Time for some Twitter cleanup, maybe another timeout as well as one from Facebook

I have taken several Facebook timeouts of one week or less. But, until earlier this summer, never took a Twitter timeout, as in, like with Facebook, doing an account snooze.

The one I did do with Twitter was more than two weeks.

Here's my take on the two.

Twitter's cesspool, proportionally, is probably worse than Facebook's. But, overall, Twitter does a better job of cleanup. That's the only social media programs I use regularly. I use MeWe semiregularly, ditched Jimmy Wales' site, tried and passed on Mastodon and occasionally used Instagram at previous work sites. I use LinkedIn regularly FOR JOB HUNTING ONLY. You're an idiot if you blog there under your real name, especially about anything not narrowly related to your career field.

That said, back to the header.

There's an old cliché that says "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

Bullshit.

This is clearly an Idries Shah issue:

First, as I have said here and elsewhere, the enemy of my enemy may simply be an ally of convenience. That's another side right there.

Or, the enemy of my enemy may also be an enemy to me on other issues, or even on the issue at hand, just via a different track.

Politics (what else?) brings this issue to the fore on Twitter.

I get, in a sense ("get" but don't agree with) still butt-hurt Berners who look for takedown tools against Joe Biden. As a Green, Bernie would have been more acceptable, but I was still voting for the Green Party nominee before 2020 started. (Well, at least for eventual actual nominee Howie Hawkins, and at that time, had the door open for Dario Hunter. The other candidates already seemed off the wall, and then, this summer, true Dario revealed himself. But I digress, again.)

That said, using wingnuts who are often attacking Biden because they're Trumpers, or like nutter H.A. Goodman, Bernie → Trump guys, as part of your takedown tools? No. I'm not blocking, or even muting any of you folks, but I am unfollowing several.

Anyway, the cleanup has happened, but not for the reasons above.

Trump talked over the weekend about considering a pardon for Snowden. That then brought the Assange-stanners, especially not the halfway sane ones but, natch, the Seth Rich conspiracy theorists, to the fore. I unfollowed several people who had been following both Suzi 3D and Kim Dotcom, and then eventually kicked both of them full to the curb. On her? Yes, she's right about the "Five Eyes." So are many other people who don't lie about Seth Rich, don't stovepipe Assange, don't claim persecution and haven't "magically" ended up in Moscow. Her tale sounds less credible than it once did, which is part of why I think I had been following her.

The need for a new Facebook timeout is for other reasons. I've been reporting more and more posts there by wingnuts as fake news, and Twitter, sadly, still doesn't have a "false news" report line.

That said, I had already thought weeks ago that Twitter, even though it has the deeper cesspool, does a better job of policing.

That then became confirmed in spades with news that Facebook fired an engineer after he discovered information that wingnut activist groups were getting preferential treatment in getting false news flags removed. And, given that individual wingnuts' false news posts often involve sharing items from these orgs, I've just been playing kabuki theater. Well, no reason to do that deliberately.

Plus, while Facebook does have a "false news" report, the results of it are definitely a "nothingburger" most the time. A screen over the post that says "Facebook has found this partially false/false." No takedowns.

New Facebook, which is being forced upon us, sux donkey dongs worse than New Twitter. And, it sux in another way. It's burying the "most recent" button for chronological post feed, and instead forcing the algorithms on us. And, it says, in New Facebook help, that you can hit the "most recent" feed, but that posts will eventually revert to Hucksterman's definition of "most popular." I smell another Facebook timeout coming up.

Alternatives? Ello long ago became the British MySpace. Mastodon is clunky. I tried some other alternative to Twitter that interested me even less than Mastodon.

But, there is MeWe. Formed out of remnants of Google Plus after Google pulled the plug on it (after screwing the pooch in several ways), it's not bad. I just need to make an effort on developing some contacts there. On the other, or third, or whatever hand or side, I had a Trumper regularly trolling the Green Party group there. And on the fourth hand, friend Brett Welch said several of his groups have "dried up" recently, including some migrating (back?) to Hucksterville.