In this episode, Ian and Ash delve into the evolving landscape of social media, examining the implications of TikTok's potential ban in the U.S., the integration of AI in testing, and the shifting dynamics of platforms like Twitter (now X). They share personal anecdotes, discuss the significance of data privacy, and explore the future of social media engagement. The conversation also considers the challenges and opportunities presented by these digital shifts, offering insights into the broader tech community's response.
You can find our social media links (or link, in the case of Ash) on the website.
Chapters
Forgotten Announcements
Remembered Annoucement
Thing One – Tiktok
Agile Intermission
Thing Two – X
The End Bit
In this episode, Ian and Ash delve into the evolving landscape of social media, examining the implications of TikTok's potential ban in the U.S., the integration of AI in testing, and the shifting dynamics of platforms like Twitter (now X). They share personal anecdotes, discuss the significance of data privacy, and explore the future of social media engagement. The conversation also considers the challenges and opportunities presented by these digital shifts, offering insights into the broader tech community's response.
You can find our social media links (or link, in the case of Ash) on the website.
Creators & Guests
Host
Ash Winter
Tester and international speaker, loves to talk about testability. Along with a number of other community minded souls, one of the co-organisers of the Leeds Testing Atelier. Also co-author of the Team Guide to Software Testability.
Host
Ian Smith
Happiest when making stuff or making people laugh. Tech, and Design Thinking. Works as a fractional CTO, Innovation leader and occasionally an AI or web developer through my company, craftscale. I'm a FRSA.
What is What A Lot Of Things: Tech talk from a human perspective?
Ash and Ian talk about interesting Things from the tech industry that are on their minds.
Ian:
We got very lucky.
Ash:
You don't always get lucky with such things.
Ian:
The number of episodes we've rerecorded is still an embarrassment to me. Even though
Ash:
it's only 2 or 3.
Ian:
Yeah. But it's mortifying.
Ash:
Yeah. Do you take it as like a personal failure?
Ian:
Yes. I have to go and flagellate myself in a corner. Mhmm.
Ash:
See, I don't. I I just I just must just put it down to you and then just move on.
Ian:
Yeah. I suppose. Fair enough.
Ash:
It's a fair cop.
Ian:
...the worst case is we can include some of our whimsical yet eccentric
Ash:
Well, it's often that you think, have I got any announcements? And then you rack your brains and you can't think of any.
Ian:
Not until afterwards.
Ash:
Yeah. Exactly.
Ian:
That's when most announcements may be thought of.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. But, actually, there generally is. I guess it's like the the question, what have you been up to recently? And you say nothing, really.
Ash:
But that's never true, is it?
Ian:
Go to work. Coming home. Go to work. Coming home. Go to work.
Ian:
Coming home. Go to work. Coming home.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Or just staying at home.
Ian:
Yeah. Working at home, stopping working. Working at home, it's it's not quite the same cadence, does it? Yeah.
Ash:
Well, I don't mind announcing that come the end of April, I'm gonna be a a free... a free person again.
Ian:
No longer a number?
Ash:
No longer a number. No longer a number in a company. So I get to return to my feckless ways.
Ian:
Excellent.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Full time employment may not be for me. I like employment, but probably under my own terms rather than someone else's terms is where I'm leaning at the moment.
Ian:
Well, now is our opportunity to say, after May, give Ash money, people, and he'll come and do wonderful things for you. I won't specify what they are because, obviously, it's not for me to say, but I know they'll be wonderful. No comment on
Ash:
that. No. No. Well, you know, life being what it is, Bond's record is sometimes sketchy. I'll try my best.
Ian:
Well, no one's paying you for your jokes, so you'll be fine.
Ash:
No. No.
Ian:
That's true. Wisdom on quality.
Ash:
If you want quality related services, I'm not the person for you. If you want testing related services, then I am the person for you.
Ian:
So what's the difference?
Ash:
Well, testing can't you know, no one can assure quality on their own, can they?
Ian:
Well, I suppose you're right, because they might discover they have to change something, and then they'd be doing something different.
Ash:
Yeah. Exactly. So that, you know, we should break the link between testing and quality assurance. I think quality assurance is more of a team sport.
Ian:
And while we're pressing Ash's button, I'm tempted to ask how much testing is enough.
Ash:
Well, that that has an easy answer. Testing there is no enough testing. Testing can only stop, and I can stop whenever you want me to. If you just say stop, I'll tell you what I have covered, what I haven't covered, and what risks still remain, And then I'll, I don't know, go to the pub.
Ian:
It's almost like leave you to make a decision. It's almost, Ash, like, you've said these words before.
Ash:
Uh-huh.
Ian:
They were very fluent. Uh-huh. It was very fluent.
Ash:
Uh-huh. That that previous, previous role, they said I was the equivalent of a testing game show host.
Ian:
And you've actually been a testing game show host.
Ash:
I have been a testing game show host in the past. Yes. And I can just trot out the cliches about testing at will.
Ian:
At will. Yes. No further thought required.
Ash:
No. So I think the quality engineering angle is one for another episode, because there's a lot there.
Ian:
Is that a thing?
Ash:
I think that's a thing.
Ian:
We we can't talk about things until we talk about the things.
Ash:
Yeah. Exactly.
Ian:
So I think you're right.
Ash:
So and a qual if we did a quality engineering thing for for this episode, then it would just be me with a tirade, a very long internal monologue about the the problems with quality engineering.
Ian:
Don't you mean a very long insufficiently internal monologue?
Ash:
External internal monologue. Yeah. But back with the external internal monologues again.
Ian:
The old jokes are the best.
Ash:
Please see episode 3 probably, something like that.
Ian:
Yes. Which was so long ago that we we chipped it into stone tablets.
Ash:
I think it was Ian's external internal monologue on, artificial intelligence.
Ian:
That sounds like the kind of thing I would have an external internal monologue on.
Ash:
Yeah. Oh, the other things. Well, to back up the point of when you say, what have you been up to recently? You say nothing much and it never being true. Yes.
Ash:
I've been doing the 30 days of AI in testing by the Ministry of Test. Oh. So it's lots of interesting exercises around how you can use, AI in your testing work, plus how AI influences your testing work. So it's very, very thoughtful stuff.
Ian:
So there's no how to test AI?
Ash:
No. No.
Ian:
Is that a thing, or is that just the same as testing everything else?
Ash:
Well, actually, that that I've just told you a complete lie. There is. There was a couple of sessions of there was a couple of talks by testers who were who are actively involved with testing generative AI, and they talked about how they how they did it. So that was it has a bit I would I would say it's more using AI for testing, but it's somewhat testing of AI as well.
Ian:
So we've had some bold claims in the past about using AI for testing, haven't we?
Ash:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Quality engineering. There were
Ian:
some companies coming along with significant claims Yeah. And employing significant people who then left.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. There's been some really interesting bits. There's been I tested the postman, which is an API testing an API building application.
Ian:
Not the person delivering
Ash:
Not the person delivering
Ian:
the mail.
Ash:
And they they have post bot, which, you know, fits quite nicely, doesn't it? Yeah. It's a nice little icon and everything. And while using it to generate tests and documentation and assertions and things like that, found some pretty interesting behaviors, bugs, weird ways that it didn't really explain what it was doing and did it anyway. So it kind of, like, lent into the problems of, like, lack of transparency of how a model is doing what it's doing.
Ash:
Yeah. So I think that's been one of the things that's really struck me. Also, the other thing that I've been doing is looking into prompt engineering and how to do it well and how to structure them and how to ask in the right way. And that's been really cool, and it's actually improved how I interact with Claude.
Ian:
I'm liking new Claude. New Claude.
Ash:
It's actually improved how I interact with Claude on a regular basis. So, yeah, it's been really cool to dig into it a bit deeper.
Ian:
I suspect we've got more to say about AI even though we already just talked about it last time.
Ash:
We could do it every episode, but
Ian:
Yes.
Ash:
There are other things that we want to talk about.
Ian:
Invite chat GPT to come on as a guest. I'm trying to think if I've been doing anything interesting recently, but I've been doing
Ash:
You can't answer that question.
Ian:
Lots of things that were interesting, but they're all basically to do with AI And going on a diet, that that was quite interesting to me because I quite like to be thin. But, you know, that seems a bit off topic.
Ash:
You're trying to turn your son into a developer as well?
Ian:
Yes. I am. Well, to be fair, he wants to turn into 1, so I'm not doing that parental thing of showing
Ash:
For a course, you
Ian:
must be in my own image. Try to avoid that.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Things. Things.
Ash:
I think it's my turn to talk about a thing first this time.
Ian:
So, Ash, what is your thing?
Ash:
So my thing this this time is about TikTok. And in the US, a bill has been passed, I believe. Yeah. When I first wrote the notes, it was still being talked about, but now it's I think it's actually been passed to say TikTok must either sell itself or ByteDance, the parent company, must sell TikTok to a US entity, or, they will effectively be banned from operating in the United States. So
Ian:
So are you on TikTok?
Ash:
I'm not on TikTok. Full disclosure, I'm terrified of TikTok.
Ian:
I I'm very disappointed, Ash, because I was hoping I could sign on to TikTok and see some funny dances that you
Ash:
might what it's for?
Ian:
Well
Ash:
I thought it was a gigantic data hoover.
Ian:
Yeah. I think it probably is, to be fair.
Ash:
Should I say Hoover or vacuum cleaner?
Ian:
I think
Ash:
because Hoover is a brand name, isn't it?
Ian:
Yes. It is. So And until they sponsor us
Ash:
Weirdest sponsor ever.
Ian:
Until they sponsor us for no apparent reason, they can just do without their name being mentioned.
Ash:
So TikTok has been, in my mind, well, not enough to actually sign up to the service, but in my mind for quite a long time since I read a post about, like, its proclivities for gathering your data, and it's, like, wild insecurities as well.
Ian:
I I think I also read that post because I have a clear memory of feeling that same feeling that you're describing and deleting the app.
Ash:
Yeah. So at that point, whatever lingering desire I ever had to install TikTok was then absolutely it scared the bejesus out of me, and I was like, no. I'm I'm never going to install that application.
Ian:
I think it's a bit redundant now, isn't it? Doesn't everybody automatically, record all of their TikTok content also onto Facebook reels and YouTube shorts?
Ash:
Right. And Vines. Do you remember Vines?
Ian:
I liked Vines. I made some Vines. Yeah. And
Ash:
where it all started?
Ian:
Yeah. Possibly. They were real short though, weren't they?
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. So to me, the big question is around the, like, the the fears around the why this vote has happened, as in ByteDance are a Chinese company.
Ian:
Mhmm.
Ash:
And TikTok is an enormous data vacuum cleaner. So the the the worry, whether founded or unfounded, is that data would make its way from the United States and be, you know, used in China for whatever purposes they believe it might be used to sort of threaten national security. But from what I've read, there doesn't seem to be any evidence that this has happened. Although, apparently, some data is, for, like, content moderation purposes is shipped to China. Is it accessible from China?
Ash:
Mhmm. So there are it's a slightly murky one. The more you read, the more it kind of contradicts itself a little. Because to me, there's like a few levels going on. You've got, like, the national security bit, then you've got a very low level, like, personal Yeah.
Ash:
Security Exactly. Yeah. Personal privacy aspect to it as well. So there's something sort of slightly dark to me about TikTok, or maybe dark is the wrong word. Maybe it's like, opaque about what it's really for.
Ian:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the data thing is is interesting. And I was I we'll find that article somewhere. We'll try and find it and link it in the show notes because it really was very sobering to think, you know, the amount of stuff they were collecting.
Ian:
And Apple, particularly on iPhones and stuff, tries to manage what data things have got access to, and they have to declare the data they they use. And even their declaration is alarmingly long. Yeah. But, even if it weren't, the the even if it weren't so long, they I mean, they were collecting things they're just not allowed to collect at the time of that article. I imagine Apple has closed more and more loopholes at the time.
Ian:
And I'm sure that the similar sort of process is happening on on on Android via Google Yeah. Process. But, yeah, it's it's extremely invasive and intrusive.
Ash:
Yeah. So here it says, a quote from one of the articles that we'll we'll link, TikTok collects personally identifiable information that includes user's name, age, email, phone number, social media account information, collects digital data, such as payment methods associated with transactions, social network contacts, IP addresses, geolocation data, and device information, and it collects biometric identifiers and biometric information, including face prints and voice prints from uploaded user content. So that list is is is scary to me.
Ian:
I I think this is quite similar to what Meta has I think that the obvious key difference is that it's a foreign country that doesn't share our values.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Therein lies the contradiction, isn't it, about the about the vote itself? It's like, well, actually, there's probably plenty of US, companies who do something very, very similar. I might say Meta being one of them, but the fact is that it's a it's a it's a foreign power, which, not on the greatest of terms with, makes it a very different proposition.
Ash:
That's the other layer that we all, especially as technologists, we feel a bit embarrassed when you watch, like, those hearings.
Ian:
Oh, yeah.
Ash:
Yeah. Because, like, then then you have to watch Mark Zuckerberg just acting very strangely, and, you know, responding to the same questions. It's like, you know, can, I don't know, YouTube see into, you know, whatever? Can can can Meta see into the contents of my sock drawer?
Ian:
It's a bit is is magic true?
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ian:
I mean, there's no doubt that Meta have got a lot of data, and they've been very good at comprehending it and understanding it and making sure that they extract every ounce of possible value from it. And so, you know, they do know a frightening amount about anyone that uses their systems, which includes WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook straight away. So, you know, in in this country, WhatsApp is very popular. I wonder how many people realize it's a it's a meta product. But you kind of their data mining, while it's in many ways offensive to some people, and including me, I'm fine.
Ian:
I'm very uncomfortable with it really. Yeah. But I don't see it as threatening in the same way as I did TikTok. Even though it's largely the same behaviours because of the association with the and and that it kinda raised all these questions about is it okay to is it is it okay to because it's kind of a one of these free speech I'll get to the question here. It's one of these free speech things, isn't it, where you get free speech absolutists who will say free speech is more important than anything.
Ian:
Yeah. And then you get people who start to say with some justification, you know, this kind of speech causes violence to people. And it's kind of should we should we do stuff to to should should we use the powers that we have to limit Chinese social media, which is what TikTok arguably could be said to be Yeah. In in Western society. I mean, what because they have in China, there's no Facebook or or Yeah.
Ian:
I'm trying not to say Twitter, or, or, you know, they've banned all of the sort of UK UK. They've banned all of the Western social media companies. Yeah. And then, you know, the the the stink that's been kicked up when we, you know, in the West try to ban one of that's owned by them is a bit it's a bit weird, isn't it?
Ash:
Yeah. I think in some ways, we're not used to our governments exercising any power over private organizations, not to this extent anyway. It's like, oh my god. We legislated against something and might actually do something about something. So I think we're slightly,
Ian:
Steady on there.
Ash:
I know. I know. I know. We're we're we're used to our go especially with tech companies as well because it's usually, like, with a good side order of, like, toothlessness, isn't it, that we deal with them? What was interesting to me as well, so TikTok asked their users via message in TikTok, I assume, in the app, the notification, to to vote against the ban and vote for, maybe not vote for people who were voting for the ban in congress.
Ian:
It's one of those contact your congressman kind of
Ash:
thing, isn't it? Yeah. So but isn't that exactly why they want to ban it in the first place? Because you have, like, a politic you're trying to influence the political ends.
Ian:
I think that is exactly why they're trying to ban it in the first place. I mean, that's the other thing, isn't it? That, actually, more even than the data harvesting is the potential influence that the algorithms that select what you see on TikTok operate. So the Chinese government might be able to influence those algorithms so that people using TikTok can see see only the political things that the Chinese government wants them to see Yeah. And and doesn't show them things it doesn't want them to see.
Ian:
I mean, that that seems actually even more sinister than the data harvesting.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I suppose it's what are the one of the other things that I found quite interesting as well is that you've got sort of entire businesses and careers based on TikTok, you know, which would be under threat.
Ian:
They would.
Ash:
Again, it's it's like a layered question, isn't it? So you've got personal you get your personal, privacy, I should say. I was gonna say privacy, but that's not how you say it. And then you've got national security, and then you've got, like, how deeply embedded all social media is. But where the threat to to ban it actually causes, like, causes, like, a real, like, economic shock, if you like.
Ash:
Yeah. So there's so many layers to this. It's it's it's quite incredible. So there was one other, like, solution that I that was that was flooded is that, the data is actively hosted in the US. So it could be subject to the same rigour as any other data center hosting in the US.
Ash:
So because I know that lots of lots of, like, political organizations are uncomfortable with where data is held. Yeah. So, like, I think the EU gets really, like, frosty with Facebook because the data goes off to the US from Europe. You know? Or so it's like there's there's there's, like, depth to the question of, like, where the data is held as well.
Ash:
Because I think I I guess that has, like, the ability to influence how it's used as well, doesn't it? So yeah.
Ian:
Well, that influences the laws that govern it, doesn't it?
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, in a lot of countries, I guess, data protection laws, similar to, you know, you only live once. Just spray all your data around on everyone else's, and don't worry about it. Yes.
Ash:
Whereas, obviously, in the EU, they take it
Ian:
USB stick.
Ash:
Yeah. Leave it on the train.
Ian:
Some poor civil servant in this country did that, and we'll probably never live it down because we're still reciting it 15 years later.
Ash:
And the other angle as well, which I from a bit more reading was in the in the public and the private sphere, it's viewed slightly differently, as in set well, so private individuals tend to be a bit more, like, I I know a few people, and this is obviously anecdotal, who are a bit like, well, I've signed all my data away anyway Yeah. So I'm not too worried about it. Whereas in, say, in pub in, like, the well, whatever the public sector, the civil service, whatever the civil service is called in the US, Lots of companies have started to ban having TikTok on devices.
Ian:
Yeah.
Ash:
So, you know, there's a bit of, it's already kind of partially happening anyway in a lot of ways. Also that kind of speaks to this something interesting about that, you know, if you have, you know, on on a if you if you have your work device, which possibly has personal accounts on it, and the blending of those two worlds, it's hard to keep them separate as well, isn't it?
Ian:
Yeah. I know. It's a massive pain when you suddenly go into 2 devices.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. So I think that that this sort of ban or, you know, sort of edict about who should own TikTok. It's kind of been rumbling for quite a long time, so I've quite enjoyed, like, following it, following along, and also, like, seeing it sort of finally come to a head. And the other thing that I found horrifying was that a chap called Bobby Kotick, who used to be the the CEO of Activision Blizzard, by all intents and purposes, not the nicest chap in the world.
Ash:
He would be interested in owning TikTok.
Ian:
For the Americans in our audience Yeah. That was British understatement.
Ash:
Well, you know, there are more horrible people, I'm sure. But
Ian:
1 or 2. Yeah.
Ash:
So I I'm not certain that if Bobby got his hands on it, we'd be in a better position than we are right now.
Ian:
I I read somewhere that, Donald Trump, who threatened to ban it when he was president of the United States, has now reversed his position on it.
Ash:
Of course. And
Ian:
in an unconnected
Ash:
Nonpolitical opportunist.
Ian:
A billionaire who already owns some of it, has been donating money to him.
Ash:
Yeah.
Ian:
I mean, you know, those those stories are adjacent, but obviously completely unconnected. Although
Ash:
Just those stories give each other the side eye every now and then?
Ian:
Possibly. Yeah. Let the lawsuit begin.
Ash:
So, yeah, that was that was my thing.
Ian:
I think that's a a really good thing because it does raise such interesting questions. How much is it okay to ban things that people like because they might let foreign governments have influence over us?
Ash:
The depths to which social media influences life and then the powers of the the actual powers that government have, there's there's, like, an interesting, sort of comparison there, isn't there? Because it's rare that governments will flex their powers in terms of private organizations in order to say, you know, they need to be banned or acquired by a, I don't know, a a US entity at the expense of their own, you know, the freedoms that their citizens enjoy. So it's a really interesting, really interesting scenario, which I don't think comes up all that all that often.
Ian:
I I think I think I'm coming down on the side of we should defend our our values. You know? And China defends it its values by not allowing Facebook, etcetera, in China. Yeah. You know?
Ian:
Why can't we defend our values similarly, anyway?
Ash:
Yeah. But how will you watch people doing funny dances while trying to climb pyramids of crates?
Ian:
Reels. Reels. Right. Okay. YouTube Shorts.
Ash:
I'm also scared of YouTube Shorts because I I watched them once, and then about 20 minutes later, I was still there. Yes. And this is the real doom of TikTok for me. Yes. That one part of my my irrational fear of it is that I I don't want to just disappear into that particular rabbit hole.
Ian:
It's been highly optimised for the human brain so that it's like sugar and some other things. It's just it's exactly what some part of our lizard brain or whatever wants.
Ash:
Yeah. As a as a technology person with an interesting product, sometimes I have admiration for the what they've actually achieved. But that doesn't mean that I think it's a good idea that I can separate the 2. Yeah. I can say, okay.
Ash:
You've you've created this strange entertainment machine, which could, like, have everybody staring at it forever. But also, you shouldn't do that. I don't think that's particularly a good idea. It doesn't lead to a very happy and fulfilling life.
Ian:
And it's a shame because there was such creativity and young people doing interesting creative things on it. You know, I it's a difficult one.
Ash:
Yeah. Definitely.
Ian:
That was a very good thing. Thank you, Ash. I too.
Ash:
Can I get a drink first?
Ian:
I would think. And you can get a drink first, but not that gin that you're currently sipping.
Ash:
It's just a liter of gin, Ian.
Ian:
Yeah. The as the podcast becomes more and more like a party for the ears, I'm gonna get a drink as well.
Ash:
Let me switch to your thing, Ian. Ian's showing his agility there.
Ian:
In Dungeons and Dragons terms, I think my agility is about 4 out of 80. Eventually, I'm gonna have to do yoga. I know it.
Ash:
If you roll the dice.
Ian:
Yeah. You have to roll the
Ash:
not pass the agility check.
Ian:
You have to roll a very high number to pass the agility check.
Ash:
And put all your modifiers on it.
Ian:
Yes. Yes. I have to wear my, you know, special trousers of something.
Ash:
Trousers of the powerful leap.
Ian:
Yes. That sounds like the kind of trousers that I need to wear.
Ash:
That section writes itself, doesn't it?
Ian:
Yes. It does.
Ash:
The trousers of the powerful leap.
Ian:
Well, it is a leap year.
Ash:
And one day to use those trousers. Forgot to put them on.
Ian:
Damn. Missed it. Wore the wrong trousers, which brings us to Wallace and Gromit.
Ash:
It does. It does. It all returns there.
Ian:
It's not my thing, Wallace and Gromit. I will say that this has been a bit of a thematic episode.
Ash:
Thematic.
Ian:
Because we're not straying from social media. We've talked about a thing about social media, and now we've got another thing about social media. What I wanted to talk about, which made it kind of inconspicuous in our show notes, is x
Ash:
I thought Ian had just put a kiss on there.
Ian:
Now that would be an emoji these days, Ash.
Ash:
Oh, would it? I'm sorry.
Ian:
I forgive you. So when I say x, I'm, of course, talking about the social media app formerly known as Twitter. Mhmm. And I joined it in 2007, and I absolutely loved it for a really long time. And I remember the community of it, and how great it was when it first started.
Ian:
And then, the the I like Corey Doctorow's word to describe what happens to these things, which is en --ification. I think I might have just made this PG again.
Ash:
Oh, yeah. Oh, that can be bleeped, though, can't it?
Ian:
Yeah.
Ash:
But it doesn't make sense to remove the word.
Ian:
And I've got a kind of funny relationship with Twitter over the over more recent years because I've had this whole thing of my username. Yeah. Which I'm sure I've recounted previously in these, in these pages. It's not really pages, is it, in these episodes? But my you for those who haven't been paying attention, obviously, go back and listen to them again, but, I'll I'll I'll tell you anyway, is, my username is my initials, which is I d s.
Ian:
And I, I've had a lot of trouble with a lot of Germans who think that the fact that at I d s spells AIDS is the funniest thing they've ever heard. Because what could be more hilarious than a deadly disease? Yeah. And then I had, Ian Duncan Smith, who's a British politician, while he was in charge of the department for work and pensions, which basically means welfare. Every time he did anything, armies of people on Twitter would condemn me roundly as a murderer of, of of vulnerable people.
Ian:
So there was that. So I had a lot of traffic from that. And then there's the Indiana Daily Student, which is a newspaper. There's the, Institute of Development Studies, and many, many more. Yeah.
Ian:
All of whom I would receive mentions for because people didn't really pay attention to the photo of the beardy person that would come up while they Yeah. While they were typing it. So that kind of took the shine off Twitter, honestly, for me maybe 5 or 6 years ago. But of course, now Elon Musk has come on onto the scene and made it into x, and I feel like it's killed it. And it's it's got nothing left of what I loved about it in 2,007, 2008.
Ian:
Not even a trace. What did you love about it? I loved talking to people that I'd not met and engaging with them on the basis of them being nice people who weren't trying to get something out of me by by the interaction. And, you know, I I met people on there where I a lot of my IBM colleagues joined it very early on.
Ash:
Oh, right. Okay.
Ian:
You know, we we did a we did a lot with it. And, actually, it was fantastic. And I remember really being delighted with it. Yeah. And and that kind of the tail end of that remained for for a long time, but it was never you know, the more it became, you know, we have to make money, we've got to run ads, we've got to do all these different things.
Ian:
You know, the the 3rd party clients thing where there were some really amazing third party Twitter client innovation that was shut off suddenly for commercial reasons. All of that kind of stuff just eroded it. But the Elon Musk takeover and change to x has really, really killed it for me. I'm curious what your relationship to Twitter now is.
Ash:
So I used to I was a reasonably heavy user of Twitter. Yeah. I used it a lot going to conferences, testing and development conferences, and taking pictures, and cheering speakers on, and, you know, posting profound things that they said, that type of thing. Yeah. And it actually became a bit of a sort of chronicle of testing conference travels, if you know what I mean, where there would be, like, a sudden burst of activity, because I'd be watching talks that I was enjoying and posting pictures and going around nice cities with other people from the testing community and having a nice time.
Ash:
And it was all I really enjoyed using it using it for that. But then once the, like, third party apps started getting you know, they started charging for API access, and then, like, the death of it for me was TweetDeck. So I used to really, really like using TweetDeck because I had a few Twitter accounts, especially for a conference that I was involved in as well. Mhmm. And you could schedule and you could do all all the cool stuff with TweetDeck, but then once access to that was behind the paywall, Yeah.
Ash:
It just at that point, I was faced with a choice. It's like, well, the tool that you enjoy using is gone. A lot of the people who I previously engaged with were gone, and it was just like, well, the last reason then was gone to hang around. Yeah. Yeah.
Ash:
So one's tweet deck went behind the paywall. I then closed down my account, got the archive out, put it somewhere safe, relatively safe until that company closes down probably. And then, and then that's been it, really. I've and I've not really considered it, looked back, thought about it too much.
Ian:
You should you should put your archive onto the Internet archive. Yeah. They let you do that with with Twitter archives, and then you can see all those old conference tweets will become searchable and Yeah. And and available again. Yeah.
Ian:
I think that's a really good thing Yeah. Which I haven't done either. I do think it's a great idea.
Ash:
Yeah. I think that's what it was always interesting to me because it was full of there was lots of different sort of communities in there. Because based on the model of how you would, you know, you would you would have followings and be a follower. It was easy to to to have a not a closed community, obviously, because anyone could look in, but my Twitter feed became mostly around, you know, the topics that I use Twitter for, so conferences, testing, development, all those things, rather than anything else. So I think it was interesting in that communities formed, but it was always quite sort of relatively loose and organic, which is a really interesting idea, wasn't it?
Ian:
Yeah. It was. And it was revolutionary when it came out. Yeah. When it first started, it was SMS messages.
Ian:
That's why they had the 140 character limit. Yeah. Flippy neck. I'm showing my age now.
Ash:
But I've I've I always remember sitting and writing a tweet, and then it's going I was like, this is gonna be way more than 140 characters, and having to, like, you know, make it much tercer, and make my language much cleaner. And I thought I was quite enjoyed that process.
Ian:
A good discipline there, wasn't it?
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Then I think it went to 280, and then now I think it's just like, if you pay, it can be anything. And it's just like, from a point of view of I don't I don't wanna just hang on to what it was, but it just doesn't have anything that's sufficiently different to anywhere else now, which, you know, to make it more interesting.
Ian:
Well, a lot of people have left it as well. Yeah. And the communities that were on it all linked together by following each other, have kind of gone gone with with that. And, so you had a a big community of testers that was there. Yeah.
Ian:
But where where have they gone now? I I mean, are you looking at any of the other sort of replacement platforms, which I think will be interesting to kind of do a little Yeah. Little canter through those. But have you moved to any of those?
Ash:
So I haven't moved to anywhere. Weirdly enough now, LinkedIn is my sole social. That's very disappointing. It is very disappointing. And if you would have asked me that a few years ago, I would have thought you were mad to suggest that I would end up in that situation, but here we are.
Ian:
Well, I, have, always liked to do the work, you know, and make sure that on average, we're on some social media platforms. So I've actually gone on to, loads of them. So I'm which is just what a hilarious name. And Blue Sky and What are
Ash:
the sweets called on are they called toots?
Ian:
They're called toots.
Ash:
Of course.
Ian:
Of course.
Ash:
Did have they used any other, like, sort of, you know, mammoth and elephant?
Ian:
There there are lots
Ash:
of Is there something called a is your profile called a trunk or something?
Ian:
All the third party clients are all called things. My favorite on iPhone is called Ivory. And that's on the Mac. Right. Okay.
Ian:
And on the iPhone. And that is a fabulous client. Really, really good. And it's by TapBot Right. Who did TweetBot back in the day.
Ian:
Mhmm. And it's, it's it is. That, I think, has really pushed me into mastodon as my favorite. Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:
It's it's interesting because people have rebelled against the the demise of it's not really a demise, is it? But whatever it is, people have rebelled against what happened to Twitter
Ash:
Yeah.
Ian:
In different ways. But one of the interesting things is, is the the way that the way we've mastered on, anyway, is that it's a federated system. Yeah. So nobody really owns it. There's no billionaire in the picture for it.
Ian:
And so anyone can run a Mastodon server. You just have to and, you know, you can be banned from them as well. So you I I if I run a Mastodon server, I can decide whether I want to have tweets for tweets?
Ash:
Toots?
Ian:
Toots. Messages from your server on my be visible in in my server. Yeah. And what's one thing that did make me kind of chortle a bit was, that the, what's his name? Mossieri, the Instagram leader on Facebook, who is one of the may have been one of the cofounders of Instagram originally.
Ian:
I can't remember. But he's in charge of of of their offering, which is called which is threads, which I'm also on. But one thing that they said was their plan was to to federate threads into the Mastodon sort of multi I'm trying not to say multiverse. I think there is a word beginning with multi that they Yeah. Kind of coined.
Ian:
But, the Fediverse, that's what they
Ash:
call it.
Ian:
They were going to federate threads into the Fediverse. And the amount of people are like, no. No. We're not allowing that. And you're sort of thinking and thinking, but I thought the whole point of this was it was open.
Ian:
Well, that's too open. Yeah. We don't want messages from Facebook users. I mean, what what the or Instagram users. That would be the worst.
Ash:
Yeah. It's interesting how the the the, like, the billionaire owned ones, are the ones that said, we'll do federation, but we'll do it later. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas, like, Mastodon was like, no, it needs to be federated.
Ash:
Because that was the point. Yeah. Whereas the billionaire owned ones are they're not doing that. Or at least they've paid lip service to it to say, yeah. Yeah.
Ash:
Yeah. We'll do that later. That sounds really important. Yeah. Yeah.
Ash:
Yeah. Just, you know, get some advertisers in.
Ian:
Well Yeah. I mean, I I think, Jack Dorsey, who's one who started one called Blue Sky, One thing that they have done is they are they they are going to federate it, they say, but not using one of the protocols that, already exist. And they feel that the the they they the world needs another
Ash:
Of course.
Ian:
Protocol for doing that, which is called, the AT protocol.
Ash:
What does AT stand for?
Ian:
I'm going to not speculate. But Armored transport. Armored transport. Yes. Probably.
Ian:
I well, actually, I think one of the things they were gonna do more more fundamentally was, encryption and message signing and stuff would be part of it. I wonder if there's sort of end to end encryption something in there, maybe, which is quite hard problem in in federated environment. Yeah. But they, yeah. So they don't think the activity pub and the various other activity pub is the the protocol that that, Mastodon uses and that, threads intends to federate with.
Ian:
But the, yeah, they they they didn't go for that. They they just
Ash:
started to do
Ian:
a different one.
Ash:
Yeah. I'll tell you what. Well, let's just write our own compiler.
Ian:
So yeah.
Ash:
You know, that's always the best idea I find.
Ian:
Well, it's one of those things that's always harder than you think. But, actually, if you're a billionaire, maybe it's just a matter of finding smart people and paying them a lot of money.
Ash:
Getting them to do it instead.
Ian:
Well, yeah.
Ash:
And then feeling smart.
Ian:
Possibly. I'm not speaking for the, internal, work things that's not in a class. Brain. But I I have got slightly more liking for him than I've got for either Zuckerberg or Musk. Mhmm.
Ian:
It's a
Ash:
tough call, though, isn't it?
Ian:
Yeah. It is. It is. But I do think, I I I find these platforms interesting in their own ways. And threads is is So this is just these people, but with fewer photographs or silly videos.
Ash:
Instagram without the media. Amazing.
Ian:
Well, with less media. And then, but Blue Sky, I quite like. And, Mastodon, I think, is my favorite. Yeah. And I think the key with Mastodon has been the ivory client.
Ian:
I think that having that client, which is so like Tweetbot that you just kind of forget you're in a Yeah. In a different kind of environment, actually. And the and the other thing is is where have the communities that are important to you or me gone to? So are all the testers now on one of these?
Ash:
I think they're on mastodon.
Ian:
I I'm I was about to bet that they were.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:
Because of their, anarchistic streaks that they all have, apparently. I I was gonna bet that. And I I it'll be interesting, because another thing that is seen in Mastodon is servers that sprung up around those communities. So some people who care about a particular idea maybe have have made their own made their own server, and they're hosting. And there's geographic servers, and then mastodon dot social is the biggest one, which is the the one that's the guy who is kind of the lead of the development project.
Ian:
He's kind of his his one. But, yeah. I it's a I do find myself wanting to to find the people that I followed on Twitter.
Ash:
Try and bring back the old times.
Ian:
Yes. Especially Fesshole, which was my guilty pleasure. That's Let's
Ash:
get the gang back together again.
Ian:
Yes. Yes. Let's do that.
Ash:
Talk about embarrassing confessions.
Ian:
Yes. Well, maybe not. Probably edited out of this episode as well.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. So one thing I you know you're talking about, like, the the not the demise of x, because it's not a demise, is it? Or the diminishing of. Yes.
Ash:
So what from the world of video gaming, I often remind myself that actually, like, 90% of video gamers play, like, Call of Duty and play Candy Crush on their mobiles. So I search for, you know, bespoke and interesting and, you know, different play all kinds of different types of video games, but that's not how the world is shaped generally. It's just like, you know, what what I want. Yeah. So probably a lot of people are still continuing to use x in whatever way that they, you know, decided to do so in the past.
Ash:
Or same with Facebook as well. I mean, I don't really recognize Facebook at all. I looked at someone's Facebook feed the other day, they showed me it, and I was like, where are the people that you know? They just don't exist on there anymore. It's just it's just another algorithm based.
Ash:
Yes. You know? Here's a, you know, a cat video. Here's an advert. That's just another one of those.
Ian:
Yeah. So these these algorithmic feeds, there's something that I think they would be great if they were in service of the user Yeah. But they aren't.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah. So even, like, my running application, Strava, tries to serve me, like, algorithmic content. I'm like, no. Just show me all the people that I follow, the runs that they go on, and put them in a big list starting from the latest one first, please.
Ash:
Every time I open the app, it's like, it's not too hard. No. So back to threads. One thing interesting thing I picked out in your notes was, they talked about federation in the in the guise of if you were deplatformed, platformed, you could then take your community elsewhere. Yeah.
Ash:
Which I thought was like, what, like, an astonishing statement.
Ian:
And that was from, mister Musieri, the
Ash:
the the
Ian:
boss of it.
Ash:
Yeah. So I was like, what an absolutely astonishing statement. So so basically, say if you, I don't know, were involved in some kind of scandal or, you know, turns out that many moons ago you sent a bunch of racist, sexist tweets or or whatever it was. You could then just say, right. Okay.
Ash:
Well, I'm federating myself out of here because you've deplatformed me. And I'm gonna get on the federation Ferris wheel and just federate myself somewhere else and then just take everybody with me. I was like, what a statement that is. Like, it's almost like the complete abdication of saying that, you know, I need to monitor the content. Or
Ian:
Well, they do need to monitor the content. In fact, I think that's one of the big challenges that sort of Mastodon has been facing is who does that. Yeah. You know, and then you read about, oh, there's this far right Mastodon server over there that's got all these racist comments or something on it. And so the ban list, you know, the block lists so on Mastodon, you can block entire servers
Ash:
Right.
Ian:
Personally. Yeah. So you can say, oh, I don't like, you know, I don't like the ethos of this the people on here. I'm gonna I don't wanna ever see anything from them. Yeah.
Ian:
And but, obviously, the big thing is server admins deciding to block other servers. Yeah. And, there is there is a lot I think there's a fair bit of that.
Ash:
Yeah. Because in theory, you could you could be deplatformed, spin off your federated server, and build an absolute cesspool somewhere with with and you would be able to self, you know, self regulate and, you know, and self check your own content.
Ian:
But it's an open source thing, isn't it? Yeah. You're basically using an open source tool to build a private community over there where you can all just stew in your festering swamp of hatred Yeah. And maybe federate with other people so you can skew in some other festering swamps of
Ash:
hatred Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ian:
All of which may be unconnected to the main sort of Mastodon network or or connected to it in very loose or very indirect ways.
Ash:
I guess Mastodon would probably be the one that I would gravitate towards because, I dislike the idea of like, to me, obviously, threads is too deeply associated with
Ian:
Meta.
Ash:
Meta. Although I can't escape from WhatsApp either because of family.
Ian:
I know. I'm the same.
Ash:
Yeah. So,
Ian:
I'm I've escaped from any of it, actually. I can't I can't I can't even there's no progress to report on getting away from it.
Ash:
Yeah. And then blue sky, I don't know. Darcy feels like part of the old guard to me, and will continue to make the same mistakes.
Ian:
Do you think may maybe he he might not?
Ash:
Maybe he might not. But I
Ian:
mean, he's do this this federation protocol does seem to be real Yeah. And, you know, public. Yeah. So may maybe maybe when that starts opening up, he will take more of a back seat. I mean, I I'm not I haven't thought that Blue Sky, when I've been on it, is objectionable.
Ian:
I I'm I'm not the the thing about it is that, yes, it's owned by a billionaire. But, actually, he did alright to owning Twitter. He was selling Twitter that was the problem. He sold it to other people who then have ultimately broken it.
Ash:
Yeah.
Ian:
So I don't know. I I'm kind of skeptical, but least least worst. Least worst.
Ash:
And, yeah, and then and then mastodon because, appeals to my values, I think, in terms of Yeah. And then
Ian:
I'm with you on that.
Ash:
And then that possibly, some of the some of the old crowd hang out on there, talk about testing, go to conferences, post nice pictures of people, supportive pictures
Ian:
Toots.
Ash:
Doing talks. Toots. So I think that this it'll probably be that. But also, kind of over the years, I've assessed the value of social media, like, to me versus the amount of time that could be put into it. And I've found that my desire to use it is less than a use.
Ian:
Yeah. And mine is too. I don't spend a tremendous amount of time on on these things
Ash:
Yeah.
Ian:
Compared to the time I sometimes waste on Instagram reels, which in the TikTok style just disappear. Yeah. And then you come out at the end thinking, oh my goodness. It's evening, but I've only just woken up.
Ash:
So LinkedIn doesn't have the same, it feels like your posts on LinkedIn it's difficult to post a picture of someone on on a stage and say, they've just said this thing. Go at whoever at this conference because it feels less, like, throwaway. Like, you know, on Twitter, obviously, they would the posts like that would scroll past on your feed, and then they would be gone. And they they would feel more it's more of a timely thing than a, you know, timeless thing. I don't know if I'm expressing myself quite right, but
Ian:
I know what you mean. And I feel like with LinkedIn, there's a huge pressure to be business business. Yeah. You know, and there's all these people writing all these oceans of crap about things that they claim to know more than they actually do.
Ash:
Oh, yeah. Those prompts, I keep getting invited to them. It's like, you know, you're trying to hire a product marketing specialist. What do you look for?
Ian:
I have
Ash:
no idea.
Ian:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Well, I mean, you do have a long history of of of hiring product market. Oh, no. Wait.
Ian:
You've never hired a product marketing specialist. I'm just
Ash:
like, okay. Fine.
Ian:
Since I became, I wrote on there that I'm the CTO of a company, I I get so many people con connecting with me to sell me things. And I just think, oh, this person wants to be my friend. No, they don't. They want to have a quick call with me to to discuss the company's something, normally overseas development team needs or something.
Ash:
Yeah. Yeah.
Ian:
It's not there's no joy about LinkedIn for me. It's just it's a it's a necessary evil. Yeah. Whereas Mastodon, I actually sometimes enjoy, especially because of Ivory. I know I keep going on about it, but it's such a great client.
Ash:
But, again, so I used to use TweetDeck, and it was one of my main reasons for sticking with Twitter, because I could use the I could use lists, I could use, scheduling, DMs were presented better, and I just thought it was a better way to use it. And it does influence your ability, your decision to to stay or go, I think.
Ian:
Yeah. It does.
Ash:
So The
Ian:
right client. Yeah. That's why I'm barely on Reddit anymore because they got rid of Apollo, which was my the Reddit client I use was just amazing. Yeah. And, it was very disappointing.
Ian:
But because, actually, what they wanted this is divergent again. But what they wanted to do was monetize the AI people who were just stealing all the content through their API Yeah. And using it to train language models. But actually, the and and it seemed secondary that they were just destroying all these 3rd party clients that people loved. You know, it wasn't even as though it was just, oh, it's just Yeah.
Ian:
Anyway, great shame. But never mind.
Ash:
Yeah. It's almost like point. The more you do that, then the less the less content you'll have to sell to, the various AI companies who are schlepping up Reddit's data. Yes. Yeah.
Ash:
So, yeah, I guess it's just that kind of, sort of tunnel vision around how to monetize. I hate that word.
Ian:
How to end shitification.
Ash:
Yeah. Exactly. That's basically but that's what happens, isn't it?
Ian:
It is. Yes.
Ash:
You just make it worse than you.
Ian:
Yeah. I mean, as soon as Reddit announced us doing an IPO, which they're just doing right about now, you know, you just know, oh, things are gonna get worse. Yeah. And, you know, I know they're trying. They're just a team of people trying to do stuff.
Ian:
But yeah.
Ash:
Yeah.
Ian:
So we should expect your mustered on then. I'm looking forward to following you on this.
Ash:
I won't join any service you already. You told me about that. Yes. I'll want them.
Ian:
I don't want to be a member of a club that will have me for
Ash:
a member. Yeah. Exactly. Groucho.
Ian:
Groucho, Mark. Yeah. Well, I hope that was a more interesting thing than it might have appeared when I when I first wrote it down. I was kind of But given it
Ash:
was just one letter from the alphabet, I was just like, well
Ian:
No. No. It's not from alphabet. Hey. There you go.
Ian:
You see what I did there? In the show notes, we'll put links to all these things and our accounts on them such as they might be so you can follow us. Maybe we should create a what a lot of things mastered on account because at the moment, we're just on LinkedIn, which I've just disrespected heavily.
Ash:
Not really walking the walk there.
Ian:
No. No. Well, the thing is we haven't walked the walk anyway because we created a we created a LinkedIn group for it, didn't we? And then, roundly ignored it. We promoted it a bit.
Ian:
But I don't think I've ever post have you ever posted any?
Ash:
No. No. It needs some activity.
Ian:
From from someone Yeah. From our social media manager. Who's that? You. I I think it's just a vacant.
Ash:
Vacant position.
Ian:
Your position. Anybody who wants to be our social media manager, just just just let us know. Although, mostly, it will be explaining the long delays between our affiliates and,
Ash:
just holding messages.
Ian:
Yeah. Yeah. Just waiting 2 years for us to get around to it again. Yes. Trying to, institute deadlines without Ash realizing that they're they're dead.
Ash:
I know all this. I I know all the, the different the different synonyms, though. So All
Ian:
the tricks.
Ash:
Yes. So, you know, I've I've sat with enough product people asking me for quotes, estimates, timelines, and all the
Ian:
other ways. Yeah. Exactly. They're very often lovely people.
Ash:
Very often, but in the end, that's what they want. They want a ballpark.
Ian:
How long would it take?
Ash:
I know what a ballpark is.
Ian:
Yes. It's a park with a ball in it. I don't own one to give you. Fantastic. So we talked at the beginning about announcements, but I don't think we we haven't really got any, have we?
Ash:
What? For the for the for the What A Lot of Things podcast?
Ian:
Yes. No. I don't feel empowered to make other kinds of announcements.
Ash:
But that's okay. Not everything has to have an announcement.
Ian:
But how will people know we're at the end? It will just stop.
Ash:
Well, we'll just say yeah. We'll just say just say goodbye. Yeah.
Ian:
Fair enough, I suppose. Yeah.
Ash:
Yeah. We don't have to fill. We've talked about the LinkedIn group.
Ian:
But we're already on
Ash:
And that's the only thing that we've got.
Ian:
We're already on 2,258 bars.
Ash:
Yeah. Exactly. Lifetime count of bars. So
Ian:
That's a very long song.
Ash:
It is.
Ian:
Even even at a 120 bpm, it's a long song.
Ash:
So, yeah, I I don't think we need to, make further announcements.
Ian:
I'm trying really hard to think of 1. It's not working.
Ash:
No.
Ian:
Okay. I surrender to the inevitable.
Ash:
Surrender to the inevitable need to say goodbye.
Ian:
That's goodbye from me. It's goodbye from him or some some touch.
