Facebook Dilemma - What You Need to Know

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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If you use Facebook, or know someone that does, this is very much worth your viewing time. Frontline PBS has done an excellent job and putting a lot of facts together, all in one place...or two places actually.

Videos.
 
A blast from the past (are we coming full circle?):

5acfb8751e0000fb077b158c.jpg


If you feel like you're losing face, maybe it's time to return to my, uh, your space.
 
It look like the video are maybe being censored by YouTube, or some other technical issue is happening.



It says for me "Video unavailable This video is not available", though the page still loads.
 
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Delicieuxz said:
It look like the video are maybe being censored by YouTube, or some other technical issue is happening.



It says for me "Video unavailable This video is not available", though the page still loads.
Click to expand...


You can blame BoobTube for that.
 
Watched it tonight on PBS. Reinforced my beliefs about a lot of things not fit for discussion on this subforum, not just about Facebook.
 
I quit using it long ago, closed the account, and I block any embedded object (scripts, images, etc.) that come from the facebook domain.
Yet somehow, life goes on. :)
 
I like what that guy said about targeted ads -- finding a minimum scope to targeted ads per level of government and regulating as appropriate. i.e. If you are running for a local area, you must run the same ads to all people of the area, and not target individuals, or isolate your ads unto groups or industries.
 
Never used it, seem like me and facetwitt dont have the same understanding about what friends and stalkers are.
Do use youtube which i assume are also a form of social media, but thank god my uploads mostly seem to antagonize viewers though thats not really my plan.
Would like to have more haters than followers, but for now thats still on the positive with just one or 2 that thumb down every video i make no matter how benign they are.
 
I think the core of this is that people still don't understand how the information age works, and not asking some questions that they should be. The Medium is the Message. Forget about biases in the outlets, it's about trying to figure out what the distributor of information has to gain from it and how they're trying to manipulate the audience. It's about that information and combining it with the structure of the medium to get an understanding of these meta elements and their role and influence in society.

... Well that's what I'd like to say, but honestly that's really hard. I can talk about it, but I'd probably fail at it on a decent number of attempts. Average IQ levels would need to go up drastically before people can think like that as a baseline... or there would need to be a paradigm shift in how people think in general.

I mean, it scares me that so many people are just willing to hand over every facet of their lives to this company and then just start supporting/supplementing a very large aspect of their lives (the social aspect, which for humans is incredibly important) with this service because it's so convenient... without ever pausing to think about how it could be affecting their viewpoints, their consumption, their mindsets, their habits. I understand why it happens, but it seems pretty much futile (maybe even pointless) to stop it. Like this video, whatever partisan influence it has, and whatever hidden agendas it's trying to kind of just brush to the side (and they probably exist), still has a good point. But look at the view numbers. Even if they go high, how many people will actually understand the message? The real core idea and concept? Hopefully we'll just get some wariness, but that's about the best you can expect for the average person. Forming an intelligent truth police isn't going to help anyone because that will eventually be corrupt as well.

The problem is that there is so much noise. Figuring out the truth is literally a struggle and it's subject to differing interpretations and has roughly no objective basis. Ideally it's what you make decisions on, but it's sitting behind a locked cage made with unobtainable bars. That's been the state of politics for a long time.
 
Why would you signup to a service where you are the product?
Facebook got so much money and did nothing with it, they got hacked and abused more and more.

The whole internet is being abused for gains that people who have little to no knowledge what is going on.
 
This is so politically charged I'm not sure how to respond entirely non-politically so I'll be as utterly generic as I can to make the underlying point:

Please, bear in mind that PBS, and Facebook are all very, very heavily on one side of the political aisle... all working together as friends and bedfellows. Frontline sometimes presents pretty well, but rarely does anything get on PBS without adequate slant applied. This entire piece, while it is sprinkled with a lot of truth you MUST watch it with a jaded eye as to WHY they would give the appearance of eating their own. PBS and Frontline won't toss Facebook under the bus without trading it for a narrative they want to push.

You have to at least consider that a lot of this is to deny the use of the social weapon (Facebook) by the other party. While the other side is in power, preach about the dangers of Facebook and social media abuse... when they get back in power later, everything will suddenly be fine again. This is a distinct possibility.

The piece spends the first episode building with a whole lot of truth about the dangers of social media and the founding and growth of Facebook specifically. It then leaves you off at the end with the "big reveal" about Russian election interference in the US. That topic is a political nuclear mine field and centers on issues not even related to Facebook but let's stick with just the Facebook angle because of the OP. That there are Russian or Chinese or Korean or whatever trolls planting ideas and articles into Facebook and social media? Of course you'd assume it happens. Media manipulation happens every day in many forms for example when all of the dozen major news outlets somehow all have exactly the same top of the hour list and say nearly exactly the same words every morning on whatever the narrative of the day is.

The second part picks up right where the first left off and reinforces that narrative in the first minutes, then lets it rest for a bit in the middle while it piles up more other Facebook failures and dangers around the world, and then hammers the evils of Cambridge Analytica at the end. The so-called abuse of user data by a group associated with the party that ended up winning the election.

Nowhere does any of this discuss any other uses or abuses for various elections. Just the "horror" that one side's social weapon was actually used by the other side of the political aisle for once and perhaps to substantial effect. Like that was surprising? Or wrong because the other side learned how to play the social media game?

All the discussion about the actual dangers and evils and how groups can be manipulated are true. Unfortunately there were a lot of flowery words dodging around the question of HOW to regulate the posts on the platform and who decides what is and isn't ok.

When it comes to EITHER party in the US using available social media data (the same data untold numbers of businesses already use to target YOU)... where does that desire to reach the target audience go from effective political contact to manipulation? Who decides that and how? Is it based on who is in charge today? If Facebook knows how to get your message to the right people and it's the best and easiest way to do it, can you afford to not use that advantage? Knowledge is power. Communication wins battles and elections.

This is exactly WHY so many of us call social media an evil in general and why Orwellian profiles of people created and managed by companies like Facebook and Google are so terrible. These monolithic profiles of individuals shouldn't exist at all. But since they do and as long as they do they will be used to contact and influence people.

Like so many other forms of media, it's vitally important that we raise children and teach adults to not just take what comes in on a personalized feed as the only source of news. You have to take an article or anything you see on any news feed or source as a cue to read with a critical eye and note who the players are and what the suggested take-away is... THEN GO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and form an opinion.

I don't have any social media accounts. I don't recommend anyone have one. I went through the entire election cycle without ever logging into Facebook or any other social media site. It gives you a different perspective when you watch the whole thing from the outside of the fishbowl.

And Kyle, try to work toward getting rid of the Facebook account entirely. I've manged to run my business for over 20 years without one I'm sure you can get those clicks another way.
 
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Advil said:
This is so politically charged I'm not sure how to respond entirely non-politically so I'll be as utterly generic as I can to make the underlying point:

Please, bear in mind that PBS, and Facebook are all very, very heavily on one side of the political aisle... all working together as friends and bedfellows. Frontline sometimes presents pretty well, but rarely does anything get on PBS without adequate slant applied. This entire piece, while it is sprinkled with a lot of truth you MUST watch it with a jaded eye as to WHY they would give the appearance of eating their own. PBS and Frontline won't toss Facebook under the bus without trading it for a narrative they want to push.

You have to at least consider that a lot of this is to deny the use of the social weapon (Facebook) by the other party. While the other side is in power, preach about the dangers of Facebook and social media abuse... when they get back in power later, everything will suddenly be fine again. This is a distinct possibility.

The piece spends the first episode building with a whole lot of truth about the dangers of social media and the founding and growth of Facebook specifically. It then leaves you off at the end with the "big reveal" about Russian election interference in the US. That topic is a political nuclear mine field and centers on issues not even related to Facebook but let's stick with just the Facebook angle because of the OP. That there are Russian or Chinese or Korean or whatever trolls planting ideas and articles into Facebook and social media? Of course you'd assume it happens. Media manipulation happens every day in many forms for example when all of the dozen major news outlets somehow all have exactly the same top of the hour list and say nearly exactly the same words every morning on whatever the narrative of the day is.

The second part picks up right where the first left off and reinforces that narrative in the first minutes, then lets it rest for a bit in the middle while it piles up more other Facebook failures and dangers around the world, and then hammers the evils of Cambridge Analytica at the end. The so-called abuse of user data by a group associated with the party that ended up winning the election.

Nowhere does any of this discuss any other uses or abuses for various elections. Just the "horror" that one side's social weapon was actually used by the other side of the political aisle for once and perhaps to substantial effect. Like that was surprising? Or wrong because the other side learned how to play the social media game?

All the discussion about the actual dangers and evils and how groups can be manipulated are true. Unfortunately there were a lot of flowery words dodging around the question of HOW to regulate the posts on the platform and who decides what is and isn't ok.

When it comes to EITHER party in the US using available social media data (the same data untold numbers of businesses already use to target YOU)... where does that desire to reach the target audience go from effective political contact to manipulation? Who decides that and how? Is it based on who is in charge today? If Facebook knows how to get your message to the right people and it's the best and easiest way to do it, can you afford to not use that advantage? Knowledge is power. Communication wins battles and elections.

This is exactly WHY so many of us call social media an evil in general and why Orwellian profiles of people created and managed by companies like Facebook and Google are so terrible. These monolithic profiles of individuals shouldn't exist at all. But since they do and as long as they do they will be used to contact and influence people.

Like so many other forms of media, it's vitally important that we raise children and teach adults to not just take what comes in on a personalized feed as the only source of news. You have to take an article or anything you see on any news feed or source as a cue to read with a critical eye and note who the players are and what the suggested take-away is... THEN GO DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH and form an opinion.

I don't have any social media accounts. I don't recommend anyone have one. I went through the entire election cycle without ever logging into Facebook or any other social media site. It gives you a different perspective when you watch the whole thing from the outside of the fishbowl.

And Kyle, try to work toward getting rid of the Facebook account entirely. I've manged to run my business for over 20 years without one I'm sure you can get those clicks another way.
Click to expand...


Very well said. Quoted in its entirety so that there's yet another copy of this well written, well thought out, and well expressed, explanation.

Anything I could add would be superfluous.

Thanks.
 
Honestly I haven't noticed much difference between 2007 when I joined and today.
Same old Facebook just different UI.
 
I signed up for facebook to get a discount coupon at Micro Center for an i5-2500k. Promptly deleted my account less than a month later.
 
Deleting my Facebook account after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke was one of the best decisions I made in 2018.

The best thing about the internet is that it gave everyone a voice. The worst thing about the internet is that it gave everyone a voice. I'll pick whose voice I want to listen to on my own - not what Facebook is paid to tell me I might find interesting.
 
I unabashedly continue to use Facebook as I find it very useful. I have no expectations of privacy there, and use it accordingly.
 
Gigantopithecus said:
Deleting my Facebook account after the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke was one of the best decisions I made in 2018.

The best thing about the internet is that it gave everyone a voice. The worst thing about the internet is that it gave everyone a voice. I'll pick whose voice I want to listen to on my own - not what Facebook is paid to tell me I might find interesting.
Click to expand...

Ah yes its a good thing to give the village idiot a global audience ;).
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I unabashedly continue to use Facebook as I find it very useful. I have no expectations of privacy there, and use it accordingly.
Click to expand...
Most people are probably in this camp, if they are being honest. A ton of people are quick to cite mitigating circumstances for their use of Facebook. Meh. Use it, don't use it. The least you can do is be candid about it.
 
Advil said:
Nowhere does any of this discuss any other uses or abuses for various elections. Just the "horror" that one side's social weapon was actually used by the other side of the political aisle for once and perhaps to substantial effect. Like that was surprising? Or wrong because the other side learned how to play the social media game?
Click to expand...

There is a belief among certain people that they have a divinely-given monopoly on various things such as jobs in education and the media, protesting, and the use of technology.
 
Currently watching it, 2hrs long......
Anyway.
I use it as long as I I'm not block, but for some reason some religious can't handle their beliefs being question, brought to light, or mocked.
Not really concerned about privacy, not like they're going to milk much info about me, nothing on my main profile.
DrBorg said:
(post deleted before I even posted it, I don't want to get banned again.)
Click to expand...
Nothing like getting a ban right after getting off one for something you posted months/years earlier! ;) I ruv it(not).
 
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This whole facebook bruhaha is a massive joke. I mean seriously, take a look at the posts going on there. So many people are posting everything about their lives there up to and including how many times they take a crap each day. They are throwing their kid's pictures on there along with pictures of themselves, their homes, their cars and just about everything. Privacy? Wtf is that??!! Social media and privacy are two words that really don't make a lot of sense being in the same sentence.
 
I figured out what fb was doing a decade ago and deleted my account. Friends and family gave me shit for it, this confirmed my thoughts on fbs orwellian nature. Most people I know are beginning to have an uneasy feeling about google, cloud services and social media in general. I imagine they think more carefully before posting now. Ponder that for more than 2 seconds.

I used to have a lot of respect for Frontline and how they'd tackle real issues in our society, (mortgage backed security fraud, gov spying, etc...), up until a few years ago that is. Maybe they can restore that trust but I doubt it.

Zuck gives me that twisted motherfucker feeling, every picture I see that fake disingenuous awkward smile or the straight lipped robot smirk, like the pic above. Sometime in the future this guy is gonna pop.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
I unabashedly continue to use Facebook as I find it very useful. I have no expectations of privacy there, and use it accordingly.
Click to expand...
I'm in this camp. I post nothing, quickly scroll through every few days to look at the highlights of the few niche groups I'm in that don't have websites or forums, and to get the 5 second update on a few family members / friends / acquaintances , and absolutely have zero expectations of privacy.

I use pi-hole so I don't get any ads anyways, but I'm sure facebook knows enough about me anyways.

It is quite humorous to see the amount of people who use facebook as a personal journal though, makes my weekly reads on the crapper entertaining occasionally.
 
one issue i have read about is that in some countries where they have facebook installed on their phones, they use it for internet because using facebook doesnt cost them data, while other places for news costs data

so for economic reasons, they are getting limited views of news
 
They seriously need to do one on Google. Google is a much bigger threat than Facebook.
 
Facebook killed many of the good car forums and turned them into a shell of their former self, many of the better contributors have no desire to join facebook or be around the type of people it often attracts.
 
I still use facebook. There are some great specific gun groups on Facebook I learn a lot on the Ruger precision rifles and the Saiga 12. The AR groups though, gotta have thick skin.
 
Ordeith said:
They seriously need to do one on Google. Google is a much bigger threat than Facebook.
Click to expand...

Sure Google is a bigger threat but FB isn't that small anymore. They're going to be just as dangerous, if not more, in a few years.
 
I look at it like this, most of these things started our a harmless endeavours, a great way to keep connected with people. The main goal was to connect people, but as things went on they got perverted and then greed started to take root and people wanted to cash in on this massive amount of data that was being collected. Social media was then weaponized and turned into a thing that could potentially hurt others just by manipulating feeds which Facebook ran into.

I've said it for years now that social media is a cancer on this planet because instead of connecting the people its actually a wedge between people and its being hammered on by many different organized groups to isolate people for their purposes. Whether it be religion, political, hobbies, sexual preference. There are so many categories that the powers that be are pigeon holing people into. So you might get along with person A in Group C but once they find our your are part of group G its and automatic turn off and you break contact.
You can see it happening all over the place......1 second a guy is adored for being a great person and the next everyone wants to burn him at the stake because of something said 20 years ago........its all insane.
Toxic more than helpful anymore. The pool breeds more toxicity rather than reducing it......
 
Haven't used Facebook in over two years. Don't miss it a bit. I actually wish Myspace was still around in its original form.
 
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