hiramfromthechi , 29 days ago to Technology in Instagram's unskippable ads test causes outrage among users

Thoughts and takeaways, plus 3 viable solutions:

Thoughts

1️⃣ I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Enshittification might be a good thing. Here's why

I don’t “like” that things have gotten this bad, but I do like that the worse things get, the more we can collectively organize and pressure reform to fix these things.

2️⃣ These tests are usually run on relatively small subsets of the user base. Remember when they rolled out hiding likes? That was rolled out periodically as well.

They typically also run different types of user bases. They already know the hardcore "influencers" and people who have built a public following will never leave the platform, since they're too invested already, and are the people/publications that contribute the most to network effects. I.e., you're on there because they're on there.

3️⃣ Remember when Tim Kendall (former executive at Facebook) says that they talked about Zuckerberg having ultimate control over these 3 distinct goals?

1. Engagement: Drive up your usage. Keep you scrolling, liking, commenting, and remaining active on the platform.
2. Growth: Encouraging you to keep coming back and inviting your friends, and getting them to invite their friends, and so on.
3. Advertising: Make sure that as growth and engagement are happening, advertising revenue is maximized.

That's what's happening here—this is dial #3 being turned up.

Solutions

1. The most obvious: Delete your account

I know, I know—network effects are tough to break.

Tell your friends and family to delete theirs. Make yourself unreachable on Facebook-owned platforms.

Most people are posting less as traditional posts, and more as stories. If stories is your thing, Signal has stories. This is a really secure, private, and still convenient way to share whatever you want throughout the day.

If your favorite restaurant changes your dish's recipe, you'd prolly stop going, right? Well, that recipe's been changing, and we continue to put up with it despite an increasingly worse product.

2. For those looking for an alternative: Use Pixelfed

It doesn't have nearly the same type of content or user base size that Instagram does. But the same way that we built Facebook little by little, the same can be done for healthier alternative platforms.

This might also help your reduction in using social media, if you're looking for that.

3. For those who can't/will never leave Instagram: Use an open source native mobile app (Android-specific)

If you have an Android-based mobile operating system, there are apps like MyInsta and Instander that give you a native Instagram experience while blocking all of the ads.

They also have app-specific settings that allow you to customize your Instagram experience even further, such as (but limited to):

• Downloading photos/reels/entire carousels
• Reduces data sent to Instagram (analytics, ads, and other requests)
• Ghost mode
• Block reels, posts, stories, explore, comments, or whatever else
• Tons more

I run a basketball media outlet (InThePaintCrew) and a lifestyle/photography page (LifeViaChicago), and being able to modify the experience to remove the noise/clutter when a native Instagram app is needed is helpful.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago to Technology in UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

Lol it was the other way around... I actually added a word instead. Fixed

Tap for spoiler

it

now.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago to Technology in UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

Fixed it, thanks for flagging

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago to Technology in UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

Nice, thanks. Your site is really clean. Dig it.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago to Technology in UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

Glad you like it.

And yeah, it's foundational. We tolerate things digitally that we'd never tolerate in person.

Once I start connecting and analogizing digital to physical concepts in a conversation, it appears to "click" in their heads and they end up saying something along the lines of, "You're right. It makes sense."

Hence this project. I hope people can use this website and link it to people who need it to understand how this affects us all—now, not in the future.

hiramfromthechi , 1 month ago to Technology in UK Woman Mistaken As Shoplifter By Facewatch, Now She's Banned From All Stores With Facial Recognition Tech

Not the first time facial recognition tech has been misused, and certainly won't be the last. The UK in particular has caught a lotta flak around this.

We seem to have a hard time connecting the digital world to the physical world and realizing just how interwoven they are at this point.

Therefore, I made an open source website called idcaboutprivacy to demonstrate the importance—and dangers—of tech like this.

It's a list of news articles that demonstrate real-life situations where people are impacted.

If you wanna contribute to the project, please do. I made it simple enough to where you don't need to know Git or anything advanced to contribute to it. (I don't even really know Git.)

hiramfromthechi , 2 months ago to Technology in Meet ‘goldene’: this gilded cousin of graphene is also one atom thick

We gonna see a GoldeneOS?

hiramfromthechi , 2 months ago to Mildly Infuriating in I swear credit card companies make log-ins fail on purpose.

Cases like these are why this extension exists: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/don-t-fuck-with-paste/

hiramfromthechi OP , 2 months ago to Technology in CalMatters is acquiring The Markup

Nonprofit news organizations. The Markup has a very public-interest technology approach, and is most well-known for it's Blacklight tool.

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago to Technology in Did ad blockers survive YouTube's offensive? Letting numbers talk

For those of us who can't code their own extensions: LibRedirect does this for other sites as well, not just YouTube.

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago to Memes in And the only time we chill is when we kill each other. It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.

"Being simple's a yes, being skilled is a not/
Having substance is lame, using substance is hot"

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago to Memes in And the only time we chill is when we kill each other. It takes skill to be real, time to heal each other.

"Been public enemy since you thought 'PE' was gym, biiiitch!"

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago to Technology in ChatGPT is leaking passwords from private conversations of its users, Ars reader says

It also literally says to not input sensitive data...

This is one of the first things I flagged regarding LLMs, and later on they added the warning. But if people don't care and are still gonna feed the machine everything regardless, then that's a human problem.

hiramfromthechi OP , 5 months ago to Technology in ApostrophyOS: A new privacy and security focused mobile OS

lol I thought about that too

hiramfromthechi , 5 months ago to Memes in Movie

Our cognitive biases are fascinating, aren't they