Slashdot Mirror
Stephen Fry Urges Young To Flee 'Dystopian' Social Networks
An anonymous reader writes: English writer, presenter and activist Stephen Fry has urged his fans to abandon social networks, comparing such platforms to 'dystopian' forms of government seen in 1970s sci-fi films such as Logan's Run and Soylent Green. In a 2,600-word essay, the comedian, who had over four million Twitter followers prior to deleting his account in February, also compared the 'surveilled conformity' of social media to the unreal state of society depicted in The Matrix. "Who most wants you to stay on the grid? The advertisers. Your boss. Human Resources. The advertisers. Your parents (irony of ironies -- once they distrusted it, now they need to tag you electronically, share your Facebook photos and message you to death). The advertisers. The government. Your local authority. Your school. Advertisers," he writes. "Well, if you're young and have an ounce of pride, doesn't that list say it all?"
Try living without a credit card and you will be interrogated and detained every time you come back through customs. Absence of information is very suspicious. Obviously we are hiding something.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
That requires crippling debt. Today's young are already crippled by more debt than they can ever pay off in their life times
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
This should be common sense to anyone over the age of 20. Social media does not help you, at least not how it's currently designed. To have one or two American, for-profit, companies have complete power and control over the entire worlds digital social existence is staggeringly irresponsible. I don't think Orwell could even have dreamt up a more efficient tool for control, manipulation, and corruption.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I suppose I should have provided this context to begin with. I use Facebook. None of what Stephen talks about applies to me. I use Facebook to strictly keep in touch with close friends and family. I don't click on ads, I don't click on videos, I don't post pictures of my breakfast, lunch, dinner. I don't have my profile publicly available. I am extremely strict with whom is on my list of friends and what I share. Social media platforms are tools and they can easily be misused. Their misuse is the issue, not their existence.
The real irony is that if you go to his website and read the essay, there is a share button at the bottom to link the essay to FaceBook, Twitter, et al.
Fry? He's a comedian that rose to fame during the mid-1980s in Britain where he partnered with Hugh Laurie (more recently of "House" fame) and worked with Ben Elton and other comedians in the contemporary "Alternative Comedy" circuit, first coming to the public attention on "Saturday Live", a UK alt-com counter part to America's SNL. In addition to his (and Laurie's) show "A Bit of Fry and Laurie" he's famous for his roles in the Blackadder TV series.
In the 21st Century he's been less prominent. He's bi-polar, and unfortunately his mental illness has probably contributed to some unfortunate clashes on social media, including some - ill advised and somewhat ironic considering his alt-com origins - complaints about "political correctness" including an attack on rape victims which he's since walked back.
I think he's a decent guy, but not one that's comfortable with the way media and "what it means to be a celebrity" works in 2016.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
> The importance of "not being seen" so to speak.
I hate to say it but I think it's fast approaching the time where those who make the effort, those who consider the importance of not being seen, actually start to stand out more because of their lack of presence and activities.
I'm not in a position where I particularly give a shit about it. However, I could see it being problematic, down the road, if you appear to be a recluse. Surely, you must be a deviant or hiding something! (I'm guessing that's what people will think.) It is seemingly more and more abnormal for people to not have a web presence of some type, that's identifiable by name.
It's nice to just be able to say, "Screw off." I'm not so sure that most can do that. I read stories about people who claim that they've been turned down for jobs for lack of a social media presence but so far nobody has actually convinced me that this is true. They've not given me any reason to think they're using it as anything other than a crutch to blame their not getting hired. It's not like it's a protected class but none of them have indicated that they were told, directly, that they were not getting the job due to a lack of social media presence. (I'm not big on accepting things without some evidence.)
At some point, the question is going to (likely) be for some people; "Do I put up a bit of fake/light content to at least appear to be active in social media and at least try to maintain some control over what data then gets added?" Your point about the extended network, however invalid it should be, is also very valid. I imagine that we're all within one or two people from knowing some pretty poorly behaved people. Hell, some of us might even *be* the poorly behaved person. I've seen a few people here identify as felons and I'm a recovering drug addict and alcoholic.
You know...
That does make me think... If you didn't like someone then it'd be easy to create a fake social media account for some particularly bad person (though not one too famous) and then insert yourself into a number of their friends lists on multiple sites and through multiple ways - enough to make it appear that there's a connection even though there is none and there may be no such person. Slashdot, for example, enables me to add you to my friends list and there's jack shit you can do about that.
As an aside, and a petty aside at that, I consider it a badge of honor when someone adds me to their foes list for what they felt was a meaningful reason. I can usually tell which post(s) it was that I'll have made that encouraged them to do so. I'm often quite proud of holding those views and I'm quite comfortable holding those views up to scrutiny. If they're unable to find flaws and have to resort to, "Well then I just don't like you!" Then it means I'm on the right track.
I'm not exceptional, by any means, but I am one of those people who holds their views up to inspection and is willing to change their mind when they're presented with new information. I'll even *gasp* admit when I'm mistaken but I'll also so that I'm sorry if I am sorry. So yes, yes it *does* strike me as a badge of honor when I click that notification and see someone's added me to their foe list. I'm not sure what I'm winning but I'm winning something! Oddly, quite a few of 'em end up removing me from their foes list. That was really strange when I first saw that happen but it has happened quite a few times. Sometimes I wonder if they're just not able to understand what I write? I'm too verbose and not very articulate. It's actually something I sort of work on.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."