mariafarrell

RE: https://mastodon.social/@SteveRudolfi/116279083767770070

If one definition of evil is its wanton destruction of everything that is good and whole in the world, then Google is an active agent of evil.

It is setting out to destroy the world wide web and steal the livelihood of everyone who builds and depends on the web.

I honestly don't know how to mobilise normies to care about and stop this evil. It probably seems too niche and incremental until it's too late.

Oh yeah, and in the UK an ex-Google exec is now running the BBC. . .

8:54amWeb
Show thread3rdi12h ago
@mariafarrell I don't understand why people use Google. It never gets you what you are looking for.
Show threadMacCruiskeen9h ago
@3rdi @mariafarrell Google spends a large amount of money every year to keep you from thinking about switching. Browsers stick the function in the back of the settings so you don't think about it. But don't assume it's just a Google problem. I mean would MS do this if they could? Sure. And the linked article mainly talks about the context of commercial websites, websites trying to sell you shit, which is what drives Google's ad money, so that seems fair. If Google just ruined the part of the web that's there to sell you shit, maybe we could live with that. But of course, eventually it will intrude everywhere.
Show threadFrancis Cook12h ago
@mariafarrell as an Ex-BBC (worker! never made it to SM1!) - it is very concerning... and sadly marks a near complete move from media to a tech firm which I think is wrong. Tech is a tool, not the raison d'etre.
Show threadmariafarrell10h ago
@dianshuo Yes. a category error. It just feels like such a fail-state and very now-in-the-UK decision to make. Aligned with making an ex amazon exec the chair of the competition authority. And the 'grown ups' doing it seem to think it's such a smart move, rather than an admission of abject failure and dereliction of their moral duty. It is demoralising that the exact same decisions US tech-worship are made under this government as the last.
Show threadConny Nasch11h ago
@mariafarrell "Whether and when they deploy it is a separate question, but the direction is unmistakable – your website may soon be optional." I hope never! However: "If there’s one insight we all need to focus on most, it’s this: your job is no longer to build a destination. It’s to build a parts library." 😒
Show threadmariafarrell10h ago
@connynasch I mean, it's not my effing "job" to build stuff for Google, let alone a parts library, because they don't bloody pay me!
Show threadConny Nasch7h ago
@mariafarrell I feel for you!
Show threadStage name Jay Peach11h ago
@mariafarrell FUCK GOOGLE! Use another search engine!
Show threadmariafarrell10h ago
@jaypeach53 I (have the means to) pay for Kagi and I really love it.
Show threadStage name Jay Peach10h ago
@mariafarrell idk, I use DuckDuckGo despite them using Bing data. Have been using DDG for about 5 years now. Started weaning myself off Google when they dropped the “Don’t Be Evil” motto. What’s a good video platform in the fediverse? YouTube is next.
Show threadmariafarrell10h ago

@jaypeach53 yes, I used ddg myself for a few years before switching largely to kagi. like you I don't love the bing connection but it's a decent free search engine, though now annoyingly you have to constantly repeat that you don't want AI "summaries", every few searches.

for non-youtube video, I can't remember just now the good alternatives, blame my middle-aged post-covid brain! but follow @_elena who's great on them (and much more).

Show threadJean-Sébastien Guay10h ago

@mariafarrell @jaypeach53 @_elena

Chiming in to say, there's a "no ai" version of DuckDuckGo. How long they'll keep it, no one knows, but you can set it up as a custom search engine and use it by default then.

Search string URL: https: // noai.duckduckgo.com /%s

Search suggestion API (optional): https: // ac.duckduckgo.com /ac/?q==%s&type=list

(remove spaces)

Show threadElena Rossini ⁂7h ago
@mariafarrell @jaypeach53 PeerTube maybe? Their search engine is here: https://sepiasearch.org
Sepia Search

A search engine of PeerTube videos, channels and playlists, developed by Framasoft

Sepia Search
Show threadMastodon Migration6h ago

@_elena @mariafarrell @jaypeach53

Feel like with no-AI DDG and Kagi you can live without Google search, but YouTube is a huge problem. There is just no other scale video alternative that isn't worse (TicTok, IG), so whenever they decide to move aggressively they can really lock down video comms. It is a major risk.

Already, you are asked to 'login' if you use annonymous browsers and VPNs. YouTube is a really big problem.

Show threadcwicseolfor5h ago
@mariafarrell @jaypeach53 @_elena Even paid users have to tell Kagi “no ai” over and over??! That feels like it would invalidate the whole value prop to me. (Or maybe I’m flashing back to “wait, why pay for fancy channels on cable only to have to sit through commercials,” because I’m just old enough for that.)
Show threadKathmandu5h ago

@cwicseolfor @mariafarrell @jaypeach53 @_elena

I put links on my browsers to noai.duckduckgo.com and that's saved me a lot of annoyance.

Show threadmariafarrell4h ago
@cwicseolfor no, if memory serves, kagi is ok about accepting my no-ai summary preference definitively. it's duckduckgo that is not.
Show threadRay McCarthy10h ago
@jaypeach53 @mariafarrell
Qwant isn't too bad.
Show threadMartin Wiesemann10h ago
@mariafarrell "Don't be evil" When they removed that from their company policies it was clear that this will end up badly.
Show threadKarsten Schmidt10h ago
@mariafarrell Yeah, I also just wrote about it earlier: https://mastodon.thi.ng/@toxi/116283811297850580
Karsten Schmidt (@[email protected])

"If there’s one insight we all need to focus on most, it’s this: your job is no longer to build a destination. It’s to build a parts library. And one that’s well documented so that when an AI agent re-assembles those parts for the human on the other side, the parts are put together in a way you wish to be represented. The web has always evolved in ways that reduced brand control over the user journey. Ads replaced organic rankings. Featured snippets replaced clicks. AI Overviews replaced visits. This patent is the logical next step in that progression. The question isn’t how to stop this from happening, it’s how to make sure your parts are the ones AI wants to work with." In short, this sounds like part of what the Semantic Web & Linked Data vision was about, also heavily based on autonomous software agents crawling, querying, extracting & re-assembling information on demand for a user. But the issue here is the plan to take Google's hyper-centralized and ubiquitous rent-seeking to whole new levels, pushing for the replacement of entire websites with essentially just machine readable repos of data/asset descriptors and then generating filtered/personalized/optimized websites on the fly, obviously for a more or less mandatory fee (not partaking likely ends up in invisibility)... It's component-driven and reactive design taken to its ice cold logical conclusion... Queue a whole new set of "industry standards" (agreements between the main AI companies), frameworks, breathless consultants and an economy for "agentic arbitration", "agentic SEO", heck even "agentic premium themes" etc. arising around this... An army of human and machine middlemen all just to mediate the biggest middleman of all! It's the on-demand, ephemeral realtime web we've always dreamed of! Zero permanence. Zero record/archive. Zero accountability. Zero shared reality. Zero leverage. (Ps. After 15+ years, maybe even https://schema.org will have its time of glory on the horizon as part of this all...) #AI #SemanticWeb #LinkedData #Google #WebDesign

Mastodon Glitch Edition
Show threadmariafarrell10h ago
@toxi oh this is fascinating and informative. thank you.
Show threadTock10h ago
@mariafarrell To me, this simplifies things:
-- Build for accessibility, not SEO. (Since 98% of SEO rules are Google's demands.)
-- Tell people that google.com now just searches Gemini, not the web. Use another search engine.
Show threadColeen Walter10h ago
@mariafarrell Normie herę. Also not an artist. Calling us normies is cutesy at best, pejorative at worst. Jargon further confuses and alienates people. It's not that people won't care. Hope my picture explains it better than my words.
Show threadEndlessMason7h ago
@coleenwalter @mariafarrell
I don't understand your comic - is the elitist is handing the protester a sign so they can protest against elitism?
Show threadColeen Walter7h ago
@EndlessMason @mariafarrell I’m definitely not an artist lol. I was trying to show how overwhelmed ordinary people feel - so much to care about and try to change. The person on the right is the less burdened (perhaps part of the tech community) handing their torch to us. My stick figure sketch was just how the original post made me feel.
Show threadEndlessMason6h ago

@coleenwalter @mariafarrell
I think, for this article and lots of the billionaire/tech media, you're just not in the target audience.

Maybe it's nice to know about this patent for pub trivia or something, but if you don't have a website that your income depends on then even expending the energy to read it then shrug it off is an over commitment.

There might be some "temp embarrassed millionaire" types who don't have a website that they need to rank to make money but still care about this but they're just fantasising.

Show threadEndlessMason3h ago

@coleenwalter @mariafarrell
Ah! The sign looks like it's protesting against jargon, that's why I misread it!

I think that's on me though.

Show threadColeen Walter3h ago
@EndlessMason @mariafarrell It’s ok. I’ll never be Banksy. Seriously though, the use of jargon can separate people who could be allies.
Show threadEndlessMason3h ago

@coleenwalter
I mean, you have to write for your audience.

I can't read a paper on genetics, especially if it's not aimed at "some dumbass on the internet" and that's ok actually. I'm sure somebody can do a science communication about it if the paper is really interesting

If I want to be in community with somebody about some computer bullshit I'm happy to get on a soap box and preach / explain / simplify / fable'ise but I don't think putting a restriction on every communication channel is a good decision either

I'm not saying the Bible should be in Latin, but I am saying that it's ok for there to be experts, and its ok for there to be teachers and its ok to ask somebody to explain stuff

Anti-inyellectialism isn't going to help anybody in the long run

Show threadRay McCarthy10h ago

@mariafarrell
Also someone from Meta in Ofcom?

You couldn't make it up.

Palantir (in the book controlled by Sauron and corrupted most that tried to use them) entwined in the State. Madness.

Certainly "blue" Labour and more right wing than Thatcher. They didn't win last time, it was more that the Tories lost.

Show threadluca9h ago
@mariafarrell There's nothing new, in dominant companies squashing anything else. With computer companies it was already the same with IBM, and then Microsoft and Apple, which still do the same today, along with the newcomers of the 2000s.
They all, always, prevaricated with the arrogance of those with money, adding from time to time the cosmetic appeal of open source funders, or bogus civil rights defenders.
Show threadPerkele9h ago

@mariafarrell Obviously this is horrible, evil and shit...

... but, I wonder if this sort of bullshittery just ends up splitting the internet. Normies consuming what google injects into their eyes and the others enjoying stuff like The Web Revival stuff.

After Discord started to make noises about the age verification stuff, I had enough, deleted my account, installed a IRC client, found a couple of nice servers and channels and I have been having a blast. There's so many people who do self hosting, have silly websites powered by solar panels that sometimes drop off because its cloudy, have stupid neocities websites with flame backgrounds and visitor counters. Wonderful stuff like that.

I've been thinking of building one of those early-mid 2000's forums. I miss those. I just need to learn how to do... everything.

For me, google can do whatever the fuck they want and the morons can follow them. I'll be in my little corner of the internet with people. Not in reddit with bots.

Show threadcwicseolfor5h ago
@ItsePerkele @mariafarrell That’s great for the above-average nerdy (I don’t even qualify, but I’m right there with you) re: online time and spaces, but all you have to do is look at the state of the US (or indeed the price of RAM) to understand why evil on the internet doesn’t stay on the internet. They’re not just coming for the internet, and once they’ve immiserated or impoverished them enough, they’re going to use those normies as jackboots.
Show threadPerkele5h ago

@cwicseolfor @mariafarrell

Well, I do have a backup plan. I have already scouted a spot in the middle of the wilderness, where I will build my log cabin and live there as a hermit.

... or die there as a short lived hermit. Both options are fine with me.

Show threadstony kark6h ago
@mariafarrell everyone with google on their resume should be tarred and feathered so we can always identify and avoid them
Show threadBob Tregilus6h ago
@mariafarrell Ya, saw that about an ex-google executive running the BBC--I'll be deleting that bookmark--but I didn't know about this new AI abomination. At the rate that the oligarchs are enshittifing everything I'll be able to experience what it was like with no Internet again before I die...and it will be nice.
Show threadKevin Russell3h ago

@mariafarrell

Get RID OF Starmer.

Show threadgrrl_aex2h ago
@mariafarrell