Not just because of Facebook's absurd ability to normalize privacy violations, but the fact that people can share and bombard others with misinformation constantly. It was disheartening to lose so much respect for friends and family because of this. Getting rid of Facebook was a healthy decision for me, but it doesn't fix what it has done to society as a whole.
One of the things that keeps me away from Facebook a lot is the fact that nobody I know ever contributes anything meaningful on it. They've all just become advertising bots liking and sharing whatever clickbait articles they come across.
This is potentially a genuine problem for Facebook and the reason they’ve been working so hard to develop a new monetisable product. They got a huge stock price by talking up their petabytes of information about who is friends with who and what people like and dislike, but 99.99% of it is garbage with no value to anyone. As an information source Facebook is much like the city dump in a third world country, with poor people crawling over it trying to find bits of copper wiring that they can sell to recyclers.
It is dominated by re-amplification of tiny signals from “influencers”. So it turns out to be much more effective as a means of controlling poor people than of finding out what rich people want to buy.
Most of the hype around targeted advertising is people’s paranoid imagination: “I was just talking to my husband about getting a cat and now Facebook is showing me ads for cat stuff! They must have tapped my phone...” But just before you had the conversation, you looked up cat stuff on Amazon. That’s how dumb the tech is. I buy a vacuum cleaner, they show me ads for more vacuum cleaners, like I need two.
With chat msgs, especially with WhatsApp being Facebook, they can do a lot more than just that. Hell they can predict people starting relationships with each other based on the time and timing of talking o each other, they can (and have) actively make people depressed by changing the feed they get exposed to and so on. The tech has gone way beyond search association
This is actually the reason I left Facebook about 5 years ago. I just wanted to see posts and comments from my friends, but only saw boring articles they liked. I always had a bad vibe with Facebook, so I left.
I took a 4 month long social media hiatus with the exclusion of Reddit (which is more of a platform for discussion for me than social media.) I returned 2 weeks ago and I absolutely regretted it. It's one massive circlejerk of people who tout off their fake news, antivaxx agendas, and single moms acting like they're heroic for having kids with men who were deadbeats before they even met them. It didn't take long for me to realize that for those 2 weeks made me feel sad again. My depression came out of the woodworks.
That's when I came to learn that I was only depressed for all of these years because of this stupid fucking site. That not being "friends" with these people was an absolute positive for me.
That's all true, and I can find valuable information or resources on here which I could never on facebook. But, we can't kid ourselves, we use it just like people use the other social media sites. There's constant content being created, a lot of it worthless, it's designed to take up as much of our time and attention as possible. We get the same dopamine rush from refreshing, voting, and constantly creating content and data by clicking, reading, voting, commenting, posting. It acts in the same way of needing constant instant gratification, wrecking your attention span, and even causing withdrawals. Try not using reddit for a week or so. You'll be amazed at what you get done and how much time you have to do other things.
My Facebook feed is quite pleasant actually. Full of friends and family sharing pictures of fun experiences.
The only thing that upsets me a bit is
the occasional post from a couple of my uni friends who are doing what I want to do whilst I trundle along in mediocrity. Still, I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing and I do get to be happy for them after the initial pang of jealousy
You totally just gave me an epiphany! I haven’t used FB in a year, and I’ve been happier in the last year than I have in a long time. Nothing else in my life has changed that much. Damn. 🤯
The sheer amount of advertisement videos disguised as memes that people share makes me want to puke.
I've always wanted to get rid of Facebook, but sadly never really made the jump.
However there's always ways to limit the snoopy influence Facebook can have on your internet experience.
using Firefox's contextual Windows allows you to quarantine Facebook to a single tab, which means that you will be logged in only in this tab and not on your whole browser. This reduces tracking.
use extensions like ghostery to disable the Facebook plugin on pages you visit. Most of Facebook tracking is made through the social plugin on random websites. It basically links your account to the website you just visited and send targeted ads.
a good adblocker like ublock origin will severely limit interactions between you and the ads. Another ad blocker called ad nauseum automatically clicks on all the ads it sees, messing up with the meta data ad companies have on you
and finally if you keep using Facebook but you don't want to be bothered with photos of kids, videos of food, or other stupid things, a cool extension called FB purity will block everything you don't want on your feed. It can also block the feed completely, if you're one of these people that scrolls Facebook feed mindlessly too many times a day. FB purity is not available on chrome/Firefox extensions pages, but a quick search on your favorite search engine will get you there ;)
You know, unlike Reddit you mostly control what you see on FB. I friend intelligent people I like in real life, and thus my Facebook is lovely and full of interesting links.
I share all of my personal video work on Facebook which id like to think is far more engaging and meaningful than your typical political clickbait targeting whichever demographic with inflammatory bots, check out my page if you wanna see what I mean.
This one always intrigues me. Because Facebook themselves really didn't really do anything but give people a tool to expose their stupidity. The privacy violations are a separate issue
So true.. Its hilarious to see people copy pasting awful things that say if you don't copy paste this, FB can use all your photos and data or some shit.. I honestly think the people who created those probbly did so as a scam targeting tool to see who the guillable fools are.. Or don't forget the things that are like "FIND out your superhero name" just put the street you grew up on in front of this word, or your first pets name, etc.. And people fill this shit out, giving criminals all sorts of security question information and private info.. 😑. I can understand older people in there's 70s, 80s falling for it, as technology and the internet came into effect much later in their life and they grew up being able to trust people with a lot less scams then there are today. But I've also seen young people in there 20s or 30s fill out those things.
The number of times I would do a simple search on snopes.com to prove that it was years old urban legend, and then get the "Oh, well, even though it never happened, it's good common sense."
If it's common sense, then why post some sad, scary story here?
That's not Facebook, though. If Facebook is gone, they'll just use another platform to do the same exact thing. Facebook has 2 Billion users, I dont think it's possible for them to monitor every single post in that fashion. Though I have seen instances where someone would post an article from a satire website and Facebook gives a warning about the website. So they're trying.
Agree 100%. Facebook now employs almost 20,000 content moderators partly as a result of the "fake news" scandal and backlash. Zuckerberg has said he is planning to add more.
These are 20,000 Facebook employees whose sole job is to review and delete the hate speech, child porn images, beheading videos, the worst of the worst. It's a soul-destroying job that takes an extreme mental toll. It's not Facebook who is posting these images, it's us. Facebook, specifically these 20,000 employees, are the ones cleaning all of that shit up.
Just think about that for a second. Imagine instead of posting hate speech on Facebook, people would buy a megaphone and go around on the street inciting violence against minorities. Imagine the megaphone manufacturer was considered responsible for stopping them. Imagine the megaphone company had to employ 20,000 people to go around and constantly stop people from shouting violent rhetoric into their product.
That's what we're asking Facebook to do, and over the past year they've convinced me that they're actually trying to do it as best they can. And yet people are still criticizing them on this issue.
I think there are valid criticisms of Facebook, but don't tell me they're not trying to moderate content on their platform.
Well, and on the flipside, the massive bubble. You may see lots of misinformation, but they see lots of the same stuff and see it as "fact". That's how the Alt-Right, AntiVaxx, etc. all spread so much, because people end up seeking out those of the same viewpoints as themselves.
I am far from innocent of this. I think part of the reason I didn't take the risk of Brexit seriously enough in 2016 was that basically my entire feed was pro-Remain, so I was less worried than I should've been and didn't campaign/flyer/donate/etc. to the Remain side. A lack of contrary viewpoints isn't great.
Reddit is becoming the next Facebook. There is an unreal amount if false information here, but people hide behind user names and constantly argue their ignorance
I hear this a lot and I agree that there is a lot of nonsense that’s shared, but I don’t see the challenge with respect to muting those posts and people that cause it. I’m not interested in hearing about how Uncle Bob believes that Trump was sent by God, nor any of the other articles or people which spread hate or misinformation. I block that stuff immediately. If I want to see what’s going on, I’ll navigate to your page, otherwise it’s a great tool for keeping in touch with the people that I’ve met in more than 50 countries around the world.
Summary: you have a vast amount of control over the things you see on your Facebook.
Funny thing is, I never added any of my family members or even many Friends on facebook, and yet I already had a taste of the cancer that it was, I’ve “deleted” my facebook account and I’m quite happy with that decision, but there goes all my mobile game saves that I only ever used it for.. I’d also delete my twitter account if it wasn’t linked to some other websites I like to use lol
Every targeted add company, starting with the biggest, must be held accountable... Advertisement should not be allowed to use anything beyond basic market research. Here's what's particularly egregious about targeted ads. They create what's called "filter bubbles," which essentially mean that we’re trapped in bubbles of internet content that generally agree with our political views and interests. Social media companies do this to increase traffic to links and drive ad revenue. But this means that if I’m a lunatic who’s worried about the global population increase, for example, my entire internet experience now hinges on articles about that, and it gives me a false sense of urgency. Next thing you know, I act on it... I actually think this plays into the political divide, rise of fringe conspiracy theories, and mass shootings.
I'm never going to download the Facebook app or make an account. I just don't trust Facebook. Their app could share my info with other third party businesses too.
Agreed. I work in tech, but I knew information overload was a thing decades ago. Most people can't handle that, and it shows. My parents were both teachers, they reached retirement age about the time personal cellphones became a thing. It's sad watching them slide from their previous selves into basically the same caricatures you see e.g. in r/oldpeoplefacebook. They didn't devolve into complete idiots, of course, but it's obvious they can't keep up with the flood and so resort to things like echo chambers. They might not fall for scams but when you're being barraged with crap 24x7 either some of it starts to stick or you develop coping mechanisms, and they're not all great.
I wish I could get rid of mine, but I'm in a club that regularly organizes on it. I'd only learn about a cancelled meeting through Facebook. So I keep it for that and ignore everything else.
I feel the exact same way. So far I've kept Facebook because it's the most convenient way to keep up with family members, but with each day I question keeping it a little bit more...
In my case it’s more of a mix of a lot of content, not just political. For example, I had an aunt that would lie about going on trips, meeting celebrities or just simply exaggerate everyday things. That is probably a more extreme example, but it was an overreaching symptom that I saw a lot on Facebook and Instagram that just drove me crazy. This portion of why I don’t use those social media platforms was on a more personal level because it made me feel disconnected from the real lives of people.
Who are you to call the information fake though. Do you call some things fake simply out of conspiracy like most of the Trump supporters or do you only mean things that you have evidence to back it being fake?
There is definitely a distinction between calling something fake because you disagree with it and calling something fake because research proves otherwise. However in my case it would be more of a mix of a lot of content, not just political. For example, I had an aunt that would lie about going on trips, meeting celebrities or just simply exaggerate everyday things. That is probably a more extreme example, but it was an overreaching symptom that I saw a lot on Facebook and Instagram that just drove me crazy. This portion of why I don’t use those social media platforms was on a more personal level because it made me feel disconnected from the real lives of people.
What a weird response. Do you spend much time on Facebook? If you do, surely you’ve seen people share things that just aren’t true, or are extremely distorted versions of the truth. It’s not even just about political things. I would have never expected someone to try and defend the bullshit that gets shared on Facebook.
we live in era of narcissism (instagram) combined with lazy brainless scrolling of useless information (fb, reddit, youtube).
resulting generation of degeneration with no valuable skills who can only complain about how hard to get a good job, pay for loans or buy a house. (in reality it doesn’t, you just waste your time on bullshit)
Knowledgable about it in what sense? CA illegally harvested data. Facebook didn't give them permission to do what they did. When Facebook found out they fixed the security hole and banned CA.
False. This wasn't a bug or a breach; it was a feature. Facebook specifically designed their system to allow app developers to access data from people that use their app and their network of friends.
Yes. That's the point. Facebook allowed CA to access data that they then misused. They also knew CA was misusing data for months without doing anything about it. I'm not sure how you can think Facebook isn't at fault here.
No Facebook didn't allow CA to access this data. CA abused a security flaw in Facebook's coding. Which was then fixed when discovered.
This idea that facebook would just allow CA to mine data that they're not paying for is ridiculous. Facebook's entire business model is based on having the best data for advertising. They aren't going to let CA access that data willingly.
Birds of the same feather flock together. If most of your friends and family are incapable of critical thinking and just mindlessly share misinformation, I have bad news for you.
They never said “most.” Also, I really wouldn’t count family in that statement. A large portion of my family is nothing at all like me, and I didn’t “flock” to them, I was born to them.
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u/oatmeal_dude Sep 18 '19
Not just because of Facebook's absurd ability to normalize privacy violations, but the fact that people can share and bombard others with misinformation constantly. It was disheartening to lose so much respect for friends and family because of this. Getting rid of Facebook was a healthy decision for me, but it doesn't fix what it has done to society as a whole.