#deletefacebook

[Underseer]

Article about Steve Wozniak joining the #deletefacebook thing:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...zniak-is-joining-the-deletefacebook-movement/

I don't know if the #deletefacebook movement accomplishes anything. For all I know, Facebook can still use my friends list to violate the privacy of my friends and family no matter what I try to do.

My beef with Facebook goes much farther back than the recent brouhaha over Cambridge Analytica. This article explains part of my beef with social media in general:

Op-ed about the consequences of automated moderation and trivial reports/flags:
https://theinternetoffendsme.wordpr...d-facebook-moderation-and-your-petty-reports/

My brother started a Facebook page some years before that article was written. Because Christians kept doing poorly in debates with him, they just kept flooding his page with "report" flags, which triggered the automated moderation, so his page was almost constantly banned. I don't doubt that a lot of the autobans also came from butthurt conservolibertarians. They're also really fond of hitting that report button as often as possible over trivial bullshit.

Do read the above article if you get the chance. There are real consequences to people hitting the report button just because they're doing poorly in an argument. She tells a heartbreaking story of a time when she missed calling the authorities on time about a little girl facing imminent molestation from a family member because she was flooded with reports and flags over trivial bullshit ("Waaaah! That mean ol' social justice warrior said that racism is bad! I'm being oppressed! Ban them! Ban them nao!!!!!!!").

The above article was written by a woman who works at Facebook and helped my brother navigate the constant autobans and occasionally got his page unbanned when it was obviously bullshit.

This kind of crap is why I pretty much don't report posts of people I'm involved in a debate with.

Then on top of that, there are privacy concerns. Anyone who follows Internet freedom issues (e.g. Electronic Frontier Foundation) has been reading scary articles about privacy in the social media age for many years now.

As if that isn't bad enough, I also get pissed off about the obvious Skinner box design elements baked into social media that remind me of the worst design elements of social games or MMORPGs (people talk about addictiveness of games like it's a desirable quality, but designers can leverage human psychology to deliberately make games more addictive).

Add all of the above up, and I have a serious love/hate relationship with Facebook going back many years. Sometimes I use it and get addicted and post too fucking much getting into endless arguments with strangers, and other times I abandon Facebook for long stretches of time. If you are one of those who joined the Talk Freethought group on Facebook, you probably noticed that I haven't posted anything in a really long time.

Of course, because I'm posting less on Facebook, that means I'm posting more on Google Plus. Almost none of my friends or family are on Google Plus, so my time there is usually nothing but debating Christian/Muslim apologists or Christian/Muslim creationists. So I haven't really learned my lesson about social media. In fact I just recently started a Twitter account. Fuck, but I'm stupid.

Anyway, what do you think about the recent #deletefacebook thing?

Do you also have any beefs with social media in general that predates #deletefacebook?

- - - Updated - - -

Speaking of reporting posts, should this thread be moved to Politics, or is it better off here?

 

[prideandfall]

Anyway, what do you think about the recent #deletefacebook thing?

it strikes me as a ridiculous hipster overreaction to a problem that was caused by the people freaking out in the first place.

i don't understand the impulse to use facebook as a "serious" platform and i never have - all the problems people have with facebook are directly the result of them being stupid about how they use facebook in the first place.
the idea of using facebook as a place to argue with people makes as much sense to me as using a 7-11 as a place to argue with people... any time i see people yelling at each other on facebook it looks exactly like two people screaming about vaccines at each other over the snack aisle at a convenience store, a part of me wants to step in and go "what the fuck is wrong with you that you think this is an appropriate venue for this bullshit?" and a part of me just wants to hang back and laugh hysterically when those people get kicked out of the store and then stand outside with boycott signs bitching about how the cashier didn't respect their first amendment rights.

taking facebook seriously is as valid as taking pro wrestling seriously, and #deletefacebook is no different from #boycottWWEbecauseijustfoundoutit'snotreal

Do you also have any beefs with social media in general that predates #deletefacebook?

that human beings are so god-awfully reprehensibly stupid that they get all riled up about idiocy like this in the first place.

 

[Underseer]

Anyway, what do you think about the recent #deletefacebook thing?

it strikes me as a ridiculous hipster overreaction to a problem that was caused by the people freaking out in the first place.

i don't understand the impulse to use facebook as a "serious" platform and i never have - all the problems people have with facebook are directly the result of them being stupid about how they use facebook in the first place.
the idea of using facebook as a place to argue with people makes as much sense to me as using a 7-11 as a place to argue with people... any time i see people yelling at each other on facebook it looks exactly like two people screaming about vaccines at each other over the snack aisle at a convenience store, a part of me wants to step in and go "what the fuck is wrong with you that you think this is an appropriate venue for this bullshit?" and a part of me just wants to hang back and laugh hysterically when those people get kicked out of the store and then stand outside with boycott signs bitching about how the cashier didn't respect their first amendment rights.

taking facebook seriously is as valid as taking pro wrestling seriously, and #deletefacebook is no different from #boycottWWEbecauseijustfoundoutit'snotreal

Do you also have any beefs with social media in general that predates #deletefacebook?

that human beings are so god-awfully reprehensibly stupid that they get all riled up about idiocy like this in the first place.

People have abandoned message boards. Social media has become the place where all communication happens because that is where everyone is. A lot of people are just too lazy to maintain multiple accounts at different web sites just for conversation.

It sounds like you're upset about more than just the fact that people are discussing politics on Facebook. Is there something else about this that upsets you?

 

[Shake]

the idea of using facebook as a place to argue with people makes as much sense to me as using a 7-11 as a place to argue with people... any time i see people yelling at each other on facebook it looks exactly like two people screaming about vaccines at each other over the snack aisle at a convenience store, a part of me wants to step in and go "what the fuck is wrong with you that you think this is an appropriate venue for this bullshit?" and a part of me just wants to hang back and laugh hysterically when those people get kicked out of the store and then stand outside with boycott signs bitching about how the cashier didn't respect their first amendment rights.

Well, even within the platform of Facebook, it depends on where you have such discussions. Yes, on a politician's wall or some generic group, you're going to have to deal with all sorts. However, on one's own wall, depending on privacy settings of the initial post, you can have decent discussions. I've reconnected with a friend I've known since 2nd grade who went super-fundy starting around the time we started high school, and we started drifting apart then. We attended each others' weddings, but otherwise had little contact in the interim. Anyway, he saw some of my posts in public places and started discussions there and we were able to keep things civil. I also have an ongoing, though neglected, discussion with him on FB Messenger. But as Underseer mentioned, the various social media platforms have decimated the ranks of people using online discussion boards such as this. I've only recently found myself coming back to boards such as this to get away from some of the idiots out there on social media.

 

[rousseau]

In my thirty-two years so far I've lived in five different cities, and attended four colleges. I have good friends and acquaintances all over Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and a few in Africa. Almost none of those people live in the city in which I currently actually reside.

If I deleted Facebook I'd be alone in a room, with no one to talk to but my fiancee. It's become a part of the modern social fabric.

 

[James Brown]

I feel the same way, rousseau. I no longer post new things to my Facebook, but if not for it I wouldn't know if some of my long-distance friends were dead or alive.

Facebook has also become an absolutely necessity for a small business to grow. Time was you had to have a website. Now that's not nearly enough anymore.

 

[rousseau]

I feel the same way, rousseau. I no longer post new things to my Facebook, but if not for it I wouldn't know if some of my long-distance friends were dead or alive.

Facebook has also become an absolutely necessity for a small business to grow. Time was you had to have a website. Now that's not nearly enough anymore.

Pretty much. These days most of the posts I make are to keep friends and family updated. Easier to make a post that you're in Toronto for the weekend than to individually tell everyone you know.

I recently joined Instagram, too, which I've come to like because the 'norm' of who you can connect to is a little more lax. So on there I can keep tabs on even more distant acquaintances who I'd prefer to not be in my Facebook network.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The solution is simple, make people think Facebook is going to start charging users $1 a year. There will be holy hell!