I am getting increasingly frustrated by the spread of such as Facebook and Twitter. I freely admit that I am speaking largely from a position of ignorance, as a non-user, but I am not a Luddite regarding things digital, having freely embraced computers, email, et al.
But. It concerns me that I’m getting the impression that there is a trend towards Facebook and Twitter becoming “gateways” to information. There was a conversation recently on the LEL thread about this and comments were made that if I chose to cut myself off by refusing to use modern “conveniences” (my wording) then I have only myself to blame if I am left out of the loop.
Fair comment I thought, perhaps I ought to make more of an effort. I decided against Facebook because I’d read too many horror stories about how the company is constantly seeking to mine information for commercial purposes and sets traps on its software where the default setting is total disclosure, and because the big danger as I understand it is from postings other people put up.
But I thought I’d take a look at Twitter. If the LEL team want a rapid communications medium, easier than email circulation, then I’d perhaps do my bit and subscribe to the LEL Twitter feed. I was encouraged in this by researching the site and learning that there’s an option described as “Fast Follow” for those like me who “want [to follow someone] but don’t want to sign up”.
That’s me I thought and followed the instructions to set myself up to “follow LEL2013” without joining and getting a log-in, etc.
Within a matter of minutes the spam started to arrive. “Here’s a hot Tweet from the Daily Telegraph” (absolutely nothing to do with LEL or cycling) with an option to send a Tweet back to stop receiving messages from this sender. I promptly attempted to reply with a “Stop” message and got the response “Oh - you have to be signed in to do that.” So I could do nothing without capitulating and signing up; I chose not to.
Over the next few days, I received a steady stream of annoying texts advising me of “hot tweets” from a variety of sources, none of which could be stopped without signing up.
I have no confidence that, if I sign up, there will be a global setting which I can choose so that I receive messages from only those senders I choose. If I can’t rely on the company properly to describe a service such as “Fast Follow” how can I rely on them not to lie about everything? It’s precisely this kind of duplicity that causes me to think my previous impressions were correct and that this stuff is best avoided. I have now withdrawn from Twitter. It remains to be seen whether or not they will leave me alone.