"Philip Herlihy" <***@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote
| It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post -
termed
| "permalink" in FB. That link is underneath the faint grey legend of the
| date/time of posting, just beneath the post.
As Rudy pointed out, that still leaves the problem of
extensive javascript, which probably won't work at all
in older browsers. I'm finding that in XP on an increasing
number of sites. The most recent was my doctor's website,
built on reactJS. These sites are complicated software,
designed to only work in the very latest browsers, by people
who don't actually have any idea of how to code a webpage.
One look at the code makes it clear that it's all machine-
generated.
| So it's possible to access a
| given post via the web, if the applicable permissions allow. But if
nobody
| identifies that link for you, then without a profile you'll be knocking at
a
| locked door. It's perfectly possible to have a minimal profile, even
using
| genuine information, and to configure it so that none of it is visible to
| anyone that you haven't explicitly given permission to. And that would
give
| you many more chances to get at the info you're looking for. But some
people
| simply knee-jerk at the thought (often based on third-hand accounts) of
social
| media. The choice is yours.
|
You talk as though social media is just a neutral tool. It's
actually a profound cultural change. Sleazy, for-profit companies
have taken control of peoples' social lives; especially teenagers.
If you ask young people why they don't quit they say they'd never
hear about parties. Their social lives are owned by Zuck and his
ilk. That's like teenagers who grow up in malls rather than in
parks and on Main St. They grow up seeing themselves having a
duty to be consumers, rather than as citizens. But social media has
greatly amplified that effect.
And that's just part of it. Social media has also created crushing
peer pressure. When I go onto public trains and buses I see virtually
everyone, especially the young, swiping through posts. Then they
put their phone away, only to take it out again, 2-3 seconds later,
like automatons on a software loop. As of 2021, 1 in 12 children
in the US is on psychoactive drugs prescribed by a doctor. I don't know
how many are in "therapy", but I know it's been normalized. I know
a 14 year old now who's going home from school regularly with
"panic attacks". That sea change is not an arbitrary accident.
Young people are living in a fishbowl of peer pressure, forever
doomed to the mob rule of the playground. They're growing up
in terror of actually being alone, because they don't know that
experience. Nor are they normally where they are. Their bodies are
in one place; their interactions in another.
If you look at wokist mania and cancel culture you can see
reverberations of that. Brutal peer pressure with no adult supervision.
Young people screaming about feeling "safe", obsessed with tokenistic
self-righteousness. They all feel under the microscope of social media
and that has produced a witch hunting mob of people who mercilessly
accuse others for fear they'll be accused themselves. They don't
even dare to be male or female!
To regard social media as neutral is like the geeks on Slashdot
desperately wanting to believe that 5 hours/day of murdering
people in video games has no effect on young minds. If that were
true there would be no such thing as raising children, because
the raising would have no effect. 40-year-old GTA addicts
just can't bring themselves to admit that they're wasting
their lives in a sick addiction.
Which is not to say that I think the whole idea is evil. Rather, the
ubiquity, the for-profit model, and the lack of supervision for children
is what worries me. I've been using Reddit for some time, to join
specific discussions where I can offer help. Their current version is broken
for me, but they were nice enugh to offer an older, compatible version
at old.reddit.com. They require minimal personal info and it's not a
social site in the sense of people conducting their personal lives there.
It's more like usenet with whining.
But even Reddit has a dark side. They want people to be happy
and keep coming back. So groups tend to form around topics of
interest and then the "moderators" can be petty tyrants, strictly
controlling what can be said. Anyone is free to complain that they
feel "harmed" by someone they disagree with. Posts can be upvoted
and downvoted. So that nasty peer pressure gets going again.
People begin to post in hopes of votes. I know that because they
talk about it. Younger people, especially, are so accustomed to the
mob rule of social media that for them social discourse means saying
whatever they think will gain them acceptance. Again, you can see
that mindset reflected in wokism, BLM, gender battles, and so on.
No one dares to think for themselves. It's all desperate "virtue
signalling" while accusing others of lacking in virtue.
I saw some good commentary about that kind of groupthink around
last week's Oscars. There was pure idiocy, like Jessica Chastain
defending LGBTQ out of the blue, as though someone had just
beat up a lesbian onstage, and "Power of the Dog" almost winning
simply because it attacks "toxic masculinity" and champions
men acting more feminine, bringing out their "hidden homosexuality".
CODA won because the actors are deaf. No one dares to judge
the movies on quality.
Ricky Gervais was asked what he might say if he were hosting,
and as usual, he injected a bit of sane decency:
"I'm proud to announce that this is the most diverse and progressive Oscars
ever. Looking out I see people from all walks of life. Every demographic
under the sun. Except poor people, obviously. Fuck them."
