kanesrealm

Anyone that regularly reads this blog knows that I have luke warm feelings about social media in general, particularly Facebook. We now know because of pressure from Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Mark Zuckerberg and his executives stonewalled and outright lied that they didn't know that false stories dressed up as news were being circulated on their platform during the 2016 U.S. Presidential campaign and that a fair amount was immenating from Russia and it's satellites, all at a profit to Facebook. There's a reason Mark Zuckerberg is a billionaire, aside from the grossly bloated value of Facebook's stock, the platform is now reaching two billion people worldwide and growing. Zuckerberg's mentor and original investor has sounded an alarm concerning Facebook's behavior and business model, he has been joined by a former Facebook manager and a former Google executive in saying that Facebook needs to clean up it's act. They are not alone, many in Silicon ...

Blogging is not the future of social media. The site you're currently on, as you know because you're savvy, is hosted by Blogger, the first and therefore oldest personal blogging forum on the internet. It was originally a start-up company consisting of those bold new entrepreneurs that saw the potential of what the internet could be. Google purchased Blogger a few years back, which irritated a number of people because they don't like Google. I truly don't get the anti Google sentiment because the reality is they are simply one player, a giant one, but one, of many that are engaged in the business of compiling data on everyone that clicks connect on whatever your device of choice happens to be. Ever hear of Facebook and their one billion users who happily live out their lives in full view? There are numerous blogging sites and I've experimented with a couple of them and I still prefer Blogger for it's simplicity. That simplicity and some limitations is why o...

I am returning to blogging. No, you're right, an explanation isn't required but I'm going to give you one. I tried, I really tried, but engaging in political dialogue on Facebook is pointless. When I reactivated my account I chose not to launch political statements from my homepage but I did try participating in other threads. In written dialogue, one person puts down their thoughts, the next person reads that person's thoughts, digests them and then responds directly on point, right? Not on Facebook. With only a few exceptions, I have found that what I write isn't being read, based upon the responses I often received which have nothing to do with what I said. My problem appears to be that I actually read what people write and respond to their words and that's not how it works. It's just random thoughts and in the case of active thread presenters, their main interest seems to be basking only in their own glory, which is fine but don't invite commenting ...

There's an elephant in the room. No it's not the Republicans or the pistachio elephant. I have returned to Facebook. To those who have noticed this I applaud your alertness. For those considering a rebuke and feeding me my own words, I must disclose that I have often eaten my own words and they are delicious. It would be disingenuous of me to disavow anything I have written about Facebook, to the contrary, I stand by every word I have written about that platform. A blog is a snapshot of thoughts in the moment and I only make adjustments when I get a fact wrong or a situation has evolved to unveil new facts. I never alter the original post, I acknowledge the mistake and set the record straight. There are no mistakes to correct on what I've written about Facebook. However, the break I took gave me an opportunity to reflect and conclude that my expectations of Facebook were too high. It can provide a sliver of engagement and pleasure if approached with a narrow lens and a di...

Only one person on the planet will get the complete meaning of the title of this commentary, he frequently has referred over the long years to my wearing of the dickhat, which means idiots piss me off and I show it. Today I abruptly left Facebook, oh yeah, I did. My page is still there but I'm not. Last week I purged my cellphone of the app and returned it to the factory setting and disabled said installed basic function. Can you believe that shit? Facebook is already jacked in when you get your phone, you can't wipe it out. I know a lot of people love Facebook, I don't and yet I have become hooked on repeatedly checking it on a daily basis and for what? I ask you, for fucking what? I created an account in July of 2016 and simultaneously created a Twitter account. I did these two things for one reason, to promote this blog. I had never been on Facebook and maintained I never would because of my belief it's a giant fake waste of time and in spite of it's top rankin...

In politics it's standard operating procedure to attack the media, if your back is to the wall just change the topic to the media is bad and dishonest. A free press is necessary for the survival of democracy but now more than ever people are turning from traditional news sources to websites that traffic in fantasy and conspiracy theories or radio personalities that simply echo what their audience wants to hear. Many are accepting these false stories as fact and not bothering to take the few minutes necessary to discover the truth. Case in point are the reports that a lot of Americans are getting their information from Facebook. In their news feed they read a truckload of fake stories and take it as fact. Your news feed on Facebook is not the news, it's what your "friends" are posting and sharing intermixed with advertising and fake news sites deliberately spreading misinformation. The founder of Facebook dismisses this by saying we're not a news site, which is a ...

Aesop, Grimm, Tolkien, Rowling and countless other writers have portrayed the ageless troll. Cute and diminutive to ugly and giant, no matter the demeanor, always entertaining. Our modern trolls on the other hand, are anything but entertaining. They don't have pink fuzzy hair and sit on the end of a pencil or ten feet tall with stone faces living in caves. They look just like you and me on the outside. On the inside they are filled with a poison that leaves a vitriolic poop trail all through the internet. These trolls live in cyberspace, a world that we spend more and more time in. There are mercenary trolls paid by corporations and governments to sow seeds of misinformation, discredit or frighten those who voice an opinion that is not liked or threatens to reveal something. Then there is the garden variety troll that just likes to walk through your little corner of the cyber world and wipe their ass all over your thoughts. They're not interested in constructive dialogue, they...

As regular readers know I've previously stated my lukewarm feelings about social media in general. I didn't bother to ever join Facebook because I thought it was a waste of time, for me. Other than connecting with family members, which I guess some people are into, though I can't imagine why. If I want to talk to my family, I don't, I'll call them. You're probably all members of Facebook so you know the basics. You have a homepage, your house in the cyber world. There you are free to post and share whatever you want or are you? On September 25, 2016 I shared a post from The Godless and Irreligious, a Facebook site, which was a meme depicting Christians burning people at the stake like Islamic fundementalists. This meme drew a vile and disrespectful attack on me on my own homepage by one of my Facebook "friends" who had never before communicated anything to me. I responded to his attack with a respectful response he certainly didn't deserve. He ha...