96. Social media is ablaze
I.
This week’s tech news in brief: Meta is sacking American fact-checkers, and offensive posts targeting minorities are once again being tolerated on Facebook, Threads and Instagram. It feels rather paralysing, after a week of reading news articles and opinions about Mark Zuckerberg’s capitulation to Donald Trump, to add anything further. So, in the old-fashioned way, I’ve gathered a few links that together paint a clear picture of how things stand.
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To start with, this video by Zuckerberg himself, in which he announces the changes. I think it’s good to hear it from his own mouth, so you can carry on in bewilderment afterwards.
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Threads is also changing tack. The competitor to X was absolutely against political posts on its platform, but now it’s changed its mind.
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As Maarten Reijnders wrote on Bluesky: “In the name of freedom of expression, Zuckerberg is censoring trans and non-binary themes on Messenger”. Under the new rules, you are also allowed to simply call the LGBTIQA+ community ‘mentally ill’, writes 404 Media.
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Chaos has erupted, as not everyone is happy with the big boss’s plans.
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Jason Kottke had already pointed out that UFC president Dana White (who only has a loose fist outside the ring) was given a warm welcome at Meta. Kottke writes that Meta is simply the next tech company to realise that you can get away with anything as long as you shout ‘freedom of speech’ often enough.
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Professor of Digitalisation Reijer Passcher was not surprised, he says in a crystal-clear interview with de Volkskrant. “You can’t blame the lion for devouring the gazelle.”
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The fact-checkers at Nieman Lab fact-checked Zuckerberg’s statements about fact-checking.
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On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Zuckerberg was given free rein to spout one falsehood after another. You don’t have to listen; you can just read about it on The Verge.
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According to Zuckerberg, Meta’s moderation systems no longer reflect how society views issues such as gender and immigration. But isn’t it just as reprehensible that a powerful billionaire decides how the conversation should be conducted? Zuckerberg is at odds with himself, suggests The Atlantic.
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For a detailed account of Meta’s new direction, see the NY Times, which explains how Zuckerberg had his business strategy overhauled in six weeks after dining with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
II.
Not to mention the ever-escalating Elon Musk. Can we all just tone it down a notch? It’s as if the bosses of social media platforms are begging us: what on earth else do we have to do to ensure you stop using our services? It’s been clear for years that Big Tech can get away with anything without facing consequences that make a difference, the only difference being that the top executives are no longer hiding behind anything.
Perhaps we could simply spend a little less time on social media. It’s better for your blood pressure and leaves you with time for more enjoyable things (blogging!). The downside is that for years we’ve been programmed to open an app and scroll through it at the first sign of boredom.
Perhaps social media has simply failed. Since Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X, many people have been looking for an alternative where it actually is a pleasant place to be. I saw this week that people were closing their Threads accounts following the reports about Zuckerberg. As far as I’m concerned, Bluesky is the best choice, but even there the talk of the day is the chaos at Meta and X. You simply can’t escape it. Which in turn raises the question: why do we keep looking for alternatives at all? After all, El Dorado was never found either.
III.
Even the new stop-motion film Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl deals with the downside of technology. Inventor Wallace has devised a robot gnome to tackle odd jobs in the garden. But when the gnome is hacked by the evil penguin Feathers McGraw, the little helper turns into a horror gnome.
The AI trend of 2025 is the arrival of so-called AI agents. These are chatbots on steroids. They not only answer your questions, but actually take tasks off your hands. You can ask them for holiday tips, and they can then independently book a flight and hotel and make restaurant reservations.
From the outset, Gromit watches with dismay as his boss boasts about his new assistant. He actually enjoys putting time and effort into the garden, whilst the gnome makes everything neat and tidy within a few minutes. Where one sees a solution, the other sees a threat. As the old metaphor goes: you can use a hammer to hammer in a nail or to bash someone’s brains in.
The makers of Wallace & Gromit couldn’t ignore the theme. For is there still a place for a stop-motion film in which almost everything is made of clay where you can see the fingerprints, when you can produce everything faster, cheaper and more beautifully on a computer? Absolutely. It’s like Gromit watching the robot as it wreaks havoc in his garden. You want to stay in control yourself, to feel the earth between your fingers. Even if it takes more time and the end result isn’t quite as polished. There’s always a need for authenticity. That doesn’t have to be lost when you use technology, as long as you do so wisely. It might even make things better, as shown in the making of the film.
(And it’s a hilarious film. The stoic penguin remains a brilliant arch-enemy. Highly recommended.)
---PS.
The best work yet from the already brilliant Neal.fun: Simulation Clicker. The more you click the buttons, the faster the numbers go up. You keep unlocking new distractions and impulses, whilst continuing to click on more and more buttons. Faster and faster, more and more stimuli. Fortunately, there’s a satisfying ending; otherwise, I’d still be down the rabbit hole with a racing heart.
Werner Herzog hasn’t been afraid of anything since he was eighteen, notes De Groene Amsterdammer. Most of his life has unfolded in the twentieth century, a century which, according to Herzog, has been a complete mistake. “Thank God it’s over.” The new technological utopias are also coming to an end, he told interviewer Jan Postma late last year. We can see it happening.
What a nice idea, a golf game with pen, paper and a dice.
---DOOM: The Gallery Experience. It’s like playing the classic DOOM, but instead of a gun, you walk through a museum with a glass of red wine. Whilst viewing the art, you pick up a few hors-d’oeuvres. Enjoy. According to the creators, this project is intended as a parody of the “delightfully pretentious world of exhibition openings”. Playable for free via Newgrounds.
---At the last minute, I realise there is one social network that actually is fun. Letterboxd. Film lovers gather there to discuss the films they’ve recently watched. I have an account there too. Now the Letterboxd annual review is out again, and it’s a joy to go through every year.
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