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And was struck by his comments on Social Media....which I and many of my peers (who were early pioneers of Bulletin Boards, Forums, etc.) share.....
But coming from him it may hold a bit more weight.....
"Bob: If you had to fix one thing about the networked world, what would it be?
Linus: Nothing technical. But, I absolutely detest modern "social media"—Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. It's a disease. It seems to encourage bad behavior.
I think part of it is something that email shares too, and that I've said before: "On the internet, nobody can hear you being subtle". When you're not talking to somebody face to face, and you miss all the normal social cues, it's easy to miss humor and sarcasm, but it's also very easy to overlook the reaction of the recipient, so you get things like flame wars, etc., that might not happen as easily with face-to-face interaction.
But email still works. You still have to put in the effort to write it, and there's generally some actual content (technical or otherwise). The whole "liking" and "sharing" model is just garbage. There is no effort and no quality control. In fact, it's all geared to the reverse of quality control, with lowest common denominator targets, and click-bait, and things designed to generate an emotional response, often one of moral outrage.
Add in anonymity, and it's just disgusting. When you don't even put your real name on your garbage (or the garbage you share or like), it really doesn't help.
I'm actually one of those people who thinks that anonymity is overrated. Some people confuse privacy and anonymity and think they go hand in hand, and that protecting privacy means that you need to protect anonymity. I think that's wrong. Anonymity is important if you're a whistle-blower, but if you cannot prove your identity, your crazy rant on some social-media platform shouldn't be visible, and you shouldn't be able to share it or like it.
Oh well. Rant over. I'm not on any social media (I tried G+ for a while, because the people on it weren't the mindless usual stuff, but it obviously never went anywhere), but it still annoys me."
Some of my friends, who started The Well (the first "internet" full-spectrum Bulletin Board) had long ago came up with the same basic framework and opinions. That is, unless one "owns their own words", a decent conversation can be difficult.
The problem was always evident but was kept in some check because the number of people on the network was somewhat limited and required, at minimum, some education (to even get online!).
But when "anyone could do it" the mess really got out of hand...and this largely continues.
Read Torvalds behavior in email or mailing lists sometime. He is the LAST guy to say anything about bad behavior. And while he is a genius in some things...social interations are not his area of expertise.
I think anonymity is very, very important. And when you see someone as vindictive as Trump, that proves it even more.
It's true that things are getting out of hand. But I wonder if that is mostly due to anonymity, or mostly due to people wanting to parade in public? What if there were either different laws or different intermediaries?
And while he is a genius in some things...social interations are not his area of expertise.
Um, he maintains one of the biggest, most critical, and most contributed open source projects in the world. Yes, it's not the same as taking photos at a bar and posting them for likes and whatnot... but it's as socially complex as any form of social engagement can be.
I think social media is great. I do not engage in it at all past this and a couple subject specific forums.
Yea, some people are complete idiots and this shows on social media, whereas 30 years ago, only people who knew them would have known about it. Yes, it has allowed an easy, absurdly easy way for people to flaunt whatever it is they are doing, like all these ridiculous "Instagram models". But yea, I remember in the 80's plenty of girls rolling around with the model tag, because they had some try out for a Sears catalog shoot, lol.
I realized though just how toxic of an environment it could be though back in the AOL chat days. AOL chat went from being fun and engaging, to toxic and filled with nothing but spam.
The only thing that irks me about social media is the legitimacy given to it. One person tweets about being offended, all of a sudden some knee jerk reaction is taken. Many news stories are now nothing more than tweets and reactions via tweets. How many "likes" something gets is some how used to measure the strength of an idea, story, etc.
Um, he maintains one of the biggest, most critical, and most contributed open source projects in the world. Yes, it's not the same as taking photos at a bar and posting them for likes and whatnot... but it's as socially complex as any form of social engagement can be.
LOL. Your response shows you arent part of that effort, and haven't read how well he handles it. He has cost the community multiple contributors. And while some needed to go, others very clearly did not. He can be extremely unpleasant.
Read Torvalds behavior in email or mailing lists sometime. He is the LAST guy to say anything about bad behavior. And while he is a genius in some things...social interations are not his area of expertise.
Unless he developed a disdain for social media after developing or co-developing Android, it does some a bit ironic, contradictory, or hypocritical to have a social media disdain seeing as how Android is a popular platform for using social media.
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