The Return of the Dark Lords of Social

The Return of the Dark Lords of Social

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

From what we’ve witnessed about the tech space to date, tech is all about invention and reinvention.

Example: it’s a communications tool. How long has the telephone been around, meaning landlines? Instead of calling, we ping or email or Zoom. Nothing new, really: only the words and devices and delivery mechanisms have changed to deceive the clueless.

Tech is also about glorification and vilification – and sometimes both, in the same person. Everyone’s (former) hero Elon Musk bought Twitter and the tech media banded against him – no matter that Twitter had been a platform for propaganda and surveillance under Jack Dorsey’s tenure. Yet, no matter what, Dorsey, for some reason, can seemingly do no wrong.

And never mind that Dorsey-founded Cash App came under scrutiny lately for fraud. As Fast Company reported re Block’s Cash App, “CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that users could get government payments through Cash App ‘immediately’ with ‘no bank account needed’ due to its frictionless technology,” the report reads. “Within weeks of Cash App accounts receiving their first government payments, states were seeking to claw back suspected fraudulent payments—Washington State wanted more than $200 million back from payment processors while Arizona sought to recover $500 million, former employees told us.”

“It’s Cash App’s alleged criminal ties that are among the most riveting accusations,” FC continued. “The report says the platform was quickly embraced by bad actors since it was easy to remain anonymous (using false identities) and, should their accounts be closed, they could quickly get back on the platform.”

Can’t pull the youthful disruptor card anymore, Jack, and that was getting old fast, anyway.

Now Dorsey has launched a new company – Bluesky – which he claims is unlike Twitter, despite the fact that CNN et all reported that Twitter’s former CEO has a new app that looks a lot like Twitter.

Between Dorsey’s Twitter Redux and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg’s pivot to AI-Generated anythingandeverything, the lords of the Age of Social/facilitators of the Surveillance Economy are back. Oh, do note that with Bluesky, you ‘skeet’ instead of tweet – nothing like Twitter, and nothing to see here.

Zuckerberg is focused on AI and the stock has made an historic rebound, after Meta abandoned the metaverse and as Inc reported here are 4 Things Mark Zuckerberg Just Said About A.I. That Should Concern You.

“Now, more than 20 percent of content in your Facebook and Instagram feeds are recommended by A.I. from people, groups or accounts that you don’t follow,” (Zuckerberg) said. “Across all of Instagram, that’s about 40 percent of the content that you see.”…This means that Meta plans to use A.I. to decide what content to show you, even if it’s not from people you follow or are connected to. That means your feed is going to increasingly be full of content from strangers and brands you didn’t ask to see because Facebook thinks it will keep you more engaged.”

As always, Personalization equals tracking.

AI Generated advertising is also in the works – and we know how often GenerativeAI tends to just make things up.

Chatbots for everyone! especially small businesses. “”I think that there’s an opportunity to introduce A.I. agents to billions of people in ways that will be useful and meaningful,” Zuckerberg said…Meta likes to copy its much smaller competitors, but in this case, it might be worth paying attention to the reaction one of those apps received when it added A.I. chat. Snap was widely panned for adding an A.I. chatbot to the top of users’ feeds whether they want it there or not.”

More monetization! “”Our A.I. work is also improving monetization,” said Zuckerberg. “Reels monetization efficiency is up over 30 percent on Instagram and over 40 percent on Facebook quarter-over-quarter,”” Inc reported.

The question is, at what cost?

Meta’s rebound is no doubt due (also) in no small part to the fact that the company is again focused on its core competency: information-gathering and surveillance.

Same holds for Dorsey.

Given the Twitter Files and the company’s part in widespread surveillance on the part of government agencies, he’s Jack and only the platform’s name has been changed, again, to deceive the clueless. If you believe that everything will be different with Bluesky, trust us, the storm clouds are no doubt gathering – and it’s clear that you don’t know Jack. Onward and forward.

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