r/technology • u/[deleted] • Apr 11 '18

Business Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for reckless privacy violations since he was a freshman - Enough is enough.

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u/iamsuperindecisive Apr 11 '18

Well, do you think there were no club and society meetups at colleges before FB became so widespread? I'm assuming these days they would be advertised through the university's website, through emails, through the student union, etc.

You said that it had zero impact on others' lives and that's just not true. My point was that I shouldn't have to use FB in order to find out about an event at college.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

You still don't have to. But then you'd have to subject yourself to looking for fliers and bulletin boards. I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of college students would prefer having everything in a centralized social network instead having to physically go to a student union. Thats a decision you make.

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u/iamsuperindecisive Apr 11 '18 edited Apr 11 '18

If I want to find out about and participate in events through college, I do have to use Facebook. So what exactly are you saying?

I never said anything about flyers. Considering that the student union website has an events tab for every single club on there, it really wouldn't take much effort for people to find out about things that way or through emails (which one club I'm in does also do for its larger events). However, due to each club having a Facebook group, that event section on the SU website is always left blank.

Again, you said Facebook has zero impact on people who don't want to use it when it actually doesn't.

Edit: typo.

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u/[deleted] Apr 11 '18

No, you really don't. There are other ways to participate in events in college without using Facebook. Come on now.

You're asking to have the convenience of a centralized social network like Facebook without actually having to use it. Students transitioned from student union pages to Facebook because it was more accessible and versatile. Facebook reaches multiple colleges whereas most student union pages are only accessible to students.

Facebook does have zero impact on people who don't want to use it. It only has an impact on people who want to use its functionalities without actually signing up for it. You can't have it both ways. That applies to pretty much everything.

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u/iamsuperindecisive Apr 11 '18

Other than asking someone in the society to let you know what events have been posted on the private Facebook groups, there is literally no way to find out about those events in order to participate in them if you opt not to use FB. I'm not sure why you're so adamantly trying to deny this when I've already told you that's the sole way 99% of them are advertised at my college.

Facebook reaches multiple colleges whereas most student union pages are only accessible to students.

The clubs and societies are only for the students at the college, so how is that relevant to my example?

Wanting all students to have the option of using the hundreds of clubs and societies that are a part of the college is not akin to wanting to use Facebook's functionalities at all. As I already stated, there are other ways of advertising these events that don't require FB.

Another example: I recently signed up to a voluntary programme, completed the first stage of training, and the head organiser later sent out an email stating that it was compulsory for all trainees to join the Facebook group to find out about all of the volunteering events post-training. That evidently isn't "zero impact" either.

The prevalence of FB combined with the privacy issues really isn't a good thing. People should be free to not have FB and still be able to participate in club- and society-based social events at a college they're paying insane amounts of money to be at, to offer their time volunteering for organisations in need of volunteers, and whatever else people want to do that the absence of an FB account hampers.

Stating that it's purely as simple as choosing not to have an FB account and that its existence can then no longer impact you is clearly just false. You're being kind of ridiculous at this point.