still working on my post about Facebook. it’s over 7500 words now…
sorry.
so far, I’ve used the word “Facebook” 135 times.
I’m pretty sure I’ll have it up before the end of the week. and then I will never have to write about Facebook again…
10,000 words now… I think I need to take a break. definitely should be able to wrap up, polish, and publish tomorrow.
I COMPLETELY missed the Twitter hack… guess this means I’m already doing much better about not getting distracted.
well… I forgot to discuss VK, so it might actually be tomorrow before I get it up… I know hundreds of thousands of you were counting on this essay… I know you’ve spent three whole days now just refreshing my blog… I’m so sorry.
update:
so I was just about ready to conclude what I had to say about VK when it occurred to me that I should try searching for the original Russian expression of the word (ВКонта́кте,) which revealed a whole new story…
turns out, the only conversation about VK in American media, at least, is as a haven for Nazis who’ve been banned from Facebook. apparently their pilgrimage began around 2016. theatlantic.com/technology/arc…
this investigation by bellingcat (which is absolutely CHOCK FULL of Nazi imagery – please take care) examines a whole host of neo-Nazis who maintain profiles on both sites, and are just way more explicit about their ideology on VK. bellingcat.com/news/2020/02/1…
imo, the fact that NONE OF THIS was visible in search results for “VK” and “VKontakte” indicates that search engines are still kindof dumb.
to be honest, I have no idea what to do now. literally all of the Facebook alternatives I’ve argued for have an association with terrible people for one reason or another.
in some cases, it’s the fault of the services, I agree. VK should definitely not be allowing some of those fucking images.
in Mastodon’s, though, articles like this really let it down. Gab stole the PLATFORM – the SOFTWARE, not the network. the vast majority of instance admins came together within hours of the announcement to make sure their servers didn’t federate with Gab. vice.com/en_us/article/…
and yet the headline still uses the term “home.” something like this would’ve been way less misleading: “The Biggest Far-Right Social Network Moves to Nazi-Free Twitter Alternative’s Platform.”
very discouraged. as of this moment, retirement looks great.
here’s a draft if you’d like to read it early for whatever reason. documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?ur…
and here are my notes so far. cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/10…
what is the best answer, going forward, to combat the tendency for alt-right, neo-Nazi, and other hateful groups to seek refuge on “alternative social media?”
well, I took a break from writing about Facebook… to write about why I’m taking a break from writing about Facebook. extratone.vivaldi.net/covering-faceb…
WELL. I do love the burn in this comment:
“Complaining about how it operates is a little like going to someone’s house party because all the cool people were there and then complaining that the bathroom isn’t ergonomic or you wish their pool was deeper and had a diving board.”
