The government have the powers to stop social media

You reminded me that Tim Berners-Lee (aka TimBL), the inventor of the web as most of us know it, released the book "This is for Everyone" just recently. I've not bought it (nor plan to do it), but here he discusses the topic: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues/Dysfunction.html (he is dyslexic, if you notice typos and such, that is the reason.) A key part is in that post is:

[Social Media aims to] optimize for maximum engagement.

In my view, all source code of websites should at least be open source, but should also be free (not as in gratis, but as in libre). This is what fsf, fsfe stand for. In particular, the algorithms should be free software.

You can find other TimBL posts here: https://www.w3.org/DesignIssues

There is this nice interview as well youtube.com/watch

How do manage to watch anything on Youtube? I was shown a good music video a couple of days ago and it stopped every 90 seconds for an advert, I couldn't watch it, it annoyed me so much, if I'm listening to music, I don't want some woman breaking in and asking if her dad would benefit from Tai Chi? It was so disjointed and discombobulating it almost fried my brain

How do manage to watch anything on Youtube? I was shown a good music video a couple of days ago and it stopped every 90 seconds for an advert, I couldn't watch it, it annoyed me so much, if I'm listening to music, I don't want some woman breaking in and asking if her dad would benefit from Tai Chi? It was so disjointed and discombobulating it almost fried my brain

Not only do I not understand how to install it, I don't know what you mean, sorry I'm technoklutz dinosaur.

I wouldn't watch a video or programe or anything on my pooter, it's to uncomfortable and the sound is awful and my humax box dosen't have the right buttons to skip add's or anything.

I'm getting to the point where I need a new pooter as this one's getting so slow and some of hte keys don't work properly and the humax box needs replacing too I think as it's going weird and not recording some programs either at all or it stops and starts missing great chunks of program. It only seems to do it on channel 5 and more4, so I might need to retune the thing.

TheCatWoman said:

How do manage to watch anything on Youtube?

I use a browser plugin called Video DownloadHelper which is free - I realise you may not understand how to install this so I'm posting this more for general information.

What it does do is adds an icon to your browser toolbar (Firefox for me at the moment) and when there is a video embedded in the page - like you get on YouTube - then when you click on the icon you can choose to download the video at whatever resolution it is offered in.

Because I work off my mobile broadband all the time and only get about 60Gb a month I find it easier to go somewhere with free wifi, go to the YouTube pages of the channels I follow and download their videos that appeal - takes  few minutes each and they are saved as MP4 video files and you can watch them without the need for an internet connection, and hence have no adverts either.

It works on most other video "tube" sites that work in a similar way to YouTube.

I use Brave browser

https://brave.com/download

It is an alternative to google Chrome, or Edge. (For the regular channels, I donate 1£ when I can, which is not now.)