If you leave me a reply or include me in a conversation on Twitter, it’s unlikely you will receive a reply from me.
Do not take it personally. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m tired of the constant trolling and gaming of my Twitter interactions. I’m tired of expressing an unpopular opinion or refusing to go with the pack and being labeled a divider.
I’m tired of watching people act as apologists for people who do bad things. Really bad things. Criminally bad things. I am not speaking of interpersonal conflicts. I am talking about the exploitation of children. If that’s who people want to follow and defend, they have every right.
All of these things are perfectly acceptable behaviors online. But to me, they’re toxic, divisive, and an indication of a dying community.
Zach Green said the truth of his efforts would be revealed in the fruit borne of them. Division, dissent, and aggressive, ugly behavior is the fruit I see. But he was right. By their fruit you shall know them.
Enjoy. I have no interest in spending my time inhaling toxic interactivity. Life is too short.
Like I said, it’s me. Not you.
via How to become internet famous for $68 – Quartz
Swallow is a pure product of the Internet: a “speaker and thinker,” who specializes in “re-imagining self in the online age,” an apparent star of the prestigious TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) conference, and a hit at Austin’s annual art, technology and music event, South By South West (SXSW). His Wikipedia biography explains why: Swallow is “a Mexican-born, American motivational speaker, consultant, educator, and author, whose speeches and publications focus on understanding modern culture in the age of social networking, globally interconnected media, user generated content and the Internet,” who has “dedicated himself to helping others know more about how media and personality can be manipulated in the 21st Century.” Famous for its “neutral point of view,” Wikipedia also reports that Swallow’s opinions are controversial in some quarters, especially his prediction that “the disassociation of self would lead to a revision of the standard definition of Multiple Personality Disorder to include selves that only manifest in the online world.” He can be expected to take up this argument in his book, Self: Imaginary Identities in the Age of The Internet, due out later this year, something that his Wikipedia biography, his official web site (santiagoswallow.com) and his Twitter feed all confirm.
There’s just one thing about Santiago Swallow that you won’t easily find online: I made him up. Everything above is true. He really does have a Twitter feed with tens of thousands of followers, he really does have a Wikipedia biography, and he really does have an official web site. But he has never been to TED or South By South West and is not writing a book. I—or rather he—flat out lied about that. (Editor’s note: Santiago Swallow’s Twitter account was suspended after the publication of this piece.)
Go read the whole thing. For the low price of 68 bucks, thousands of followers and instant celebrity. Follow a few key accounts, and you’re good to go…lots of “cred” to go with the disguise.
Which is why Twitter is useless now.
Just received from a friend:
There is an on going and highly distributed, global attack on WordPress installations at every known web host to crack open admin accounts and inject various malicious scripts.
In a detailed analysis of the attack pattern it was found out that most of the attack was originating from CMSs (mostly wordpress). Further analysis revealed that the “admin” accounts had been compromised (in one form or the other) and malicious scripts were uploaded into the directories.
Today, this attack is happening at a global level and wordpress instances across hosting providers are being targeted. Since the attack is highly distributed in nature (most of the IP’s used are spoofed), it is making it difficult for us to block all malicious data.
This is the reason why some servers have gone down in recent days.
To ensure that your websites are secure and safeguarded from this attack, we recommend the following steps:
Read More…
I’ve heard about sites bending under the load, having admin panels disabled, and/or passwords cracked. Can’t recommend highly enough that anyone with a WordPress blog follow these instructions. At the very least, do a site backup, because I speak from experience when I say that failure to do that will cause you a lot of grief down the road.
