Kudos for leaving X. I stopped using it (still Twitter at the time) in 2019. I closed my Facebook account a few years before that. Trying to get all my friends to swith from WhatsApp to Signal (I know, also not ideal, but slightly better). And working towards letting go of Instagram. I feel that, in the end, it is the users that have the ultimate power to voice their (dis)approval of a company/platform by simply continue using it or not.
Cheers!!! I've been trying to get my friends to do what you just did (but including Instagram) for YEARS!! Very few have ever done it. Why? They tell me because "it's convenient" and there is no better alternative. My reply: there will never be a better alternative as long as businesses and people refuse to delete their Meta and X accounts—and just how convenient is it to pay the price with your privacy and having your data sold to third parties?
Agree. I get the argument, but I also am a bit concerned about how easily we're seduced by that convenience, including myself. I guess it also has to do with the intangibilty of the consequences for most of us. I met some artists who simulated how (social) media invades your privacy, but then in real life (constantly following you around, offering advice or sales offers without being asked, snooping in your bag, joining conversations without invitation, filming and taking photographs without consent, etc. People really went crazy. But when it is online, you do not notice so much….
You nailed it, and that's the real danger: what tech does now is hidden from view, and they (i.e. Zuckerberg) have already been caught lying about what they do (under oath) and violating their own "privacy" policies (i.e., Cambridge Analytica scandal). Now they've uploaded all our Medicare, IRS, and Social Security data into Palantir, owned by sociopaths who don't even believe in democracy. The net is cast and can be hauled in whenever the govt. decides to do it. Welcome to Russia.
Meta is publicly traded to the difference of XAI or OpenAI. I’m in contact with people who know Zuckerberg and I can assure that it has zero impact on my analytics negatively or positively. It’s an impersonal company. If you’re uncomfortable with internet and computing, it’s best for you to use call and text only.
"More and more properly moderated" by Zuckerberg and Musk? Did you read Gary's article? That is simply not true.They're both sociopaths who don't believe in democracy and have a long history of lying (both under oath and not) and breaking the law with few, if any, consequences. Read "Careless People" if you don't believe me.
Any part of internet can be hacked. If you read the article properly, you’ll see that WhatsApp was banned in dictatorships. The way a hacker or X/Meta can read the DM is extremely difficult to understand: they have a feed made of the DMs received by a person, of DMs sent to a person. It makes zero sense at all except on key words that a government wants to censor.
No. I don’t. Musk has employees paid to blog all day long on X and others under an alias without the X or xAI logo next to their name. They have the admin access. Ian Miles Cheong said he has it. It’s extremely likely. Meta works normally. There is no psychopath. Musk wants a social media around himself and his opinions. You can have the opinion you want on Meta, YouTube or Bluesky or even TikTok.
None of those "curators" of social media can be trusted. Their entire business model depends on collecting, sharing, and selling private user data and increasing user "engagement," via algorithms that amplify hate, anger, and fear. They are all sociopaths and/or psychopaths who do not believe in democracy and are in a race to rule the world with no accountability for their actions.
Read "Careless People," watch Zuckerberg's testimony UNDER OATH before Congress, where he was caught lying to both Congress, his own users, and the FTC, as well as violating agreements he was forced to make with the FTC for violating the law and his own terms of service.
"Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to settle a multibillion dollar lawsuit with a group of shareholders over how top executives and directors at Meta handled repeated privacy violations by Facebook.
" ...The Meta shareholders had alleged that Mr Zuckerberg's actions led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the data of millions of Facebook users was leaked and used by a political consulting firm."
That leak allowed Russia and other bad actors with political agendas to micro-target users employing knowledge of their trigger points and personal beliefs in order to inflame them with lies and fear in order to win the 2016 election. Zuckerberg has since refused to remove AI deepfakes and political/election lies, including those that announce false information on voting, polling places, and other fraudulent election claims.
Watch Sara Wynn Williams (author of "Careless People," which provides primary sourced evidence of Zuck's dishonesty) testify before Congress and expose Zuckerberg's lies under oath about whether he had shared data with China. These are not honorable people, they cannot be trusted, they are destroying our society and democracy, and they are directly responsible for many young people's suicides. They know it, and they don't care. Sociopaths.
And Musk has a thumb drive with the private information on everyone in the United States from him and his DOGE minions having ravaged our U.S. Government systems.
The entirety of tech twitter has devolved into “Opus 4.5 has solved software engineering and changed my life”. I’m not kidding when I say it’s every other post on my timeline
So I'm not the only one who noticed that sudden push in these days on X/Threads/Youtube, very strange considering that Opus 4.5 was released in November and not one week ago. Did Anthropic start a PR campaign?
Kudos to you for stopping to post there. I left there well over a year ago.
While every little bit counts, unfortunately we need someone with a massive following (like Taylor Swift) to leave there to really make an impact. And we need companies like Apple and Google to stop hosting Twitter on their app stores. (and I refuse to call it X).
Good for you, Gary. I am continually amazed by how many people claim they "have to" stay on X for their careers. One wonders what it would take for any of them to do what is right, rather than just what is convenient.
And to the commenter here who wrote, "Musk doesn't care." That hardly makes it the correct or moral choice to stay on his vicious platform! Right action is right action, not a consequentialist computation.
But honestly: the writing was on the wall two years ago. After loudly announcing their initial flight to Mastodon and Bluesky, lots of people who really ought to know better came back to "X". I still have trouble understanding that choice.
And the POS Elno is thumbing his nose at the EU for having the temerity to challenge his corporate rights to do as he pleases with his shite platform and AI agent. CSAM content? Violent images of women? Tough...he the boss, he decides.
Gary, please consider taking up the practice of including links to the original content. Posting the screenshots doesn't allow for further exploration.
Kudos for leaving X. I stopped using it (still Twitter at the time) in 2019. I closed my Facebook account a few years before that. Trying to get all my friends to swith from WhatsApp to Signal (I know, also not ideal, but slightly better). And working towards letting go of Instagram. I feel that, in the end, it is the users that have the ultimate power to voice their (dis)approval of a company/platform by simply continue using it or not.
Cheers!!! I've been trying to get my friends to do what you just did (but including Instagram) for YEARS!! Very few have ever done it. Why? They tell me because "it's convenient" and there is no better alternative. My reply: there will never be a better alternative as long as businesses and people refuse to delete their Meta and X accounts—and just how convenient is it to pay the price with your privacy and having your data sold to third parties?
Agree. I get the argument, but I also am a bit concerned about how easily we're seduced by that convenience, including myself. I guess it also has to do with the intangibilty of the consequences for most of us. I met some artists who simulated how (social) media invades your privacy, but then in real life (constantly following you around, offering advice or sales offers without being asked, snooping in your bag, joining conversations without invitation, filming and taking photographs without consent, etc. People really went crazy. But when it is online, you do not notice so much….
You nailed it, and that's the real danger: what tech does now is hidden from view, and they (i.e. Zuckerberg) have already been caught lying about what they do (under oath) and violating their own "privacy" policies (i.e., Cambridge Analytica scandal). Now they've uploaded all our Medicare, IRS, and Social Security data into Palantir, owned by sociopaths who don't even believe in democracy. The net is cast and can be hauled in whenever the govt. decides to do it. Welcome to Russia.
Carole Caldwalladr recently posted an article illustrating what being sanctioned for regulating big tech entails now that we've all been seduced by such internet conveniences: https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/the-threat-from-america?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
Thanks for the share! Will dive into it with interest.
Kudos to you for closing your accounts. I respectfully disagree with the comments below that Instagram is "properly moderated." https://fairplayforkids.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Teen-Accounts-Broken-Promises-How-Instagram-is-failing-to-protect-minors.pdf
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-instagram-loophole-that-can-enable-predators-to-reach-teens/ar-AA1RPBtW
Threads is getting better these days
Correct.
For me, it is also about the ethics of the company behind it.... (and i did not register for Threads, so I wouldn't know 😅).
Meta is publicly traded to the difference of XAI or OpenAI. I’m in contact with people who know Zuckerberg and I can assure that it has zero impact on my analytics negatively or positively. It’s an impersonal company. If you’re uncomfortable with internet and computing, it’s best for you to use call and text only.
Wut? Did you post this in the wrong place?
I am sorry, but I am sincerely confused about how I should interpret your remark in the context of my comment.
Yeah, that confused me as well. Nathalie can you clarify? Instagram has been shown to have a negative impact on mental health.
Clarification: please don’t be paranoid, nobody read your DMs unless you’re a politician or on the Epstein list.
"More and more properly moderated" by Zuckerberg and Musk? Did you read Gary's article? That is simply not true.They're both sociopaths who don't believe in democracy and have a long history of lying (both under oath and not) and breaking the law with few, if any, consequences. Read "Careless People" if you don't believe me.
It's clearly not:
https://www.heise.de/en/news/3-5-Billion-Accounts-Complete-WhatsApp-Directory-Retrieved-and-Evaluated-11083244.html
Any part of internet can be hacked. If you read the article properly, you’ll see that WhatsApp was banned in dictatorships. The way a hacker or X/Meta can read the DM is extremely difficult to understand: they have a feed made of the DMs received by a person, of DMs sent to a person. It makes zero sense at all except on key words that a government wants to censor.
You must work for Meta, X, or be invested in them. You clearly have not read the research on the heads of these companies.
No. I don’t. Musk has employees paid to blog all day long on X and others under an alias without the X or xAI logo next to their name. They have the admin access. Ian Miles Cheong said he has it. It’s extremely likely. Meta works normally. There is no psychopath. Musk wants a social media around himself and his opinions. You can have the opinion you want on Meta, YouTube or Bluesky or even TikTok.
None of those "curators" of social media can be trusted. Their entire business model depends on collecting, sharing, and selling private user data and increasing user "engagement," via algorithms that amplify hate, anger, and fear. They are all sociopaths and/or psychopaths who do not believe in democracy and are in a race to rule the world with no accountability for their actions.
Read "Careless People," watch Zuckerberg's testimony UNDER OATH before Congress, where he was caught lying to both Congress, his own users, and the FTC, as well as violating agreements he was forced to make with the FTC for violating the law and his own terms of service.
Here is but one example of his disgraceful history: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2jmledvr3o
"Mark Zuckerberg has agreed to settle a multibillion dollar lawsuit with a group of shareholders over how top executives and directors at Meta handled repeated privacy violations by Facebook.
" ...The Meta shareholders had alleged that Mr Zuckerberg's actions led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal in which the data of millions of Facebook users was leaked and used by a political consulting firm."
That leak allowed Russia and other bad actors with political agendas to micro-target users employing knowledge of their trigger points and personal beliefs in order to inflame them with lies and fear in order to win the 2016 election. Zuckerberg has since refused to remove AI deepfakes and political/election lies, including those that announce false information on voting, polling places, and other fraudulent election claims.
Watch Sara Wynn Williams (author of "Careless People," which provides primary sourced evidence of Zuck's dishonesty) testify before Congress and expose Zuckerberg's lies under oath about whether he had shared data with China. These are not honorable people, they cannot be trusted, they are destroying our society and democracy, and they are directly responsible for many young people's suicides. They know it, and they don't care. Sociopaths.
Gary: When I first saw the title of this blog, I thought you might have overdone it. Ha ha ha ha. Wrong again.
And Musk has a thumb drive with the private information on everyone in the United States from him and his DOGE minions having ravaged our U.S. Government systems.
The entirety of tech twitter has devolved into “Opus 4.5 has solved software engineering and changed my life”. I’m not kidding when I say it’s every other post on my timeline
Sadly those identical posts are invading LinkedIn as well. Nowhere is safe!
So I'm not the only one who noticed that sudden push in these days on X/Threads/Youtube, very strange considering that Opus 4.5 was released in November and not one week ago. Did Anthropic start a PR campaign?
Now do Facebook - knowingly feeding kids to groomers for the sake of revenue since 2019.
Yes! Der Spiegel did a piece on the Zuck yesterday, documenting what a POS he is.
The problem with the ranking system is that there should be a category for "Worst" because at least five of the tech bros belong there.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/the-instagram-loophole-that-can-enable-predators-to-reach-teens/ar-AA1RPBtW
Kudos to you for stopping to post there. I left there well over a year ago.
While every little bit counts, unfortunately we need someone with a massive following (like Taylor Swift) to leave there to really make an impact. And we need companies like Apple and Google to stop hosting Twitter on their app stores. (and I refuse to call it X).
Remember, like five seconds ago, when MAGA was pedo-hating and anti-intervention? Jus’ sayin’.
Nah Peter Thiel deserves the crown, his evils are more insidious and consciously efforted.
Got off Twitter months ago, Not coming back.
Good for you, Gary. I am continually amazed by how many people claim they "have to" stay on X for their careers. One wonders what it would take for any of them to do what is right, rather than just what is convenient.
And to the commenter here who wrote, "Musk doesn't care." That hardly makes it the correct or moral choice to stay on his vicious platform! Right action is right action, not a consequentialist computation.
Richest man in the world with no moral compass.
Big tech is a public menace and must be broken up.
Good for you for leaving, Gary.
But honestly: the writing was on the wall two years ago. After loudly announcing their initial flight to Mastodon and Bluesky, lots of people who really ought to know better came back to "X". I still have trouble understanding that choice.
And the POS Elno is thumbing his nose at the EU for having the temerity to challenge his corporate rights to do as he pleases with his shite platform and AI agent. CSAM content? Violent images of women? Tough...he the boss, he decides.
Gary, please consider taking up the practice of including links to the original content. Posting the screenshots doesn't allow for further exploration.
Musk doesn't care.
Very glad to hear you're leaving Xitter. It's the right move!