Mastodawn

Steve Burnett Jan 4

Chad McCullough

It's 2026. How about we normalize NOT using social media as our website? I'm looking at you city governments, restaurants, businesses, orgs, etc.

Build a website to announce your events. The website doesn't have to be elaborate. Just something with a calendar of events.

@cmccullough Maybe people/orgs want to no longer be judged for their theme and we need something standard to be arranged for govtech and small businesses? We used to have HTML framesets and they made sites need less CSS… Now they are forbidden, in part because responsive design

What I also mean to say is that this is always about the prestige, the first reactions of upper management and of commonest of people. Things need to say they are modern while retaining the simplicity

@cmccullough Also can we have the internet not be so hostile to us through reducing our vulnerability / attack surface and have a readymade operating system that has the firewall and hardening more integrated with putting up services? Maybe we can’t have that because of how stalled we are in operating systems research for almost half a century?

@[email protected] @cmccullough It's not that the research is stalled.

It's that the development of old and broken by design systems that are currently popular gets enormous amount of funding, while modern designs are either one-off project for one high reliability application or developed as part of someone's thesis.

As a result you do have modern OS designs that have implementations that run on up to 1 piece of real hardware (sometimes only virtual), and you can run up to 1 application on them.

Support of every piece of hardware needs someone writing or porting a driver. Running an application requires that someone adapts it. Multiply that by thousands of pieces of hardware and thousands of applications and tools and the task is nearly impossible. If you are an enthusiast and willing to spend a lot of time on it you can demonstrate running an application on a piece of hardware that you specifically choose to be easy to support. For general 'just give us more secure OS to run our applications on' it's useless.

One recent attempt at popularizing more modern OS design is Harmony OS by Huawei. Similar to AOSP there is an opensource and fairly useless release that you can look at. Unfortunately, most of the detailed documentation I could find was Chinese which I don't understand.
From the bits I do understand it sounds like it's similar to Windows NT and OS X in that the OS core is relatively modern (for its respective time) and system services might make use of more modern API. On top is an environment that emulates something that is close to the currently popular OS environment. As a result most applications will not or possibly even cannot use the core OS modern API, and as a result cannot provide better security, either.

@bunny @cmccullough Thanks for cool facts and observations. Although I think is what such stalling can realistically be expected to be, at its worst even; point by point you chime along with the point I stated. Also not just me claiming that, I’m actually repeating what I’ve heard and read from others

@[email protected] @cmccullough There is a difference between research being stalled, not having any idea how to design a system to be more resilient, and the current situation in which existing research results are not widely used.

Sure, it could take a while - see how long people were talking about e-ink before you could go to a store and buy an e-ink display. But modern OS designs were available even before people started talking about e-ink. And here we are. You can get an e-ink screen but not a secure OS.

My impression is that software development is somewhat like science in this regard.

There are some corporations, and sometimes government agencies that decide by their wallet what research is funded. Sure, you are not forbidden from doing research that is not funded but without the funding you only get so far.

And even if software is 'opensource' or 'free' similarly you can only get so far without funding. Not only will your development be much slower but also the software that has the most funding becomes the yardstick by which your results are measured

@bunny @cmccullough I got reminded where I got the notion from, and it was either a talk with the utah2000 as slides or just maybe the following read mirrored somewhere:
doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/
doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/utah2000/utah2000
("Systems Software Research is Irrelevant" by Rob Pike)

Systems Software Research is Irrelevant (aka utah2000 or utah2k)

@[email protected] @cmccullough I think that it's overly pessimistic in missing the things that were and are done. It does say at the start that it's somewhat exaggerated

eMarginalia Jan 1

@cmccullough
Those of us who do not do that social media (and don't have nor want smartphones) don't use those businesses. I guess we are such a small number now they don't care?

Lynn McAlister UE

@cmccullough Yeah, I get really annoyed when I go looking for information from a civic organization or a business and it's on Facebook. Why should people have to sign up to a proprietarial, actively harmful platform to hear about your events/offerings? This is especially annoying when it's the government, to which we're supposed to have access.

Chad McCullough Jan 1

@lmgenealogy Exactly!

Carina C. Zona Jan 2

@lmgenealogy you'd be shocked how many people still have no idea how to make a basic one page website, let alone arrange hosting and do updates for it. Facebook goves them a way to instantly make their organization a presence on the internet without having to learn anything technical whatsoever. That it comes with messaging support and events support makes it even more appealing.

You or I know plenty of other ways to accomplish these. But none so easy for a non-technical person with no budget, no interest in tech learning, and no advisor to explain what the downsides are.

I hate it too. But the trend continues for reasons that make sense to the people who are choosing the easy path presented to them.

Chris Martin Jan 2

@cczona @lmgenealogy Plenty of them can't even manage to hang onto the Facebook account credentials

Chris Martin Jan 2

@cczona @lmgenealogy More than needing the website to be turnkey, a busy business owner who doesn't get on the computer much needs the usability to be *extremely* well streamlined or they simply won't update it

Lynn McAlister UE

@chris__martin @cczona I can believe this. When I worked at a local public library there were regular patrons who asked us to just keep their login information because otherwise every time they came in we'd have to set up yet another new email account for them. But a business - certainly a government institution - should make the effort to get someone to help them. There are many techy people out there (the CEO's grandchild could probably do it). I guess with a business it doesn't matter, as long as they don't mind losing some customers. But for public services, they're forcing people into an association, already understood to be predatory, that many people do not want. I understand that I'm shouting into the wind, but alas, that's what I do.

Anne Delong Jan 3

@lmgenealogy @chris__martin @cczona

I belong to organizations which compromise by keeping a static website, maintained occasionally, with general information: what the organization is about, phone numbers, mailing and email addresses, FAQ, etc.

They then have links to social media or a mailing list for reading about upcoming events and other time-sensitive announcements, asking questions, etc. I don't have a Facebook account, I can usually see the main page of an account.

Chris Martin Jan 3

@Anne_Delong @lmgenealogy @cczona I'd love to know a few general specifics about how they host the static site

Anne Delong Jan 3

@chris__martin @lmgenealogy @cczona

One organization, a computer club, pays for a domain name, and joined an international organization of such clubs, who provided space on their server. The files are written old style in HTML in a text editor and FTP'd to the server.

Another group, a music club, also pays for a domain name; the files are edited by me using Dreamweaver and uploaded to my web space on Hostpapa, which allows add-on domains.

Both of these groups have Facebook pages too.

Chris Martin Jan 3

@Anne_Delong Thank you. Interesting how collaborative it all is

Lynn McAlister UE

@Anne_Delong @chris__martin @cczona That's fine. I have no problem with groups using FB if they must - it's certainly the quickest way to reach the largest number of people. I only have a problem when there's no other way to access the information. If another way exists, then nobody is being forced to sign up for FB to have access. Especially when it's public services or something like that.

Anne Delong Jan 3

@lmgenealogy @chris__martin @cczona

I agree - I don't have a Facebook account, and although many people enjoy keeping in touch with their friends on social media, it shouldn't be used as a replacement for a website for disseminating important information.

Lynn McAlister UE

@Anne_Delong @chris__martin @cczona Or heaven forbid, X. Like, when that guy was running about shooting up people in NS, maybe the cops should have done something a bit more public than just post vague comments on Twitter.

@lmgenealogy @cmccullough Those sites sort of promise public visibility etc. Or at least they used to. But somewhere along this "come to our garden, it's practically a park" has turned into "well we have some walls around our garden". So I can see how orgs with not a great amount of resources or know-how got lured into it.

Dave Clark Jan 1

@cmccullough but what if cities do want to send emergency notifications out that people will see 3 days late

@cmccullough Very much agree. Very inexpensive. Not difficult to figure out yourself annndd if you don't want to, there's a ton of others who will help you for small fee.

@cmccullough Why? Social platforms allow unified interface and quick announcements delivery, correct? Plus, the setup and maintainance fee and knowledge are close to 0

heart_pansexual

@nk but they prevent people who don't have an account on said social media to clearly see informations, since now they make it more and more difficult to navigate without an account.
Also the too tiny profile bio and the way these social medias show posts is not as accessible as a basic website.
On a website you can make everything useful readable at first glance, while on social medias you usually have to scroll the account to find the important and useful informations either on a post or in the media tab.
Also you can style it just as you want and you don't need to censor yourself on anything.
You can copy/paste a whole menu in your website and it will be readable to all because it won't be a pixelated photo of your menu, for example !
Something hardly doable on social medias since they don't allow much customization in posts.

It does take a bit of time to setup first but it's a very good platform for any business to put all the important information.

@zorume
Then just register on the platform, it's fast, and you will be able to see the whole content. Like they do on 404Media, for example

heart_pansexual

@nk yeah, everyone wants to register on 5 different platforms just to be able to read a menu or see the opening hours of a business ???
I've quitted social medias for very good reasons and I'm not getting back to it. It's a waste of time and energy, with made to be addictive apps that are designed only for recent smartphones and computers.
Really, corporate social medias are just inaccessible now ! Plus the annoying ads, popups and notifications !

A simple html website is accessible on any device with internet connection.
Corporate social medias are not.

heart_pansexual

@nk and that's just on a practical approach, but since Meta and Twitter are full fascists and all corporate social medias are been involved in mass surveillance/selling private data/censoring/uplifting only certain ideas... Well. Nope. I wouldn't recommend anyone to make an account there.

@zorume I see no pro

@zorume I see no private data either on the FB timeline or on a company's website

@zorume Well, isn't it better than to register on hundreds standalone websites?

heart_pansexual

@nk you... don't need to register on websites ????

Chad McCullough Jan 3

@nk @zorume You shouldn't have to register on a platform like FB just to see a FB page for a business or org or whatever. The whole point of my post is that these places shouldn't force people to register a social media account for, say, Twitter or FB, just to see what is going on. Governments in particular shouldn't be posting all the important info on FB or Twitter instead of a publicly accessed website.

@cmccullough These places do not force you to do anything

Chad McCullough Jan 2

@nk But a lot of their customer base aren't on social media or, more specifically, Twitter or Facebook. People need other ways of finding the information about a business.

PedestrianError

@cmccullough @nk And there are very good reasons not to want to be on any of the mass market social media platforms. In fact, both Musk and Zuckerberg contribute heavily to politicians who work tirelessly to cut funding and impose restrictions on local goverments' ability to do their jobs so why on earth would they want to enrich these companies by driving traffic to them?

Chad McCullough Jan 2

@PedestrianError 💯 @nk

PedestrianError

@cmccullough @nk Also, some people have been banned from these platforms on the petty whims of the owners/management. Should someone who got kicked off Twitter for calling Musk "cis" be denied access to emergency information from their city during a disaster? How about a domestic violence survivor who got banned from Facebook for not using her real name because doing so could have gotten her murdered?

Chad McCullough Jan 2

@PedestrianError Exactly!

@nk

@cmccullough Whose base?

@cmccullough Somes I feel like submitting individual FOI requests for each post made on Facebook just to make them realise an RSS or ActivityPub feed is required.

Amin, minor deity of the legume realm Jan 2

Polymaths.social has a very favorable ratio of people with personal websites to people without and I love it. <3

Chad McCullough Jan 2

@amin 👍️

MisterMaker Jan 2

@cmccullough Yeah, it's not like businesses do this for no reason.

Maybe we should have a government owned search engine like a digital phonebook but it's a websitebook, so we are not 100% stuck with big tech for our digital infrastructure.

Dimly Lit Corners Jan 2

@cmccullough with rss feeds for updates

@cmccullough THIS - I'm less likely to use your restaurant if your menu is a freaking photo of the menu, -1000 points if YOU haven't done it yourself and I need to search your photos to find one someone else has taken and tagged you in.

Diane Alicia Jan 2

@cmccullough Ditto for not conducting public policy and diplomacy through tweets (or whatever they're called these days).

Enola Knezevic Jan 2

@cmccullough Restaurants do have websites, but do not know how to update them, so they only post on Instagram that they are closed between Christmas and Epiphany! It is pretty difficult to read small text in a picture while refusing to install the Instagram app and create an account. The problem is, they do not update their opening hours on Google Maps (I know I know) or HappyCow. So I buy a bus ticket and travel to the suburbs just to find the restaurant closed.

What would be the solution? A simple FOSS CMS for restaurants? Hosting static sites is cheaper.

What would be a Fedi Tripadvisor equivalent?

Raul Portales Jan 2

@cmccullough bonus points if it uses RSS, I think it's time we claim that back

Johan K Sch Jan 2

@cmccullough …plus a non-deactivated RSS/Atom feed.

dexternemrod Jan 2

@cmccullough
Bonus points for #RSS feed instead of those annoying "Subscribe to our newsletter" overlays.

@KaraLG84 @cmccullough Also see restaurants with just a facebook/instagram page for their menu.

Judah Hansen Jan 2

@cmccullough Do this same thing with Mastodon instead of larger social media and see what happens

Kevin Ashworth Jan 2

@cmccullough @stevegrunwell Yes. Some prior, well-intentioned somebody set up traffic alerts / earthquake alerts / missing persons alerts on Twitter. But now you need to change that, dear city, you really do.

@cmccullough Yes please, build a website instead of only using social media, but include an Atom or RSS feed! Everything should also be available in a machine-readable format so interested people can subscribe to it.

I can remember a time when this was quite normal... *sigh*

I would take this a step further. make it good simple website, but also set up a physical posting board of information somewhere that I can walk up to on short notice (like if I bust up to some random restaurant and they've got some critical announcement to make about their business that I didn't see because I don't have a facebook account)

Raphael (he/him)Jan 2

@cmccullough having to search for a business on Instagram to confirm their hours drives me up the wall.

Shaun McDonald Jan 3

@cmccullough I spoke with a tile shop I was buying from about this as they dropped their website and I was worried they'd gone out of business. They took the view that they got few visits to their website and people shared the final tile install on Facebook, so better to be where people are sharing things.

Marcel Bootsman Jan 3

@cmccullough agreed!