Social Media is Dead, Long Live Social Media
Posted inPolitics and News

Social Media is Dead, Long Live Social Media

And other Hyperbolic click baity headlines. Two articles today. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/01/mastodon-becomes-nonprofit-to-make-sure-its-never-ruined-by-billionaire-ceo/ And https://www.heise.de/en/news/Unprecedented-growth-Facebook-blocks-links-to-Instagram-alternative-Pixelfed-10237928.html Basically, Mastodon, the Federated Open Source client for microblogging is shifting itself to be a not for profit company. John Mastodon os no longer in control. Or, he won't be. These things apparently take a few months to do. Tangentially related, its picture centric counterpart Pixelfed, has experienced unprecedented growth. I saw one post where a Pixelfed instance was no longer allowing Instagram importing and Facebook is apparently blocking links to Pixelfed. Both of these moves are very good for the internet as a whole, but they also…
The Dead Internet Reality
Posted inPolitics and News

The Dead Internet Reality

Facebook and Instagram introduce AI bot ‘user’ accounts Hey Facebook, you ok there? Meta plans to roll out generative AI (genAI) characters on Facebook and Instagram this year in an effort to boost user engagement. Also, they apparently also deleted these accounts after the backlash, with some excuse about it being a "test product" and that it was run by humans on the backend. You know it will come back though. These companies have wasted too much time and money on this AI garbage to turn back now. But one, I don't know why they need to do this, these…