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I have an account with Threads and tend to look at posts there from time to time.
Over the past few weeks I have come to realise that a disturbing trend is taking place with comments. Many of them are just repetitive posts from random people. There are a large percentage moaning about pineapple on pizzas, and currently (in the UK) a similar percentage moaning about low June temperatures.
Many of the other posts appear to be trying to humiliate anyone who doesn’t follow the current ‘herd instinct’ activities.
I understand that many of these accounts may be AI generated and therefore not opinions of human posters, but the trend for only agreeing with, or doing what the majority are doing/thinking I find very disturbing. It is almost as if being a free thinker or taking part in minority activities is now laughable.
Groupthink by the back door.
I fear for the current election, as the under 40s appear to be easily manipulated by any comments on TikTok or Whatsapp, and will vote for whatever the majority of their peers say to vote for, even if their ‘peers’ are simply thousands of fake accounts created by someone in a deep bunker.
Young people across the world including in the USA are rejecting establishment narratives and the majority reject the Palestine narrative. They don’t watch TV much either nor read the establishment CRAP media. The US is trying desperately to close down tiktok because that is where young people are getitng their news from and seeing what is happening in reality.
How many times do you hear older people exclaim the kids of today know no discipline etc etc whilst not seeing that our governing structures aid and abet genocide and game their future with the possibility of WW3 and total destruction. What I find is that it is older people who cling to the catechism of the “cult of democracy.”
“I BELIEVE IN DEMOCRACY THE GOVERNANCE ALMIGHTY, CREATOR OF HEAVEN AND EARTH”
“You Shall Worship DEMOCRACY Your God and DEMOCRACY Only Shall You Serve”
“You Shall Have No Other GOVERNANCE Before DEMOCRACY”And all the rest of that shite I’ve forgotten, thank God, I mean thank democracy! Anyway, you get the point. Young people see through this bullshit and well see the blatant and extant hypocrisy. We older people have fucked it for them and they are angry and rightly so. It’s the younger people who will save us. Such attempts to divert attention won’t work on the angry younger people and is a belated attempt to shore up the current status quo and recapture the narrative. It isn’t working.
Really?
People who spend all their time arguing about whether to store ketchup in the fridge, or have pineapple on a pizza, or what would everyone do if they only had 12 hours to live; are going to save the planet?
Dream on.
Jon, in your own comment you stated that you realise that many of the comments could be bots. You have leaped from a “large percentage (of posters of unknown age) moaning about pineapple on pizzas, and currently (in the UK) a similar percentage moaning about low June temperatures” to “as the under 40s appear to be easily manipulated by any comments on TikTok or Whatsapp, and will vote for whatever the majority of their peers say to vote for” without showing us how you come to the conclusion that it is the under forties who are making those posts. Are you just making that assumption?
Most of the younger people I meet are more concerned about how they can afford to rent a place to live never mind buy a place, climate and environment, shitty jobs, college fees, and the ever growing inequality. How do you know it’s young people making those posts? What current generation politicians in UK, US, Europe are making any attempt to address the clearly extant issues that matter? (aside from CM and a tiny minority of others, obviously). Who but the next generation of voters can make a change for the better?
Sorry, but I base my opinion regarding the age of the under 40 posters on the photos which appear regularly next to their posts; plus the general lack of grammar and poor spelling which tends to get worse as the txt generations appear online.
I suppose that their photos could all be fake images, but I doubt many of them would really want to use an ID which shows them to be the age of their parents. There is a possibility that 60 year old men use photos of 25 year old women online for nefarious purposes, but I would have thought arguing about how much ranch sauce to pour over barbecue ribs would not be their first priority.
If the under 45 generation are really so concerned about having no money, and watching as the planet is trashed by older people, then I would have thought they might have stood for election on a platform of youthful discontent. Instead they seem happy to snipe from the sidelines on social media, and in the case of the USA, watch while two senile geriatrics slug it out for the most powerful position on earth.
Far from appearing to become active and change the world, the younger generation seem to have descended into apathy and trivia.
Here are just a few of this morning’s deep and thoughtful questions from Threads…..
(Believe me it is all like this, every day)
“Have you ever judged someone by the laundry detergent they use?”
“Guys guys guys fun fact 🤓👆🏼 Honey is just crushes up bees”
“what alot of yall call a caffeine or coffee addiction is actually a sugar addiction😶”
“To people who don’t stop a car length or more away from people at lights, why?”
“If you could only eat 5 fruits for the rest of your life, what would they be?”
“Was sliced bread the greatest invention since bread?”
“How can someone eat mash potatoe without gravy????”
“How do you cut onions?”
I had to remind myself about Threads. It was an attempt by Meta to compete in the text-based social media space with Twitter/X, released in July 2023 with 100 million join-ups in a week then 80% fall off over the next week. Meta stated they would implement more “retention-driven hooks” whatever they might be. It seems now their user base has increased to 190 million-ish though Meta stopped releasing sign-up or user numbers in July 2023, and that 190M figure is based on other methods of estimation.
Jon, I think you are being a little critical of younger people. I really don’t think all younger people are consumed with this shite and most are fairly aware of what’s going on. Not all obviously but couldn’t the same be said of older generations? Student protests over Gaza etc.
Caitlin Johnstone has a piece When The Powerful Control Public Opinion, Elections Aren’t Real. She argues that the information space is rigged by big money interests who control the sources of information and manipulate public opinion. Not a startlingly new revelation but, as always with Caitlin Johnstone, forthrightly expressed.
Yes, I admit to being a little critical of younger people; but not out of malice.
It is just that I fear they seem to be in danger of becoming manipulated by the big money interests who own the social media companies, and can create false AI accounts to pretend they are reflecting majority opinions.
I understand that having to live through poverty, suffer greedy landlords, Covid lockdowns, knife crime, and a world hell bent on polarisation of arguments; must make them feel as though they are being kicked in the teeth by the boomer generation who had HIV-free sex, no tuition fees, and access to lots of well paid jobs with decent pension prospects.
My worry is that this rather rose-tinted attitude to the past is going to turn them into easy pickings for the big money interests who would prefer to keep them under tight control. Why bother with politics, when you can spend your time watching Netflix, Love Island, and worrying if you ought to get an air fryer?
A good piece again from Caitlin Johnstone I Ain’t Reading All That; Free Palestine.
“The meme enrages Israel supporters because Israel apologia depends on mountains of verbiage to spin obvious atrocities as reasonable and appropriate. At some point the kids noticed this was happening, and started dismissing all the narratives.”
“The retort is offensive to Israel apologists because it takes away their only weapon. Without mountains of narrative, all you’ve got is a nonstop deluge of raw video footage depicting the blatant genocidal criminality of Israel. No narrative overlay is required atop a video of a baby beheaded by Israeli military explosives. It stands on its own.”
Waiting for the opportunity to deploy that phrase or something like it, something like I ain’t listening to all that, free Palestine.
It would appear that Edward Snowden has got the serious message over the spread of AI-backed chatbots.
Edward Snowden
@Snowden
They’ve gone full mask-off: 𝐝𝐨 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 trust @OpenAI or its products (ChatGPT etc). There is only one reason for appointing an @NSAGov Director to your board. This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on Earth. You have been warned.
