I wrote something like this thread on Byline after the Southport riots. I've updated it here, cos I think (not sure, but think) it might have something important to say about our current crisis with social media, news reporting, and disinformation. Sorry it's long. (1/42) - ThreadSky

russincheshire.bsky.social • 138 days ago

I wrote something like this thread on Byline after the Southport riots. I've updated it here, cos I think (not sure, but think) it might have something important to say about our current crisis with social media, news reporting, and disinformation. Sorry it's long. (1/42)

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alanlewch.bsky.social•138 days ago

If people don't want to scroll through, here's the whole thread in one convenient link.
https://skyview.social/?url=https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:zjdiri6o57xcweexhetdvewu/post/3lfdeoftllu23&viewtype=unroll

markbeeney.bsky.social•138 days ago

📌

branx.bsky.social•138 days ago

Thank you..

alanlewch.bsky.social•138 days ago

@skyview.social unroll

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

On 11 March 1702 saw Britain's daily newspaper, "The Daily Courant". The editor, Elizabeth Mallet, set up shop next door to a tavern on Fleet Street, and to this day British journalism is inseparably associated with that location. And with taverns. (2/42)

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

Mallet announced she would not add any comments of her own to the news, believing her readers would have "sense enough to make reflections for themselves", a notion that lasted a surprisingly long time: 40 whole days. (3/42)

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

And then The Daily Courant was bought out by the future publisher of The Spectator, who relocated it to a neighbourhood called Little Britain.

It's the satirists I feel sorry for. (4/42)

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

As for making reflections for ourselves: three centuries later, The Spectator features nary a word that hasn't been fed through the Conservative Party Reality Filter, and Britain has rarely felt Littler. (5/42)

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

Journalistic probity seems as anachronistic as powdered wigs and petticoats, and the industry is in permanent crisis, hollowed out by free-to-read clickbait and the Wild West of social media.

I blame myself. I blame you too, and Stephen Fry. (6/42)

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

Between us, we managed to kill off journalism’s business model. Back when Twitter was a place of gentle mischief and socially acceptable fun, we hurled ourselves gleefully into its arms, and in doing so accidentally nudged print media off a cliff. (7/42)

neilwhalley.bsky.social•138 days ago

📌

timb33.bsky.social•137 days ago

Ok, as long as it's got piracy and daring acts then I'm in.

candidepeel.bsky.social•138 days ago

📌

daddeh.bsky.social•138 days ago

You're quite brilliant, you know that?

russincheshire.bsky.social•138 days ago

Piffle. I can barely make it through a day without displaying at least 3 examples of lavish and spectacular idiocy.

daddeh.bsky.social•138 days ago

Only at least 3? My gods, compared to the rest of us you might be a genius

ecogenic.bsky.social•137 days ago

We're social animals by default. We don't need artificial social interactions bombarding us with BS we'd never encounter offline. It's warping our sense of reality and making us antisocial and vulnerable. Manipulatable. We all need to get out more, in the real world. Give Musk and Zuckerberg the🖕

ecogenic.bsky.social•137 days ago

We're adapted to interact socially on a local scale within our community primarily. I'm not rejecting the benefits to travelling further afield or communication in our digital age, but it is artificial and not what we're adapted for. Something like >80% of communication is visual, for instance.

ecogenic.bsky.social•137 days ago

Social media is next-gen Bezos/Amazon. Parasitising individuals to accumulate disproportionate artificial wealth (money) at any cost to communities. Local products and services, real wealth, economy, too small to compete so declines impoverishing local communities, replaced by artificial society.

ecogenic.bsky.social•137 days ago

Now we've no community, no hope or freedom; we're at the mercy of genocidal neoliberal psychopaths. There must be a better ending. Another chapter. 'Resistance'? We can't negotiate with genocidal psychopaths. We're all just pieces of 'feedlot meat' to them. Social media? People need to get out.

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