Facebook is no more

[Ming the Merciless]

And here we have what is the most pernicious conceit of all: that a rejection of FB is somehow the actions of a luddite. That is a false equivalence that criticism of FB means criticism of social media, or technology. It is not. It is merely a criticism of FB. Worse, it is a thoroughly odious ad hominem attack on those who hold different opinions to yours - opinions which, I might add, are backed with a good deal of evidence.

FB has amassed sufficient data about you, and billions of other people to be able to predict their behaviour with some accuracy. That will only improve as the quantity of data and algorithms are improved. Data which can be used, well from mundane things like determining that someone is more likely to buy product x if it's coloured red to how to influence them to put a cross next to candidate B rather than candidate A. This is all held by a company which has demonstrated that it lacks any form of ethics whatsoever. Do you think that this power in the hands of such a company is good for society?

Indeed it is not a rejection of technology, purely a rejection of Facebook and everything it gets up to, known and unknown as someone once said. Enough y is enough as far as FB goes.

 

[snorri]

Need I continue?

Yet on a quiet night you can spend hours researching in a vain effort to understand wtf you should become a "friend" of the person suggested by F/B .

 

[PK99]

Indeed it is not a rejection of technology, purely a rejection of Facebook and everything it gets up to, known and unknown as someone once said. Enough y is enough as far as FB goes.

D1 (30) and D2 (25) and most of their friends have virtually abandoned FB apart from occasional "weekend away" pics to share after the event. Instagram and Wattsapp are now their preferred media.

I still use FB as there are a couple of groups of people (mainly old gits like me) who post to private groups, but I've deleted most "friends".

 

[PaulSB]

I ocassionaly post images or a few remarks about something happening in my life on FB. This would usually be an activity, holiday or somewhere we visited.

I do find it very useful for everything connected to my cycling club. While I know how people used to communicate ride info etc. I can't imagine this working today.

While fully understanding the data, info collection issues many object to I'm not concerned by it for myself - in wider society, yes, personally, no.

I do find it difficult to understand why people eschew the smart phone. It is a device which does the same, and often more, as the computer people use to tell others, with some apparent pride to my mind, they don't have one. To an extent there is an implication the rest are fools for doing so.

After spending £150 on a phone for £5/month, £60pa, I can communicate with all my friends and much more. BT would charge me £17/month, £204pa for the privilege of getting the communication means, a line, in to my house - more than three times a mobile cost without any calls.

 

[Vantage]

How old are you? I'm only 58 & remember those days

Oops. They may actually have had a phone...

 

[Dirk]

Oops. They may actually have had a phone...

Both sets of my grandparents never had a telephone, or a car for that matter.
This was well into the late 1970s when I was in my late 20s.

 

[nickyboy]

And here we have what is the most pernicious conceit of all: that a rejection of FB is somehow the actions of a luddite. That is a false equivalence that criticism of FB means criticism of social media, or technology. It is not. It is merely a criticism of FB. Worse, it is a thoroughly odious ad hominem attack on those who hold different opinions to yours - opinions which, I might add, are backed with a good deal of evidence.

FB has amassed sufficient data about you, and billions of other people to be able to predict their behaviour with some accuracy. That will only improve as the quantity of data and algorithms are improved. Data which can be used, well from mundane things like determining that someone is more likely to buy product x if it's coloured red to how to influence them to put a cross next to candidate B rather than candidate A. This is all held by a company which has demonstrated that it lacks any form of ethics whatsoever. Do you think that this power in the hands of such a company is good for society?

It's telling that I use social media and communication technology all the time. It's fundamental to my business.

So I use Twitter, whatsapp, telegram, wechat all day long

But I don't have a FB account. For me, the cons outweigh the pros

 

[Electric_Andy]

I'm thinking of binning it. Photos and and the like can now be shared (just me and my sisters' kids) using whatsapp. Only bind is that my ex doesn't use whatsapp so I have to video call my son using messenger...which you need a FB account for. If I can persuade her to use whatssapp then I wouldn't mind binning it

 

[Deleted member 26715]

If I can persuade her to use whatssapp then I wouldn't mind binning it

I have a concern that as Whatsapp is owned by Farcebook that the security & privacy they claim it has is not as good as we believe.

 

[byegad]

I've just deleted FB from my phone. So far I haven't missed it.

 

[Andrew_P]

And here we have what is the most pernicious conceit of all: that a rejection of FB is somehow the actions of a luddite. That is a false equivalence that criticism of FB means criticism of social media, or technology. It is not. It is merely a criticism of FB. Worse, it is a thoroughly odious ad hominem attack on those who hold different opinions to yours - opinions which, I might add, are backed with a good deal of evidence.

FB has amassed sufficient data about you, and billions of other people to be able to predict their behaviour with some accuracy. That will only improve as the quantity of data and algorithms are improved. Data which can be used, well from mundane things like determining that someone is more likely to buy product x if it's coloured red to how to influence them to put a cross next to candidate B rather than candidate A. This is all held by a company which has demonstrated that it lacks any form of ethics whatsoever. Do you think that this power in the hands of such a company is good for society?

You don't think Microsoft, Google and Apple etc are not doing the same?

Even the cookies on here want to know where I have been and are interested in where I go afterwards

Big data is everywhere.

 

[AndyRM]

Cyclechat does not demand your actual name, or your date of birth.
Cyclechat does not place tracking cookies on your browser or employ other devices (the FB Like buttons on other websites are one means) to track people wherever they go on the internet.
Cyclechat does not hoover up all contact details on any smart phone which has its app installed (go on, just check what permissions the FB app gives itself).
Cyclechat does not generate shadow profiles of people it discovered in the previous step, and populate it with data from its tracking activities.

Need I continue?

So, no, not at all the same.

Thanks for that, there's no need to continue.

CycleChat and Facebook are both forms of social media.

That's all my point is. Obviously they're not identical, but they are fundamentally the same.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

D1 (30) and D2 (25) and most of their friends have virtually abandoned FB apart from occasional "weekend away" pics to share after the event. Instagram and Wattsapp are now their preferred media.

I still use FB as there are a couple of groups of people (mainly old gits like me) who post to private groups, but I've deleted most "friends".

Instagram and Whatsapp are also part if the Zuckerberg surveillance machinary. Whatsapp does not end to end encrypt conversations by default, and they store the meta data. Signal is much better fir privacy.

 

[mjr]

Cyclechat does not place tracking cookies on your browser or employ other devices (the FB Like buttons on other websites are one means) to track people wherever they go on the internet.

No, it just tries to guilt-trip you into disabling your ad-blocker so that Google can do that.

Other differences are valid, though. At the moment.

 

[Wobblers]

You don't think Microsoft, Google and Apple etc are not doing the same?

Even the cookies on here want to know where I have been and are interested in where I go afterwards

Big data is everywhere.

That Google and others engage in similar activities does not excuse Facebook. (And, as it happens, I routinely block scripts from Google such as the ubiquitous googleanalytics. Nor is this machine running a Microsoft OS.) So this site has tracking cookies? Well I never: I never noticed. But then, I wouldn't; that's why I've got addons like Self-Destructing Cookies for.

The reason "big data is everywhere" is that most people simply accept that - without thought to the consequences. Worse, some make excuses for it, just as you're doing. Big data is merely a tool. It can be used for good or for ill. There needs to be a debate about how these technologies are used - that is our safeguard against its worst excesses. But as long as people continue to accept without question, or make excuses, this will not happen.