Mark F***king Zuckerberg Is Not Your Friend

distractedcactus@beehaw.org to Technology@beehaw.org – 226 points – Mark F***king Zuckerberg Is Not Your Friend
catvalente.substack.com

I recently listened to a "tech" podcast host drone on for 45 minutes about the "Elon vs Zuck" cage match and this piece perfectly captures the frothing, screaming stream-of-conciousness in my brain at the thought of seeing another discussion about Twitter vs Threads/Insta/Face/burning-sh*itpile. I felt some small amount of catharsis just from reading.

31

“a half-baked Mastodon instance Frankenstein-stitched to the rib of Instagram” Nothing to add just a brilliant quote

Key moments pulled from kagi.com

  • The author is upset and suspicious of Mark Zuckerberg and his new social media platform Threads.

  • The author believes Zuckerberg is not to be trusted given Facebook's history of data harvesting, privacy violations, and spreading misinformation.

  • Facebook bears responsibility for spreading conspiracy theories and radicalizing people.

  • The author thinks the positive reception of Threads is likely due to astroturfing and artificial boosting by Zuckerberg.

  • Zuckerberg has a long history of unethical behavior and putting profits over people.

  • The author worries that Threads will be used to manipulate the 2024 election and spread misinformation.

  • The author thinks people are too easily falling for Zuckerberg's rebranding as a "cool uncle" figure with Threads.

  • The author argues that Zuckerberg has not changed and Threads will eventually become just like Facebook.

  • The author warns against trusting Zuckerberg and Threads, comparing it to a panther that seems cool at first but will eventually harm people.

  • The author believes Zuckerberg's ultimate goal is to control what information people see online.

That is completely accurate and logical representation of the article after it's had the heart ripped out KALIMAAA-style and been lowered into a pit.

I need to start using Mola-Ram metaphors in conversation

I have to start using their sum up feature more, it's great.

I was about to ask if Kagi is worth paying for, but their website does a tremendous job of selling it. I am going to have to give up a subscription to afford it, but I think it will be worth it. Actually... maybe not. I pay for everything annually when I can. Too bad they don't have that option, but it makes sense when their are hard limits to searches and features between tiers.

Love Catherynne M. Valente, amazing author. Check out her work if you haven't already; I'm partial to her collection of short stories, The Melancholy of Mechagirl

I just recently found her Substack and devoured most of the public posts. I haven't gotten any of her books yet, but she's on my list the next time I go into a bookstore. Are there any of her other works that you'd recommend?

I'm a sucker for short story compilations so I would also highly recommend The Future Is Blue.

I haven't gotten around to reading it yet, but Space Opera is also sitting on my shelf collecting dust. I've heard it described as "Eurovision in space"

I've heard it described as "Eurovision in space"

Ok I'm sold, that's going to the top of the list.

I'm glad I'm apparently not online enough to have any idea what she's pissed off about

Twitter had an outage at the same time Threads: An Instagram App was launching. Threads now has something like 100 million accounts in a matter of days.

So apparently lots of people and businesses are replacing Twitter with Threads. It's just over here on Lemmy, most of us seem to be Reddit refugees. There is a lot of discussion about Threads federation via ActivityPub (if you are on the right communities at least), but otherwise I think we are all mostly just happy to leave all that corporate BS behind.

yeah, I know about Threads, I just haven't seen any of this zuck fanboying that she's talking about

I've seen a lot of people suggest that Zuck is a more ethical person, which I think is an absolutely ridiculous claim.

Yep. The difference is emotional, not material. Zuck, like most billionaires, seems happy to sleep on his pile of Scrooge McDuck money and fuck people over. Muskrat does all that, but he asks something more of us than our money and our lives. He wants, maybe even needs, us to love and respect him while he does it. And that sets rage-fires in the brain-parts.

He's the Milhouse of billionaires, constitutionally, utterly unable to be anything remotely close to cool, yet obsessively craves to be perceived as such. And any and all of his attempts put him farther away to this goal.

Thanks, that was a phenomenal read; I feel like more people need to see it.