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?"
But, but, but... without social media how can I create a fake version of myself to make all of my "friends" envious so they Like me?
Many prominent security researchers already spoke out against it. Including Bruce Schneier on his blog and in his recent 'Data and Goliath' book. No affiliation.
He voiced Jar Jar?
That does raise another reason to avoid social networks: the moralist busybodies looking for something to take offense to so they can feed their own inflated egos. Whether it's an annoying Jesus-freak relative or some hashtag slacktivist, neither are worth interacting with.
The worst thing on Slashdot is the effing pedants.
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!”
This reminds me of a related issue. Apparently every teenager, except for my daughter, has a smart phone. This is assumed to such an extent that the high school teachers regularly incorporate their use into their lessons. At first they don't believe my daughter when they ask her why she isn't participating and she informs them that she doesn't have a phone (a few have actually sent her to the office for lying to them about not having a phone). Once she convinces them that she really doesn't have a phone they regularly berate her for messing up their lesson plans. I've complained to the school authorities, who assure me that a phone is not required, but to no avail. It is astonishing to me that the teachers can't comprehend that a teenager might not have a smart phone.
Stephen Fry is, but his analysis of "social" networks is on the mark.
When things like MySpace first came out, then FB, etc, and I started hearing from people, from institutions, from businesses, schools, everything, that I HAD to have an account on those networks, that struck me as wrong.
Now, ten plus years later, I feel that way even stronger than when FB and the rest first showed up.
When I started seeing access to things like Public Television/Radio stations, etc being FB only I knew something was very wrong.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
someone wrote a 2,600-word essay in 2016 and expects people to read it? can't he do an infographic?
If there's any type of person you should listen to, it's this man.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
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.
And yet I see no reason to not be on facebook after reading it.
I do not know what the problem is. My political views have not been changed by Facebook. I admit it makes me disappointed at the views of some of my friends. Advertisers? Yea look at my feed and you will see I like computers and motorcycles. I really do not mind seeing ads for those things.
HR? Yea I am an old married guy that goes to dinner with my wife.
What do I get out of it? I get to see pictures of my friends kids and I get to keep in touch with friends that live far away from me.
I get on Facebook maybe once or twice a week and post a lot less than that since my life is go to work and go home most of the time.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Why is it ironic? The people who have accounts are the target audience.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Slashdot is very much a social networking site. It has user submitted content. It has friends, foes, and journals. It has public lists of who your friends are and shows other friends/foes related to them - in their social network. There's a poorly enabled mechanism for private communication as well as the ability to post in each other's journals.
Slashdot is not only a social networking site but it was among the first social networking sites that gained popularity. I've even met numerous people, in real life, from this very site - including just last New Years.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
> 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."
You know... You're probably right - you probably could lose your job for that.
You know... It might be worth having a meaningful discussion about legislating that non-criminal political activity is a protected class. You *should* be able to be lawfully politically active and retain your job though, I suppose, there would need to be some sort of balance to that as people are prone to wanting rights and liberties without accepting responsibility and accountability.
It would probably be hard to strike a meaningful balance, one that is politically viable in the current climes, and actually find the sweet spot. That's gonna need some thinking and is going to need input from other people. I've never really thought about it but it sure as hell seems like that should be something you're granted some protections for. At the same time, I'm pretty big on contracts and willful negotiations between two or more consenting adults and doing so with as little government encroachment/enforcement as is logical to accept.
That's a tough one and I don't say this often enough but it's sometimes good to have the ACs around. I've never been one to suggest they be barred but I've seen others who absolutely abhor the idea of people posting anonymously. Truth be told, the function is often used to less than stellar results. But...
Then there are times like this - which is why I'm a proponent and allow for it at my own sites. There are times when ACs say things that make you think about things you might not otherwise have considered. They're sometimes able to say things they would not be able to say without the benefits of anonymity. It's why I strongly support accepting the inferior AC posts and outright abusive AC posts.
But, I do not often say thank you. Or at least not often enough do I say so. So thanks. You've given me some mental bubble gum - it's a bit of a crossroads with my ideals and it's actually a more defining statement than one might think - where one comes down on the side of this sort of thing. Non-criminal political activity should have some protections. Those protections have been, largely, anonymity in the past - if you wanted. Or at least obfuscation and low chance of discovery.
With everything being uploaded, indexed, crawled, and made available for free or for price, that protection is no longer there or no longer as strong. So, do we need government intervention for such protections? It's imperative to keep in mind that it will be that same government deciding the nature of the act and if such is a criminal offense... There's really more to it, when you think about it, than initially appears and I'm not actually sure where I fall. I've never pondered it and I've not actually decided.
Yeah, I'm comfortable saying that I need to think about it a while longer.
But, the point is that your post is actually a good example of the value of anonymity, pseudonymity, and obfuscation-aminimity. (It's a word, I just made it up.) On top of that, your post also brings to light some additional things - like should their be protections for that so that you don't actually have to hide your political ideology and activities? If so, where should those protections come from? Should they be made by you, the employee, before you agree to exchange your labor for money? Should those protections come at the hands of a union? Should participation in that union, and thus funding, be mandatory or voluntary? If it's voluntary then is one obligated to the protections afforded by that union - is one still able to create one's own employment contract? Should that protection come with the force of law and at the barrel of a gun or by means of financial punishments or perhaps removal of one's physical freedoms?
Like I said, if you give it more than just a casual thought, there's more to it than meets the eye. So, thank you Mr. Anonymous Coward. Thank you.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."