit from refugees.</p>
<p>Dan Fixes Coin-Ops has been writing <a href="https://retro.social/@ifixcoinops/113838462085835742">an ongoing thread about what an idealistic, decentralized, non-billionaire-controlled online social space might look like</a> and it's fantastic. I kind of want </p>
<p><a href="https://www.404media.co/decentralized-social-media-is-the-only-alternative-to-the-tech-oligarchy/">Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative to the Tech Oligarchy</a> (free-sign up is required to read the whole article):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This is all to say that it is possible to build alternatives to Elon Musk’s X, Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram, and whatever TikTok will become. It is happening, and it is necessary. The richest, most powerful people in the world have all aligned themselves and their platforms with Donald Trump. But their platforms’ relevance and importance doesn’t necessarily have to last forever. A different way is possible, if we build it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h3 id="and-some-fun-stories-too">And Some Fun Stories Too</h3>
<p><a href="https://tla.systems/blog/2025/01/04/i-live-my-life-a-quarter-century-at-a-time/">I Live My Life a Quarter Century at a Time – Three Letter Acronym</a>: James Thomson writes about his time working on the Mac OSX Dock 25 years ago.</p>
<p><a href="https://eugene-andrienko.com/en/it/2024/01/02/life-in-console">I spent 18 years in the Linux console and I don’t regret it | Dragon’s notes</a> by Eugene Adrienko (via <a href="https://indieweb.social/@jbz/113837715035327012">jbz</a>)</p>
<p>Terence Eden asks <a href="https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/01/do-you-understand-how-fast-computers-are/">Do you understand how fast computers are?</a></p>
<p><a href="https://avi.im/blag/2024/sqlite-facts/">Collection of insane and fun facts about SQLite - blag</a></p>
<h3 id="bye">Bye</h3>
<p>So many links! And I still have a lot more to go through! That's it for now though!</p>
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