These resistant rights advocates who refuse to acknowledge the valuable tool social media can be are hurting themselves (and all of us) in two big ways: First, they’re cutting themselves off from vital intelligence. Second, they‘re allowing their adversaries the unopposed use and mastery of cutting-edge weapons they refuse to even pick up, let alone practice and become skilled with. [More]
Just think of it as advocacy media. Don't use it for trivia, keep personal information out of it, and use the tools at hand until a more effective one is created.
I sense a big "yes, but . . ." out there amongst us. First, the real problem about it if the fact that it's an anti-social network. I keep seeing articles about studies indicating that although more and more people are spending more and more time with their faces buried in their screens, they are experiencing less "real" contact that face-to-face communication brings and we're suffering psychologically for it. We're less happy, increasingly frustrated, feeling less connected, and the result is that it's actually harming our relationships, not to mention our health - and not just from the brain-tumor-inducing electromagnetic radiation.
ReplyDeleteSecond, as their AIs learn about us, we are being "ghost banned". Our posts are visible to us, but not to others. This makes the sites a one-way comm system, info in but no info out. People have noticed this for a few years now. I have seen my own comments on YouTube disappear after posting if they even so much as challenge (with facts and references cited) the info presented. If I post the same comment to more than one video, YouTube blocks the second and subsequent comments, so I have to change the content sufficiently to get it past their AI censorbot. Also, they employ their own trollbots to counter my info. I've seen posts happen so fast (this began on another test platform before YouTube was created) that it would be impossible for a human to type the several paragraphs posted as a reply. Several others on that particular forum noticed this behavior and commented on it - after which the forum was sold to one of the three-letter agencies and the former owner basically went "dark". None of us ever heard from her again, our private emails went unanswered and eventually all we got was a response from our email servers that the address was no longer available. Even her landline phone number was disconnected.
Third, if the profile built up by that AI triggers a process that makes a decision we have gone past a certain point, then it bans posts altogether and deletes our account(s) and blocks formation of new ones from fake or alternate email addresses. Alex Jones was only the most widely known example. Mike Adams, the "Health Ranger" was blocked then deleted from YouTube some weeks before Jones. It took a human to intervene and allow his channel to be reinstated, but it's my guess if his material irritates enough doctors and the pharmaceutical industry, the next time will be permanent. His fellow researcher Dave Hodges was demonetized by YouTube several months ago, and I doubt his channel will last much longer. That's why Adams created real.video - to give those whose lesser-known channels were deleted an alternative.
The centralized control huge tech companies like Google/YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc., have over our personal data has apparently bothered the likes of folks who developed the web so much, that Tim Berners-Lee decided a few years ago to give us all a decentralized alternative and take it back from government/corporate control. See this article: https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-lee-tells-us-his-radical-new-plan-to-upend-the-world-wide-web.
I don't know if info gathering/sharing on "social" media is going to ever really work for gun owners in the way you hope for, but it's apparent it isn't working for many others whose info threatens the other aspects of control TPTB seem to want us under. The way the left is controlling the narrative across all licensed media, and groups like antifa control even the practice of free speech out in public through violent confrontation, I doubt very much our voice will ever be heard by the sheep who haven't yet (and likely never will) turned it off. It seems to take a free-thinker to listen to folks like you and Mike to begin with, and if the people watching this linked presentation have their way, there will be fewer and fewer free thinkers as time goes on: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gfTqfVeLHw
-MM
You may smell a "but," but not mine.
ReplyDelete"...and use the tools at hand until a more effective one is created."
No arguments with any points you made. I also believe that demand drives market solutions, so without force introduced into the mix, the signal will find a way.
"Life will find a way."
So will capitalism if it's not perverted into economic fascism.
If force does enter the mix to block truth, well, I guess meatspacers will either go quietly or not go gentle.
David,
ReplyDeleteI must say your commentary is persuasive.
I wonder if you would consider the following edit?
"These resistant rights advocates who refuse to acknowledge the valuable [weapon that] social media can be are hurting themselves (and all of us) in two big ways: ..."
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The Left have weaponized social media -- for them, this is their 'keep and bear arms' of choice.
Advocates of the RKBA should fight back with all available arms.
I think that is what you are saying.