Tom Foale @askquantum@qoto.org
- Linked In
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomfoale/
Business cybersecurity specialist and ex-physicist specialising in zero trust, identity management and rapid response. Ask me anything!
@askquantum on Twitter
Also director of StopChildTraffic.org, a new charity set up to reduce the risks of refugees being trafficked and to stop the money flows.
Joined Nov 2022
Pinned post
This is a thread to help people understand why Mastodon is a much nicer environment than Twitter. It has nothing to do with "echo chambers" and everything to do with what drives Twitter's advertising revenues.
The algorithms used by supposedly free social media whose profits come from advertising are dangerous. It's due to self-reinforcing feedback. And it means that social media bears a great responsibility for the rise of racism and the far right.
https://twitter.com/gchaslot/status/1036323806242066432?t=NmqABCf08JrZ5S4KQCKT1Q&s=19
Feedback is everywhere in our lives. It controls our bodies, our utilities, our money supply, our weather, our governments, our behaviours through social interactions. Its impact is also poorly understood - it is almost completely ignored in economics.
https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/Control_Systems/Feedback_Loops
There are two types of feedback loop. Negative feedback sends correcting signals to act in the opposite direction to the input signal. Negative feedback is responsible for stability.
It's what keeps our body temperature stable, our speed constant when driving and our money stable relative to the goods and services we buy.
Positive feedback amplifies small input signals. It's what is responsible for tornadoes and hurricanes and many car crashes as well as the spread of panic responsible for stampedes in cattle and runs on banks like Northern Rock.
Positive feedback is useful, being responsible for contractions in childbirth, the exponential growth of companies and the oscillators that drive our electronics, but can be extremely destructive. Positive feedback tends to drive things to extremes.
Here's a good example of the self-reinforcing interacting feedback loops that led to the exponential growth of Apple's smartphone. It's also called 'network effects'. It leads to exponential growth in audiences and revenues as well as monopolies like Google and Amazon.
https://systemsandus.com/2014/07/18/exponential-business-growth-a-smartphone-case-study/
The social media algorithms are positive feedback loops and unfortunately mere transparency doesn't help much. If you like and react to puppies and kittens then YouTube and Twitter will show you more adorable pets.
However, if you react positively or negatively to bigoted or scientifically ignorant content or conspiracy theories then YouTube and Twitter will show you content of the same type, normalizing this behaviour, because it drives revenues.
The more extreme the videos you watch and tweets you react to then the more you will be shown even more extreme content. This also feeds into content creation - why do you think Alex Jones got rich? He doesn't actually *believe* what he says.
With no algorithms or advertising on Mastodon there's no self-reinforcing positive feedback. We only see the content promoted by people who we follow. This makes it a MUCH nicer environment.
The benefits of Mastodon are far wider. The nastier parts of the media rely on this feedback for their incomes. Distributed ad-free computing effectively robs Murdoch and other right-wingers like the Kochs, The Daily Mail, Alex Jones, Dan Wootton, Guy Pierce etc of their income stream from socially divisive content.
Without Twitter and Facebook the UK would probably have never left the EU. It was algorithmic amplification, exploited by Cambridge Analytica and Aaron Bank's £8M "donation" from some shady source that led to Brexit.
Tom Foale
boosted
One of Trump's biggest promises was to address the rising cost of living. But will he do anything to challenge the main source of high prices — corporations who have gobbled up their competitors and now have enough market power to keep prices high even as their costs have dropped? Of course not.
Corporate monopolies get rich, and we pay the tab. Keep the receipts.
Tom Foale
boosted
We can live without Twitter but Twitter cannot live without us. It’s as simple as that.
Tom Foale
boosted
Brands leaving Twitter is my new kink. https://x.com/_austrian/status/1851946174829281563
And yes, it’s their official account - they’ve removed it from their website but it was linked at the bottom, archive link for last month: https://web.archive.org/web/20241002041632/https://www.austrian.com/de/en/homepage
Tom Foale
boosted
Even when Elon Musk has an alt account, he can be quite a Karen about it.
https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-stole-second-alt-account-twitter-1850376906
Tom Foale
boosted
This is a great article. But I want to say don’t fall for “Researchers building AI outnumber those focused on safety by a 30-to-1 ratio, the Center for Humane Technology said at a recent presentation, underscoring the often lonely experience of voicing concerns in a large organization.”
The type of “AI safety” referred to is anything but. A bunch of white dudes who want to get $$ to “save humanity” the same exact way OpenAI described themselves when they were announced.
Tom Foale
boosted
"North Carolina’s law has proven no more effective in addressing sea level rise than Xerxes’ Thalassian flogging."
Tom Foale
boosted
There are two goals to this stupid verification thing:
1) Lower/remove the perceived credibility of journalists
2) Do puzzling/stupid things to make sure you stay in the news every day
It’s not about the money.
Tom Foale
boosted
The bad folks understand that perception is reality to many.
Say you defend free speech enough to your base until they perceive you to be the protector. Wait a bit then dismantle it. Base won’t believe it to be true until it’s too late. Rinse/repeat w/ whatever fascist policy.
Tom Foale
boosted
RT @TimothyDSnyder: Brief selections from and notes about the "Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine" released to the @UN_HRC, which recognizes Russian war crimes in Ukraine. 0/8
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/VivianeRedingEU/status/1636489105667244033
Tom Foale
boosted
If you're having problems with labour shortages there is this group of countries, let's call it a union, that have a setup that might help
Or you could try paying humans more.
Tom Foale
boosted
Tom Foale
boosted
It's pretty neat to see @SteveBellovin on the Fediverse.
He's one of the inventors of Usenet.
Tom Foale
boosted
"If you clapped us on the front line, support US on the picket lines"
Graffiti by @SlaveNationArt in London in support of the ongoing nurses strike
Tom Foale
boosted
@GBNEWS @nigel_farage Always predictable ECHR would be in hard Brexiteer sights as you reject multilateralism & post WW2 institutional international governance. After ECHR will it be that UK must leave UN, NATO, OSCE, OECD next? It will inevitably lead to more UK conflict & end badly if you succeed!
🐦🔗: https://n.respublicae.eu/CharlesTannock/status/1626709875681116160
Tom Foale
boosted
Please repost/like if you are someone in 2023 and still actively thinking about health risks related to airborne viruses in social places. I'd like to feel less lonely while still knowing that the pandemic is not over #CovidIsAirborne #CovidIsNotOver
Tom Foale
boosted
Sunak refuses to even utter the word crisis. But how else to describe his first 100 days?
Tom Foale
boosted
Tory party, culture wars, transphobia.
Old "30p Lee" #LeeAnderson is the deputy chairman of the Tory party.
He lashed out at food bank operators calling them "do-gooders". He's been mired in scandal, including setting up people to pretend to agree with him on a campaign doorstep, and criticising taking the knee.
He let slip that the #Tory strategy for the next general election is based on culture war topics and "the trans debate".
They can't win any other way.
Utter scum.
Tom Foale
boosted
Seems like a good idea.
"States should maintain human control and involvement for all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment."
Tom Foale
boosted
To sum up where the Fediverse is right now:
1. @EU_Commission backs it
2. The @w3c backs it
3. @fsf backs it
4. @eff backs it
5. Twitter Co-Founders @ev and @biz back it
7. Web browsers like @mozilla and @Vivaldi back it
8. Prominent 3rd party client devs like @paul back it
9. @gruber and @davew back it
10. @georgetakei back it
Am I missing anyone?
Oh yeah, YOU back it!
Tom Foale
boosted
Elon Musk is really an imbecile, an idiot disguised in the persona of faux-brilliance.
This is not about cutting off an API.
This is about destroying any remaining shred of trust with the developer community. With trust gone, there is only a burning pile of, well, no developers.
He wanted to build an 'everything app.' The idea now is just LOL. What developer would dare to commit any time and effort to someone who has destroyed TRUST.
TRUST is everything. When its gone, it doesn't come back.
- Linked In
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomfoale/
Business cybersecurity specialist and ex-physicist specialising in zero trust, identity management and rapid response. Ask me anything!
@askquantum on Twitter
Also director of StopChildTraffic.org, a new charity set up to reduce the risks of refugees being trafficked and to stop the money flows.
Joined Nov 2022
