Social Media

From 1e3fd8a7e31e26154fb623dba3451d047730dfaa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Andrew Yu Date: Tue, 26 Jul 2022 03:39:14 +0800 Subject: social media and wechat --- index.html | 3 ++- note/social-media.html | 20 +++++++++++++++++++ note/wechat.html | 52 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 74 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-) create mode 100644 note/social-media.html create mode 100644 note/wechat.html diff --git a/index.html b/index.html index b3fb0c6..8ec3c8c 100644 --- a/index.html +++ b/index.html @@ -29,7 +29,8 @@

Electronic mail to andrew@andrewyu.org.

Internet Relay Chat: ``Andrew'' on Libera Chat and LibreIRC.

Do not contact me via WeChat. I only keep an account for school and use Mojo-Weixin to relay it to IRC.

Do not contact me via WeChat.

I do not use social media.

OpenPGP

Usually, electronic mail that I send are signed with my OpenPGP key. Please use OpenPGP when contacting me through electronic mail. The following are available.

Social Media

I do not use social media. I do not find social media to be meaningful.

Social media as I understand it is based on ``microblogging'', i.e. short posts about a person's life, thoughts, etc. Social media is usually designed in a quick ``consumption''-oriented style, often leading to flamewars instead of in-depth discussions because of its ``quick'' and ``short'' nature. Social media recommends new posts and people to people based on what they ``like'' and ``boost'' further creating an information cocoon, ``shielding'' them from new ideas, rather than allowing for natural human distribution of good articles.

Instead, I read and write articles and share those that impress me naturally.

Most popular social media services such as facebook are also nonfree and have extra problems.

The Fediverse can be pretty toxic

The Problem with WeChat, et al.

+ + Do not use WeChat to contact me. + +

+ WeChat is a instant messaging program by the Chinese technology giant Tencent. It is insanely popular in Mainland China. +

+ I do not use WeChat, when possible, for the following reasons. +

+ WeChat's client program is nonfree software. +
+ Many of WeChat's features are Service as a Software Substitute. +
+ WeChat's servers are nonfree; the service is centralized. +
+ Tencent suspends WeChat accounts for sending ``politically sensitive chats''. +
+ Information collected by WeChat is given to the police of the PRC without court warrants. +

This list is incomplete. I can't think of more now, tell me if you know some more.

Similar problems are present in other popular Instant Messaging services such as WhatsApp, Discord, Tencent QQ, etc.

Here are some ways to contact me.