the mellow tigger's musings

Facebook disappeared from the internet today.  It's disappearance had the knock-off effect of stressing other internet resources, affecting more than just Facebook.  The best explanation I've found (although most of it ranges into the "technical" category) is this blog post from a major provider of an important internet service.

I should reiterate here that nobody should be using Facebook products (Facebook, Instagram, Workplace, WhatsApp) anyway.  They are actively destabilizing American society, as well as other countries around the globe.  Do not encourage them.  A brave whistleblower explained why Facebook does it in this 13.5-minute video from CBS News.



*deadpan expression*  Yesterday.  The CBS story aired yesterday.  *glance at watch*  *glance at the above Facebook kerfuffle*  *deadpan expression*

I left Facebook a decade ago when a good alternative became available.  Although that alternative is now gone, there are others.  Twitter is still serviceable.  OpenBook (aka Okuna.io (soon to become Somus)) is available and will eventually be a good platform.  There are G+ refugees on MeWe.com, which is serviceable but has its own issues.

My point, anyway, is that I hope everyone chooses to stop funding the beast that is Facebook.  Go cold turkey.  Find someplace that doesn't incentivize outrage via unverified claims.

Maybe sign up for a Dreamwidth account?  You could blog.  I'm sure there must be mental health benefits to writing as well as reading stuff that's more than 280 characters and that isn't contained entirely within a meme image.  You know... thought provoking rather than outrage provoking.  Something that encourages linking to evidence that supports an opinion, so those justifications can be evaluated fairly.

At least consider it for me?  These dangerous times need thoughtful and informed minds.  I promise that you'll still find opposition to your ideas, but... they'll generally be well considered and well stated opinions.  That's a good environment for any society, isn't it?

I'm seeing more posts advertising different tv streaming services.  I'm not returning to Netflix until they pay their taxes.  Which of these free services do you recommend?

Which movie that's currently on offer do you recommend?

Type the words "Hillary Clinton is" into Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Really, I'm not kidding. Do it yourself. Do it now. I'll wait.

Don't trust what I say, just because you read it on the internet.  Go to the search engines. Type the phrase into the search box yourself.

You'll get suggestions like these when I searched those words tonight.



You might think these preliminary suggestions are customized specifically for me (they're supposed to be), except that I abundantly use Google resources, so they should know my political opinions. I'm a liberal who supported Bernie Sanders, opposes Hillary Clinton's candidacy, and will not vote for her.

Now go read this long story from the former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today. You'll wish you were wearing a tin foil hat.
The article starts slowly with some background storytelling to set the mood, but the very important bits are farther down into the text. They tried manipulating the opinions of their test subjects, and they were quite effective.


I'm so glad that I called attention recently to Google's failure to include Green Party candidate Jill Stein (and Transhumanist candidate Zoltan Istvan) in their search ranking results. Their favoritism was too obvious, I guess.

It's bad enough that I have to distrust all electronic voting machines. We use paper ballots here in Minnesota, so we have a trustworthy validation mechanism. Your area may differ. It's even worse that I have to distrust all media because it has consolidated to the point that only a few individuals can shape the message across vast swaths of broadcast, print, and online sources of news. Now, sadly, I have reason to distrust the primary interface to the internet: search engines.

I think the only real solution will be for all of us to have personal artificial intelligence assistants on our machines that we can direct to search data for us and present us with opinions that haven't been manipulated by any influence but our own fallible selves. Maybe we can start with open source web crawlers and search engines. I installed a useful one a few years ago on Windows before I made the switch to Linux Mint, but now I can't remember which package it was. Sorry, I don't have any recommendations tonight. Let me know if you have one that you like.