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[8]Daniel Lemire's blog

Daniel Lemire is a computer science professor at the University of
Quebec (TELUQ) in Montreal. His research is focused on software
performance and data engineering. He is a techno-optimist and a
free-speech advocate.
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* [21]Stop spending so much time being trolled by billionaire
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* tk on [26]Stop spending so much time being trolled by billionaire
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* [27]Daniel Lemire on [28]Stop spending so much time being trolled
by billionaire corporations!
* [29]Leo Boytsov on [30]Stop spending so much time being trolled by
billionaire corporations!
* [31]Leo Boytsov on [32]Stop spending so much time being trolled by
billionaire corporations!
* [33]Daniel Lemire on [34]Stop spending so much time being trolled
by billionaire corporations!

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Stop spending so much time being trolled by billionaire corporations!

As a kid, my parents would open the television set, and we would get to
watch whatever the state television decided we would watch. It was a
push model. Some experts pick the content you need and they deliver it
to you. You have little say in the matter. There was one newspaper in
my town. We had two or three TV channels. Traditional schools also
operate on a push model: the teacher decides whatever you get to learn.

So I got to watch hours and hours of incredibly boring TV shows because
there was nothing good on. I was very interested in computers and
science, but there was almost nothing relevant in the major news
sources. When personal computers became popular, I quickly learned more
about them than any journalist had.

In the early days of the Internet, people wrote on posting boards. Some
started blogs. To this day, I get much of my online news by an [53]RSS
aggregator which collects information from various blogs and news
sites. An RSS aggregator simply picks up all of the news items from
various sites, and it lays it out sequentially. You do not like a news
source? You unsubscribe. Mailing lists work similarly: you get emails
whenever someone has new content.

This model has been described as “pull” oriented. You pick your
sources. You sidestep the experts. For someone like myself, it was
incredibly liberating. As the pull model grew, many people feared that
old-school journalism would die. It also challenged conventional
education.

Within this emerging framework, Silicon Valley invented Twitter,
Facebook and other networks. At first they worked much like posting
boards and blogs. You launched Twitter and you got the tweets of the
people you followed. You did not like someone’s tweets? You just
unfollowed them. Google even co-opted the RSS reader by creating a
fantastic tool called Google Reader, which put you in control.

However, mostly, the industry moved in a different direction. They took
control of what you see and read. Brilliant engineers are hard at work
making sure that you remain glued to your screen. So they find content
that you may like and push it to you. Google closed Google Reader,
decimating the RSS reader community. Whereas you could count on the
Google search engine delivering the documents containing the keywords
you are search, you are increasingly facing a curated list of links.

We are back at a push model which is not unlike how things were when I
was a kid. The likes of Twitter, Facebook and Google feel like they get
to decide what I see.

Richard Startin describes my feeling in a couple of tweets:

As the user, you are no longer in control. The corporation is wrestling
back full control of what you get to watch and read.

TikTok is one such tool where you just open the application and watch
whatever they want you to watch. You become some kind of automaton.

Of course, deciding what people watch and read is valuable. It is a
great way to make money. But it also becomes a politically valuable
power. And so, it now seems unavoidable that multiple countries in the
world will regulate these sites to make sure that you watch the right
“things”.

Maybe Richard Startin wants to read about what programmers have to say,
but what if some corporation or some government feels that he needs to
be made aware of some important bit of information, what then ?

Thankfully some tools are still leaving you in control:
1.
1. Blogs are still out there. I had 50,000 visitors last month.
You can still use RSS readers. [54]You can subscribe to blogs
like mine by email.
2. I have recently discovered the fantastic [55]substack
community.
3. Telegram is pretty decent as a secured news aggregator. My
blog has a [56]telegram channel. Nobody needs to know what you
are reading.
4. Twitter has a hidden feature (twitter list) which lets you
subscribe to specific individuals and only see content from
these individuals.
5. [57]DuckDuckGo is a fantastic search engine which mostly gives
me what I am looking for instead of what it thinks I should
find.
6. Do not underestimate books. Contrary to what you may have
heard, you can still order paper books. The great thing about
a paper book is that nobody needs to know what you are reading
and when. If you like books and programming, you can grab
[58]Performance Analysis and Tuning on Modern CPUs for
example. I have many recommendations on the sidebar of my
blog.
7. There are fantastic podcasts out there. Spotify has some great
stuff, but you can find many others on other platforms. If you
like programming, you might want to check [59]corecursive.
[60]Joe Rogan is also fantastic. There are many others.

Being in control takes work. It also requires you to sometimes pay real
money. But do you really want to have your attention is sold and
manipulated?

I am not advocating that anyone leaves Twitter, Facebook or tiktok, but
we should all diversify our information sources. Be conscious that
Twitter, Facebook, Google and others are in the business of
manipulating your attention for their interest and the interests of
their clients.

Be smarter!

Related: [61]The Social Dilemma.

Published by

Daniel Lemire

A computer science professor at the University of Quebec (TELUQ).
[62]View all posts by Daniel Lemire

Posted on [63]November 2, 2021November 3, 2021Author [64]Daniel
LemireCategories

10 thoughts on “Stop spending so much time being trolled by billionaire
corporations!”

1.
[65]Leo Boytsov says:
[66]November 2, 2021 at 11:33 pm
I can hardly imagine reading every tweet posted by people I follow.
So thanks to the algorithmic feed I read only the popular ones.
This has upsides and downsides, but I can’t imagine going back to
reading complete RSS feeds. I think it’s not feasible. For good
services, I would pay to not see ads. For example, I pay to
youtube, but not to Twitter (and it’s not possible). I wish the
payment option was more widely available, but automatic content
curation, I’m afraid is unavoidable.
[67]Reply
1.
[68]Daniel Lemire says:
[69]November 3, 2021 at 1:45 am
automatic content curation, I’m afraid is unavoidable.
I am sure that 30 years ago people believed that television
could not be stopped. I have unplugged my television about 10
years ago. Maybe earlier.
The Twitter and Google business models are literally to sell
off your attention. Let us be clear on this. I do not think
that the engineers that work for Facebook are evil. I do think
however that they are there to nudge you and to control your
intention.
I avoid content curation (as practiced by the likes of Twitter
or TikTok). I am not telling others to avoid it, but I am
urging them to look at alternatives.
My bet is that many people would feel a lot better if they
avoided it too. We can reasonably disagree about it, of
course.
Do I think that the Twitter-like content curation will go away
soon? No. I think it might stay for a long time. I do not
think it means that it is unavoidable. I know people who never
used Twitter and Facebook (and they are not so old).
[70]Reply
1.
[71]Leo Boytsov says:
[72]November 3, 2021 at 2:36 am
Daniel, don’t forget that even without Twitter and Google
you don’t consume raw information. You read newspaper
digests, survey articles, etc… These people who summarize
information they can manipulate other people. And they
will do so. Moreover, before radio and TV, writers used
to write long novels in part to get as much reader’s
attention as possible. Textbooks are freaking
manipulating you. They have errors, biases, and they are
often politically motivated.
You see, the problem isn’t new. Automatic content
aggregation admittedly has more problems, but I
personally am ok with it. In fact, my Twitter is nearly
100% professional. And certainly I cannot operate without
Google. I cannot review most papers, find necessary
information, etc… So what you propose is to reduce my
productivity possibly 10x for the joy of not using Google
or automatic Twitter feed. This is not a viable option.
[73]Reply
1.
[74]Daniel Lemire says:
[75]November 3, 2021 at 2:45 am
I do not need twitter or facebook to do my work and
I have hardly used Google (the search engine) in at
least two years.
There is s whole degree of difference between the
nudging that Google does and what the author of a
book can do.
I am not telling you to stop using twitter btw.
[76]Reply
2.
[77]Leo Boytsov says:
[78]November 3, 2021 at 2:41 am
PS: some people are
1. work in a very narrow domain
2. go to conferences
3. have a vast network of professional contacts
4. are privileged in other ways
that they don’t use Twitter and LinkedIn doesn’t say
much. I am pretty sure they still use Google and who
doesn’t?
[79]Reply
2.
[80]Dave Rolsky says:
[81]November 3, 2021 at 1:29 am
s/like mind/like mine/
[82]Reply
1.
[83]Daniel Lemire says:
[84]November 3, 2021 at 1:45 am
Thank you.
[85]Reply
3.
S says:
[86]November 3, 2021 at 1:33 am
Thanks for introducing me to the COVID news channel:
[87]https://t.me/covidinfoenglish
I don’t use Telegram. Does this group publish their content
elsewhere?
[88]Reply
1.
[89]Daniel Lemire says:
[90]November 3, 2021 at 1:36 am
It is a telegram-only channel.
[91]Reply
4.
tk says:
[92]November 3, 2021 at 6:29 am
Hello M Lemire,
Thanks for roaring about that, I have recently found brave search
very efficient as well.
[93]Reply

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