Fediverse Block & Spam Reporting
I am now, fairly regularly, keeping an eye on my Fediverse's local timeline. I've taken it as a mission to report spammers I see in that timeline. I am primarily doing this on the desktop while working or relaxing. However, my frustration with their system is that in the neverending spam wars, the anti-spam tools need to be as optimized as possible. And the current process requires far too many clicks.
So, yesterday, I coded a bookmarklet. I tried embedding it, but the JS code doesn't play well with Markdown, so it just rendered the ugly text.
To use this, you just need to copy the below text and then create a bookmark in your browser, give it a name (I used 'Fed Spam') and then paste this code. I haven't done extensive testing, but it works in Firefox flawlessly.
javascript:var%20%24jscomp%3D%24jscomp%7C%7C%7B%7D%3B%24jscomp.scope%3D%7B%7D%3B%24jscomp.arrayIteratorImpl%3Dfunction(a)%7Bvar%20b%3D0%3Breturn%20function()%7Breturn%20b%3Ca.length%3F%7Bdone%3A!1%2Cvalue%3Aa%5Bb%2B%2B%5D%7D%3A%7Bdone%3A!0%7D%7D%7D%3B%24jscomp.arrayIterator%3Dfunction(a)%7Breturn%7Bnext%3A%24jscomp.arrayIteratorImpl(a)%7D%7D%3B%24jscomp.makeIterator%3Dfunction(a)%7Bvar%20b%3D%22undefined%22!%3Dtypeof%20Symbol%26%26Symbol.iterator%26%26a%5BSymbol.iterator%5D%3Breturn%20b%3Fb.call(a)%3A%24jscomp.arrayIterator(a)%7D%3Bdocument.getElementsByClassName(%22setting-text%22)%5B0%5D.value%3D%22spam%22%3Bfor(var%20boxes%3Ddocument.querySelectorAll(%22.status-check-box%20div.react-toggle%22)%2C%24jscomp%24iter%240%3D%24jscomp.makeIterator(boxes)%2C%24jscomp%24key%24box%3D%24jscomp%24iter%240.next()%3B!%24jscomp%24key%24box.done%3B%24jscomp%24key%24box%3D%24jscomp%24iter%240.next())box%3D%24jscomp%24key%24box.value%2Cbox.classList.add(%22react-toggle--checked%22)%3Bvoid+0The above bookmarklet fills out the "Block & Spam" report form on the Tweetdeck-esque interface for Mastodon. It writes 'Spam' in the message box, and then toggles next to every post. Because I'm reporting bot accounts which are just posting spam every time, I don't need to apply any mental effort of reviewing posts. I'm still clicking the submit button, I didn't add that to the automation (yet?) but it's definitely made it a farcry easier to fight spam on the server.
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Jamey Stegmaier writes about why he quit Twitter. Elon has nothing to do with it.
Stegmaier runs a boardgame company which has had a number of very successful boardgames. Wingspan being my favorite among them. Having not followed the interactions, this reads a bit like him explaining himself, but based on the descriptions it seems honest and direct.
About a month ago, I deactivated my Twitter account (@jameystegmaier). I haven't regretted the decision even for a moment.
This isn't about Elon Musk or the general state of social media or Twitter itself. It also really isn't about other Twitter users. It's about me: I realized that I'm not my best self on Twitter. So I quit.
I sent an apology to the original person, which would end up being my final tweet. When I reflected on the experience–which really bugged me for hours–I realized that it wasn't an isolated situation. Most of my biggest knee-jerk reactions that I instantly regretted over the last 5+ years on social media were on Twitter.
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Goodbye Twitter, at least for now
I'm done with Twitter for a while. Not because of Musk taking over, but more that I want to make it harder to get lost scrolling on social media and return to creating and writing.
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Obama to Heckler
"We get distracted," he said. "You got one person yelling and soon everybody's yelling, you get one tweet that's stupid and suddenly everyone's obsessed with the tweet. We can't fall for that."
I find this quote from Obama, after a heckler interrupted a speech of his an excellent framing for today. It is so so easy in today's world to be distracted individually and for society. Our entire entertainment machine is designed to provide endless distractions and society isn't coping with it very well.
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Meta has a lot of ground to make up as it chases Tiktok with Instagram
Instagram users cumulatively are spending 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, less than one-tenth of the 197.8 million hours TikTok users spend each day on that platform, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal that summarizes internal Meta research.
The document, titled "Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022," was published internally in August. It said that Reels engagement had been falling—down 13.6% over the previous four weeks—and that "most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever."
One reason is that Instagram has struggled to recruit people to make content. Roughly 11 million creators are on the platform in the U.S., but only about 2.3 million of them, or 20.7%, post on that platform each month, the document said.
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The White House social media account has grown teeth in the last few weeks, this article introduces us to Megan Coyne who is part of the reason why
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The US gets caught with sock puppet social media against China and Russia
Not exactly surprising.
The data analyzed came from 146 Twitter accounts (which tweeted 299,566 times), 39 Facebook profiles, and 26 Instagram accounts, along with 16 Facebook pages and two Facebook groups. Some of the accounts were meant to appear like real people and used AI-generated profile pictures. Meta and Twitter didn’t specifically name any organizations or people behind the campaigns but said their analysis led them to believe they originated in the US and Great Britain.
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"Ex-Twitter exec blows the whistle, alleging reckless and negligent cybersecurity policies"
At first I was inclined to wait for this to turn into something bigger, and I ignored a few reports of it. Only when I checked out the conversation on Hacker News did I give it more attention.
From the top comment on Hacker News:
Millenials and GenZ may have no idea who Mudge is. I, however, almost lost my first job out of college at a bank because I ran l0phtcrack against our Windows NT 4 server to see if it could crack passwords. I showed my boss, and he pulled me aside into another room and tore my head off for irresponsibly running this tool against a production server. He said I could have been fired if this got out, but he covered my ass, sent out an email requesting everyone reset their passwords, and let me continue working. I learned a good lesson because even though my intentions were good, and it did expose security issues, it was a bit immature and should have been done in a more controlled manner along with the proper clearances.
Mudge knows the implications of "whistleblowing". He has been a security consultant and even testified to Congress. He's not some noob that doesn't understand security or how systems work together to provide services like disclosure to FTC. The idea that Twitter PR can pooh-pooh away his concerns is shockingly stupid.
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Meta sees first ever earnings decline and suffers resulting stock dip
Far from putting the company at risk, but it signals that the company is really beginning to struggle. The next six months should be fascinating.
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I just realized that Twitter's co-tweeting functionality is 100% meant for brands and influencers.
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"Google exec suggests Instagram and TikTok are eating into Google's core products, Search and Maps"
The TikTok threat to Google’s business isn’t just limited to YouTube, as it turns out. Core Google services, including Search and Maps, are also being impacted by a growing preference for social media and videos as the first stop on younger users’ path to discovery, a Google exec acknowledged today, speaking at an industry event.
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Your internet life needs a Feeds Reboot — here’s how to do it
Seems like this should be part of our New Years Celebrations, welcoming in the new year, doing some digital maintenance to clean up the algorithms as we start the new calendar.
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I am not panicking at the news of Musk's impending purchase of Twitter. I'll be curious to see how it goes. If it goes south, I'll walk away from the platform and look for who will leap in and launch a new competitor that the world gloms onto. Will it be Mastodon? The decentralized Twitter alternative? I doubt it, but we'll see. Or maybe Google will relaunch G+? Ha.
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