The Curmudgeon Speaks

My interest in the interaction of big tech, economic equity, and politics came late. I don’t think these sectors were always as interrelated and certainly not in terms of which sector influenced which sector. The rising political power of ultra-wealthy tech leaders has allowed these individuals and their companies to suck up ever more resources, alter government policies across a wide range of areas, shape public opinion on important topics through algorithms that bias the information people encounter, and increase income disparities. 

Here are the key connections:

Platform Power Becomes Political Power – In earlier phases of social media, platforms like Facebook or were seen primarily as communication tools. Increasingly, however, their leaders—such as Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg—are perceived as political actors.

This shift occurs because:

• Platforms shape what information people see (algorithmic curation)
• Leaders publicly intervene in political debates

Users begin to see platforms not as neutral infrastructure, but as ideologically influenced spaces.

Perceived Capture of the Public Sphere – As tech leaders accumulate wealth and influence, critics argue that a small number of individuals effectively control large portions of the digital public sphere.

This creates concerns about:

• Agenda-setting power (what trends, what is visible)
• Influence over elections and public opinion
• Lack of democratic accountability

Trust Erosion and Motivated Migration – When platform governance becomes visibly tied to the values or actions of specific leaders, users respond based on their own political orientations.

Examples of user reactions:

• Perception that a platform has become too permissive or too restrictive
• Concerns about misinformation or censorship

This leads to migration toward alternatives such as:

• Mastodon (federated, community-run servers)
• Bluesky (protocol-based, aiming for user control)
• Niche or ideologically aligned platforms

Reaction Against Wealth Concentration – The visibility of extreme wealth among tech leaders contributes to a broader cultural critique:

• Concerns about inequality
• Suspicion of motives (profit vs public good)
• Fear of unregulated influence

My focus here is on Meta and, more specifically, Instagram. Books critical of Big Tech (e.g., Wu – The curse of bigness, Klobuchar – Antitrust) also use Instagram as an example of what the authors argue should have been an acquisition by a large company to limit competition. 

Instagram is an example of Meta’s strategy of acquiring or creating products to directly compete with offerings from competitors. 

• Facebook: Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and others
• Instagram: Acquired in 2012 for $1 billion, this is a photo and video-sharing app.
• WhatsApp: Purchased in 2014 for roughly $19 billion. This is a primary messaging service
• Messenger: Evolved from the acquisition of Beluga in 2011. This is a messaging platform.
• Threads: Launched in 2023 to compete with X (formerly Twitter).

Instagram

Instagram has been the undisputed king of social photo sharing, but it has increasingly transitioned from a simple community for photographers into a commercialized labyrinth of algorithmic feeds, intrusive advertisements, and aggressive data harvesting. 

META has modified Instagram to fit its more commercial approach.

• More “recommended” content (and less purely follower content). 
• More commercial content inside normal browsing – ads that resemble organic posts.
• Feed relies on an algorithm that does prioritize friends and family, but also posts related to your past behavior and posts that have generally been more popular. 

Why Pixelfed?

Pixelfed is a free photo-sharing platform that looks and feels remarkably familiar to longtime Instagram users. It offers a clean, visual-centric interface where you can upload photos, apply filters, create stories, and organize your work into collections. However, the similarities end at the surface level. Pixelfed is a decentralized, open-source project designed to return control of the social experience to the users themselves.

Unlike Instagram, which is owned by a single corporation (Meta), Pixelfed is part of what is known as the “Fediverse.” This is a global network of independent servers that can all communicate with one another using a standardized protocol called ActivityPub. You may already be familiar with Mastodon, which takes a federated approach and is much like X, just as Pixelfed is similar to Instagram (see following image). 

Here’s a clear breakdown of what Pixelfed includes:

Core social media services

• Photo & video sharing – Post images (and short videos).
• Stories – Temporary posts that disappear after 24 hours.
• Comments, likes, replies – Standard social interaction tools  
• Collections/albums – Organize posts into curated sets 

Multiple feeds

• Home feed – Posts from accounts you follow
• Local feed – Content from your specific server/community
• Global feed – Content from across the wider network (Fediverse)

Content tools

• Photo filters & editing tools 
• Hashtags and geotagging for organization and discovery  
• Profile customization 
• Direct messaging (Pixelfed Direct)  

How Does Pixelfed Work?

When you join Pixelfed, you choose an “instance” (a server) to host your account. There are many different instances to choose from, often centered around specific interests, languages, or geographic regions. Once you have an account on one instance, you can follow, interact with, and share photos with users on any other Pixelfed instance worldwide. You can even interact with users on other Fediverse platforms like Mastodon, meaning your social reach isn’t confined to a single instance or platform.

Because Pixelfed is decentralized, there is no central authority that owns your data. Each instance is run by individual administrators or community groups, and because the software is open-source, the code is transparent. This structure ensures that the platform remains focused on the community rather than profit.

Why Choose Pixelfed Over Instagram?

The most immediate benefits of switching to Pixelfed are independence and the opportunity to contribute to diversifying social media. There is also the complete absence of advertisements. In the Fediverse, there are no sponsored posts cluttering your feed or algorithms trying to guess what product you might buy next. Your feed is strictly chronological, showing you the content from the people you actually chose to follow in the order they posted it. This restores a sense of “social” back to social media, allowing for genuine discovery and connection without digital manipulation.

Privacy is another cornerstone of the Pixelfed experience. Instagram’s business model relies on tracking your behavior across the web to build a profile for advertisers. Pixelfed does none of this. There are no third-party trackers, and the platform doesn’t sell your personal information. You own your content, and you have much finer control over who sees it.

Furthermore, Pixelfed is a haven for photographers and artists who are tired of their work being compressed or buried by “Reels” and video-first algorithms. Pixelfed remains a photography-first platform, respecting the craft and the community of visual creators. It supports high-quality uploads and provides a space where an image can stand on its own merit without needing to be part of a viral trend. 

To be honest, I do continue to use Instagram because this is where my family shares photos. I use Facebook to comment on political issues because that seems to be where the broadest audience is for such discussions. I consider my decisions a matter of being realistic. My personally creative content – photos, comments on topics of professional interest – goes elsewhere.

By moving to Pixelfed, you are not just choosing a new app; you are supporting a more democratic, private, and creative version of the internet. It is a return to a time when social media was about sharing a beautiful moment with friends, rather than serving an algorithm. If you are ready to take back your digital life and see photography through a clearer lens, Pixelfed is waiting for you.

It takes very little to get started if you have already used Instagram. 

Connecting

To join Pixelfed, you need to join one of the instances. I would suggest you join Pixelfed.social which is the original instance, but when I checked today, the registration page was not available. This may mean the operator has decided his equipment has reached capacity. The link posted here lists many instances and the process works the same – you use the link to connect, select the join button, and complete the registration request. After you gain some experience, you might explore other instances and it is not unusual to be a member of several. Remember, you can follow individuals from other instances, and their posts will appear in your feed.

 We participated in today’s No Kings protest. Lots of people. Lots of clever signs. “No Kings in Princeville (HI)” was mine, but I thought of it during the event and not in time to make a sign. It was an older crowd I suppose, because it draws not only from the small hamlet, but from those of us who spend some of the winter in the surrounding rental properties. 

This week the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced that it was ending the “endangerment finding”. The endangerment finding under the Clean Air Act found that greenhouse gases posed a danger to health. Based on this finding, the EPA had the authority to take reasonable steps to reduce the harmful gases produced by human activity. As a consequence of rejecting this finding, emission standards for cars and trucks and expectations of power plants and oil and gas facilities are deemed unnecessary.

This action is similar to other decisions that appear more related to degrading rather than enhancing the mission of other government agencies (e.g., appointment of Linda McMahon as head of the Department of Education and Robert Kennedy Jr. to Health and Human Services). What bothers me about the EPS decision is the assumption that you can simply declare scientific findings faulty. What happened to facts?

I have always found it useful to differentiate values and facts.

Examples of Values:

• Citizens have a responsibility to support those who have fewer advantages
• The ultra-wealthy pay more in taxes
• Immigrants are more of an oppportunity thabn a burden for this country
• The decision to carry a fetus to term should be made by the woman carrying that fetus 

Examples of Facts: 

• Cigarettes increase the probability of cancers
• Man’s activities have led to a deterioration in the quality of the atmosphere

Issues are never completely fact or value, but to a large degree, this distinction seems useful and legitimate. For me, it follows that you can argue values with some arguments being more effective than others, but you don’t argue facts. If you dispute facts, you need to marshal credible evidence based on accepted methodologies. Claiming you reject facts marks you as naive and ignorant. Disputing values seems more a function of character and personal priorities. I can certainly dispute your character and priorities based on your values, but the arbiter in such challenges would seem to be the opinions of others, not evidence or methodologies. 

Why do some reject facts?

This is the topic I find most puzzling. Working in a science, I have lots of experience with differences of opinion. However, such disputes tended to come down to differences in the methodologies producing data that appeared to point to different facts. Science is about replication and multiple methods leading to similar conclusions. Facts equal data and interpretations tend to coalesce. 

What about the acceptance of facts by the general public? At some level, this is what is most important. The potential to use facts in daily decision-making has become such an important issue. Do people make decisions that seem illogical and poorly informed because they are ignorant or just don’t care? Do people not make the distinction I make between values and facts?

Climate change – a case study

I began this post noting the Trump administration rejection of the reality of climate change. I happen to be reading a study in Nature that focused on public acceptance of climate change. The study analyzed public behavior on X (Twitter) to identify characteristics associated with climate change deniers and estimated that 14% of X users were deniers. This compares with estimates from other studies putting this characteristic at between 12 and 26%. 

This study found the following characteristics to be associated with the denial of human behavior’s responsibility for climate change.

Economic Dependence: Communities that rely on fossil fuel industries are more likely to exhibit denialism, likely due to economic interests that conflict with climate action. Areas of the country that have related industries stand out on a map showing refusal to accept climate change. 

Education Levels: There is a strong correlation between lower educational attainment and skepticism toward climate science. This suggests that access to quality education and critical thinking skills plays a significant role in shaping public attitudes toward climate issues.

Social Media Influence: The role of social media in propagating denialist beliefs cannot be overlooked. Key influencers use these platforms to spread misinformation, which can significantly skew public perception.

Mistrust in Science: A general skepticism of science is prevalent among climate change deniers, which is often reflected in broader attitudes toward other scientific issues, such as COVID-19 vaccination rates. This mistrust can lead to a general rejection of science-based public policies.

Cognitive Biases: Many deniers use logical fallacies, such as cherry-picking data or arguing from isolated weather events, to dismiss the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change.

Some of these topics seem relevant to action. In general, making information on scientific findings and the process of science available seems important. Formal education is part of this, but also social media which more and more is treated as informative by so many must be an area of emphasis.

I do wonder about science not only being lost in the firehose of online media, but also the politicization of science denial. The cluster of anti-science issues identified in this article is especially troubling. Those who reject the value of vaccinations are also the same folks denying the reality of climate change with the roots of this generalized reaction having strong political overtones, which partly seems a function of the rejection of expertise. Some politicians have found a way to characterize expertise as a  “these folks think they are better than you” attitude with the suggestion that your common sense knowledge is more practical. People can be easy to manipulate when you appeal to their sense of self-worth. I believe formal education provides a window into individual differences in expertise and the reality that some know more about some things than we do. This seems obvious, but beyond calling out the political manipulation tactic I have little to recommend. 

We talked with son Todd yesterday and he was describing how recent events in Minneapolis/St Paul have made him homesick. His family lived in South Minneapolis and he had what he called a one-step removed familiarity with both shooting victims (Good and Pretti). Todd is a big bike guy and frequented a bike-and-coffee shop called the Angry Catfish to talk bikes, enjoy coffee, and get some work done. Alex Pretti did the same thing. Bike clubs around the country are now engaged in rides to honor Alex Pretti.

 Yesterday had to be an extremely difficult day for many. A second protester was shot and killed by Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis. After the initial explanations by President Trump and other government officials, multiple videos from bystanders began to surface, proving their careless, self-protecting explanations wrong. The victim was shot multiple times in the back while pinned to the ground by multiple federal agents. Those protesting ICE and the aggressive tactics resulting in physical violence, home invasions, and false arrests of citizens of color while searching for undocumented immigrants have enraged the Twin Cities residents, and the cycle of protests and government aggression will likely only accelerate.

We left for Kauai just as the protests had begun, but our kids are still there, dealing with school and business closures and the general chaos. They participate in the protests to the extent they can and share our feelings about what is going on. As working citizens and with kids they are more directly impacted than we are. You cannot escape this reality. 

We were driving through Kapaa yesterday and came across a sight that we found quite encouraging. A small group of maybe 8-9 people were holding their own protest opposing the government invasion in the Twin Cities. This small group of people were expressing their displeasure with the behavior of their government, thousands of miles away from where things were happening. They were standing in shorts and colored shirts in 70-degree heat, while those in Minneapolis were doing the same in gloves, parkas, and heavy boots. Cindy shouted that we were from Minneapolis as we drove past, and someone shouted “we love you” back. Mahalo for that.

Such is just showing up and doing what you can. 

I started to write this post, which I guess is a product endorsement, and realized that “ice” has taken on a very different meaning for those of us who live in Minnesota. For those who might happen on this post in a few years, now is the period when Minnesota has been invaded by government troops referred to as ICE, who are here to locate and capture “illegals”. The aggressive behavior of these agents in indiscriminately grabbing random people of color has enraged the neighbors of those so captured, resulting in an escalation of aggression and resistance.

Anyway, the more common ice has always been a feature of Minnesota winters. This winter has been particularly bad, with rain and snow falling near freezing. Maintainance crews have been unable to keep up and after the public driving on the streets you get glare ice that seems very difficult to get rid of. One more factor – we don’t have sidewalks in our suburb so walking becomes treacherous,

I do like to walk, so I get some exercise when the temps are moderate or the winds are calm, and so I purchased Ice Bugs mostly out of desperation. What a great product and I move feeling very steady with no fear of falling and breaking a hip or whatever tends to happen to people of my age.

The secret to these shoes are this tiny spikes. The traction that results is amazing and I sometimes walk across a local hockey rink just because I can. The one issue I wonder about is what happens when you enter a building and walk on the floors. I love walking to or from coffee shops, but can’t bring myself to enter, as I am unsure what my boots would do to the floors. The studs are seated in a soft material and are supposed to prevent floor damage, but I would think it would be difficult not to scratch wood if your steps do not move up and down perfectly.

I acknowledge that I temporarily violated the Huxe Terms of Service in a recent post. Yes, I failed to read the TOS when I set up my account, but this is hardly uncommon. My violation was posting a link to content I created, even though sharing is not allowed.

Huxe is a new tool that enables AI-generated podcasts. At least this would be one way to describe the product. You identify sources or offer a prompt that sets a goal and you then have access to podcasts based on these designations. In addition, Huxe allows a user to interrupt a podcast and ask a question about the content – a very cool feature. 

My attempt to include a link to my creation, and my intent to record the audio as an example for those who had not created an account, was quite innocent. I made assumptions based on what I saw on my screen. There was a way to change my creation from private to public and the button to share the link to the creation. How would you interpret these signals? 

I discovered my transgression when I could not remember the process I had used to share my example and asked some AI sources to describe the sharing process. The second effort brought a response that sharing of this material was not allowed.

The first effort, which was a Google search that returned its AI summary before the links, not only indicated that sharing was legal but also provided a source for this claim. I checked the link, and ironically, the source was my original post, which included the offending link.

A couple of thoughts, I had always assumed that AI-generated content, being a summarization, was not protected by copyright. Perhaps the Huxe expectation is based on the “use of” rather than on the content itself. You cannot access the content without using the service, which seems to be the justification. I do think it somewhat ironic that, in comparison, the use of my content in a response created by AI without my consent would be acceptable. Something seems off in this combination.

I removed the shared example to resolve the issue, but the claim in Google’s response to my query did not change. This adjustment may take some time.

Actions taken in response to the recent tragedy involving the murder of National Guardsman (actually a woman) by an immigrant from Afghanistan fits the classic problem of anecdotal thinking. This limitation in human cognition is common, but the manipulation of humans because of this limitation can be quite sinister.

Trump’s reaction to this tragedy reminds me of an example of flawed thinking commonly taught in Introduction to Psychology. I call it “anecdotal reasoning”. It is something we all do in daily life when we use an example to illustrate a claim we want to make. The problem with anecdotal reasoning is that it presents a limitation of generalization. Many of the claims about immigrants fit this problem and the present case represents a perfect example. The anecdote is atypical. Immigrant crime is lower in general than crime committed by citizens. However this is explained – immigrants have more to lose, immigrants are better people, etc. – is not relevant here. The fact is this is a fact. To make a case for a general strategy using a limited number of cases or a single case is not logical and if done purposefully because people easily fall for this weak type of thinking, manipulative and in some cases immoral. Muslims, those practicing or simply those from Muslim countries, do come from a different culture, but differences are also true of Americans in general. Rather than see this tragedy as a sign of some weird sleeper cell espionage conspiracy, start from the most likely scenario until proven otherwise. This seems to me to be a suicide by cop attack based on mental health issues or perceptions of betrayal and powerlessness. If you and yours are lucky enough to avoid these life challenges, you are not special, you are privileged.

Concerns about AI often seem abstract and distant. This seems the case with AI and job loss. We understand the reality, but we lack the personal connections that are often required to motivate people to consider and pursue related actions.

I have realized I am a participant in the problem if only as a consumer. I have been a blogger for years and at some point I was told that you should include some type of image in your posts to make them more interesting. I have limited artistic ability beyond photography so to include some type of imagery in some of my posts I resorted to purchasing clipart. I used a service called the Noun Project. At the time, I think I paid $20 a year to select images from the giant Noun Project database and use them in my posts. The company name indicated how the process worked. You would enter a simple request and this request would bring up options you might select. For example, I might enter “classroom computers” to find examples the creators had tagged with that phrase. An example from one of my old posts follows. For years, I used such images in my posts and classroom lecture slides. Those contributing images received a small amount each time one of their images was selected.

Now with AI tools (e.g., Nano Banana) you don’t see many graphics of this type anymore. You can access such tools for no cost if you are not a heavy user or as part of a paid account if you are a constant AI user. The sophistication and flexibility is so much greater and the images are far superior (see following image from a recent post). 

Somewhere, there are graphic artists who no longer have the income the Noun Project provided. 

I saw these swans while driving yesterday. They were confined to feed in a small area of open water surrounded by ice. I thought swans migrated and my Internet search says they do when necessary. It looks like necessary is closing in.