I'm trying to understand online social networks..

I made an account on x.com. I posted stuff, but nobody can see my posts. There was a message when I signed up that said the equivalent of "Your posts won't be seen by anyone because for all we know you might be a bot."

So I post stuff, but for what? Nobody sees my posts. It's not like a BBS, and maybe it's even worse than Facebook.

However, there's the elite. Posts from the elite are being seen. Even the elite that I respect like Megyn Kelly, I can see her posts.

But me? Nobody can see my posts on x.com. I guess I better go back to elitist school?

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Aaron Thomas wrote to All <=-

I made an account on x.com. I posted stuff, but nobody can see my
posts. There was a message when I signed up that said the equivalent of "Your posts won't be seen by anyone because for all we know you might
be a bot."

They have a big problem on X with bots inflating numbers. I swear I have to block at least 5 obvious bots "following" me every week.

Lunduke did some good videos about this (ex: https://rumble.com/v6zjkny-is-mainstream-tech-news-dead.html) recently.

So I post stuff, but for what? Nobody sees my posts. It's not like a
BBS, and maybe it's even worse than Facebook.

If no one follows you, then no one sees your posts anyway. That's just how X works.

However, there's the elite. Posts from the elite are being seen. Even
the elite that I respect like Megyn Kelly, I can see her posts.

That's because they have verified themselves to X. Usually by paying a monthly fee that's associated with a credit card.

But me? Nobody can see my posts on x.com. I guess I better go back to elitist school?

Anyone can be verified. You just can't do it for free. I'm certainly not L33t and I'm verified.


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They have a big problem on X with bots inflating numbers. I swear I
have to block at least 5 obvious bots "following" me every week.

Lunduke did some good videos about this (ex: https://rumble.com/v6zjkny-is-mainstream-tech-news-dead.html) recently.

I get it now. So it's sort of a contest. The more people who follow you, the more visibility you get, and the more valuable you are to advertisers. It makes sense, but I just don't like that system. There could be people with plenty of interesting things to say (or share) but nobody's going to hear or see them because they haven't proven themselves worthy to Jabba the Hutt yet.

However, there's the elite. Posts from the elite are being seen. Even the elite that I respect like Megyn Kelly, I can see her posts.

That's because they have verified themselves to X. Usually by paying a monthly fee that's associated with a credit card.

I appreciate you explaining all this. You're great at explaining things in a straightforward way. But doesn't it seem wrong for a great person like Megyn Kelly to have to pay to be heard?

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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

I get it now. So it's sort of a contest. The more people who follow
you, the more visibility you get, and the more valuable you are to advertisers. It makes sense, but I just don't like that system.

It's a holdover from newspapers, TV, radio, etc. They offer the media for "free" and sell the eyeballs to companies for advertisement to pay for it all. But that model is falling apart.

It fell apart for newspapers long ago. I stopped listening to TV and radio long ago, so I don't have a feel for how they are funding things anymore.

Online, too many people have workable ad blockers. Then there's the whole bot problem that inflates eyeball count.

Add into that the saying "If the service is free, YOU are the product." and people don't want their private information sold to others.

I think that we are moving toward a pay-for-play set up now on the Internet. No more free services (or free, but you are very restricted).

I appreciate you explaining all this. You're great at explaining things
in a straightforward way. But doesn't it seem wrong for a great person like Megyn Kelly to have to pay to be heard?

The alternative is a bunch of fakes claiming to be Megyn Kelly wanting you to hear them.

This is the same discussion we had a while back when email spam was getting really bad. People floated an idea to charge people per email. Like 5 cents. For the average person, that's about $1/month. But for a spammer, that's a big chunk of profit loss.


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Online, too many people have workable ad blockers. Then there's the
whole bot problem that inflates eyeball count.

I don't have all the answers, but I don't understand how a big company like X couldn't use agent-detection to block all headless browsers, with exceptions for legitimate ones. I'm probably overlooking something, but sometimes these big tech companies lie about things to get their way. For example: "Due to too much spam and bot activity, the only trusted email providers are Google and Microsoft."

I think that we are moving toward a pay-for-play set up now on the Internet. No more free services (or free, but you are very restricted).

This reminds me of my prior paragraph; "Due to bots and impostors, Facebook now has no choice but to charge $5 per month to safeguard the platform." The kind of people who they want on their platform will walk right into that.

I appreciate you explaining all this. You're great at explaining thin in a straightforward way. But doesn't it seem wrong for a great perso like Megyn Kelly to have to pay to be heard?

The alternative is a bunch of fakes claiming to be Megyn Kelly wanting
you to hear them.

How does the verification work? Do they look at your photo ID? To me, that's the only way it could work. But they'd need to have access to government databases to check if the ID is legit.

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Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

I don't have all the answers, but I don't understand how a big company like X couldn't use agent-detection to block all headless browsers,
with exceptions for legitimate ones. I'm probably overlooking
something, but sometimes these big tech companies lie about things to
get their way. For example: "Due to too much spam and bot activity, the only trusted email providers are Google and Microsoft."

You might benefit from some of Bruce Schneier's books. He goes in depth on topics like this.

But at a high level: A defender has to defend against all attacks. While an attacker only needs to perform 1 kind of attack.

So X puts something in place to filter the bots. But then the people who control the bots figure out a way around that X hasn't figured out (and blocked) yet.

Then there's the "how will this change impact our legitimate users?" If that impact is very negative then they have to balance the negative bot impact with the negative user experience.

This reminds me of my prior paragraph; "Due to bots and impostors, Facebook now has no choice but to charge $5 per month to safeguard the platform." The kind of people who they want on their platform will walk right into that.

Maybe. $5/month is reasonable for most people. And Facebook can still offer stuff for free. ex: your posts are restricted to only people on your friend list.

How does the verification work? Do they look at your photo ID? To me, that's the only way it could work. But they'd need to have access to government databases to check if the ID is legit.

Right now, it's based on making it hard for bots, but not very hard for real users.

So the "verification" is simply a credit card. It's hard to get a fake credit card. And if the bot owners use their own card, it's easy to see that 100 accounts are all "verifying" with the same credit card.


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