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Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

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Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#261

Post by ghaff »

lsllc wrote: post #222
ecshafer wrote: post #14

> I live in a more rural community (moved from a big city). We have 5-6 small (~50k people) towns, all well connected. Everything happens on Facebook. I would like to move to a different platforms. Plus points for self-hosted, federated. Do YOU want to move off of Facebook for some reason, or do people want to move off of Facebook for some reason. MOST people in the US, especially in a rural are are not going to quit…

This. After WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook (this predates any of the current political stuff, it was entirely about privacy), I tried to get friends and family to switch to something else -- Signal in fact as iMessage was a no-go because of the lack of Android support. Out of ~30 people, I got precisely 3 people to switch. No one else cared, no one else wanted the hassle of switching. I even got a few comments alo…

Yeah, my gut is that of those 30K people on Facebook you might get a few hundred to join a new platform. But maybe not. It probably won't be very useful without the other 29K people plus (even if a lot of those are probably not very active).

Heck, we see this with Mastodon and Bluesky, their content is very thin in my experience (even if Twitter's is also thinner than it used to be at least with the mostly tech-related content I followed).

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#262

Post by Stronico »

scarface_74 wrote: post #213
Stronico wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got it down to 45 minutes a month, including a phone call to the venue.

And what happens when he gets tired of managing all of that? With Facebook he can just give someone else admin access.

I can just give the logins to someone else. My current setup is a workable, optimal, but not clean solution to the problem.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#263

Post by rc_kas »

scarface_74 wrote: post #78
throwawayffb wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe he wants to inconvenience everyone else because he's sickened by Zuckerberg's opportunism and willingness to kiss the ring of the most corrupt person to ever occupy the Oval Office. Just a wild guess.

It’s rural America. Do you really think they are anti-Trump?

A percentage of them are.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#264

Post by horacemorace »

talldayo wrote: post #101
coldpie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agrees this is an uphill battle. What I'm saying is that's a boring reason not to do something you believe in.

There are a lot of justified, boring reasons to not do something. I despise Facebook, but I'm also not going to waste my time trying to convince my cohorts to use a self-hosted federated alternative. You have to be blindly foolish to even hold out the slightest hope that these people will use an alternative, and I say that as a Mastodon user/apologist.

Many of us are insane in this way. Deride us as blind and foolish.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#265

Post by mmooss »

robertlagrant wrote: post #108
coldpie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agrees this is an uphill battle. What I'm saying is that's a boring reason not to do something you believe in.

> Everyone agrees this is an uphill battle No, most people don't care about having this battle - that's the point. If there's no demonstrable reason to leave (e.g. "former president got banned from major platform, so go to new platform") then the - valid, if personally boring to you - point is: how will you persuade people to leave it?

> most people don't care about having this battle

That is also true of every advance society makes: Most people are happy the way they are. It's an obstacle every innovator and leader faces. Yet somehow, we make changes and advances.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#266

Post by mmooss »

briandear wrote: post #187
coldpie wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone agrees this is an uphill battle. What I'm saying is that's a boring reason not to do something you believe in.

It’s a Quixotic quest. Moving an online community off Facebook isn’t changing the world for the better or worse. It’s inconsequential unless you build an objectively better community. Just switching from Coke to Pepsi isn’t a wasted effort. Focus on zero to one, not zero to another version of zero.

It increases privacy (depending on the new platform), and reduces exposure to whatever toxic stuff is on FB.

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#267

Post by archagon »

bko wrote: post #189
cyanydeez wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're arguing local, short term benefits with global long term damage. Very near sighted, but an actual problem government, good governance, has struggled with absolutely. Part of the techno fascism is emerging because people are entirely easily manipulated with todays egg prices and not tomorrows suffering of human rights.

> techno fascism I keep hearing this. What does this mean? My guess would be "a system in which big technology firms can effectively censor speech with coordination from the state". But I think those that use it mean something else.

Big tech leadership cheerily cozying up to an authoritarian president, felon, and rapist who started an insurrection and literally tried to overthrow the last election.

Musk — one of the most powerful people in Washington — doing things like throwing a sieg heil salute, supporting the AfD, claiming that "Hitler was a communist,"[1] and calling for the execution of a government witness[2].

Thiel proclaiming to "no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible," and then half of Silicon Valley showing up to party with him[3].

Techno fascism is what it says on the tin: technologists who are very happy with fascism for the sake of money and power. (Just don't call them fascists, they hate that.)

[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-far-right-german-leade...

[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42773678

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#268

Post by cyanydeez »

pixl97 wrote: post #206
cyanydeez wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're arguing local, short term benefits with global long term damage. Very near sighted, but an actual problem government, good governance, has struggled with absolutely. Part of the techno fascism is emerging because people are entirely easily manipulated with todays egg prices and not tomorrows suffering of human rights.

>you're arguing local, short term benefits Whelp, we know which one is going to win then. An economic benefit now wins the vast majority of the time.

Yes, local maximums are deceptive and should be pointed at as often as possible

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#269

Post by bdangubic »

coldpie wrote: post #226
pixl97 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hello, it appears you've never even ran the most basic internet platform before in your life. Simply put you have to ask the most important questions first, then build an app backwards from that 1) How will it be paid for 2) How will it be moderated. So, you've already failed number one. You have no means to pay for it. Then you failed number two. If it gains even a modicum of popularity it will be completely and tot…

I agree it's unlikely to succeed, but I find thinking about our problems and trying to fix them much more admirable & interesting than just rolling over and accepting things as they are. You can't improve things if you never even try.

You can't improve things if you never even try.

There are things you should not try as you can easily deduce that they are not rooted in any reality, e.g. "free" and "no-ads"

Re: Ask HN: Organize local communities without Facebook?

#270

Post by mmooss »

zer8k wrote: post #138
dingnuts wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok so where do those who have been consistently mad at the people variously in power going back to 2016 or even 2008 go to complain? non-partisan free speech believers exist

People are gonna stay upset for quite a while. The billion dollar election manipulation campaign spanning Reddit/Tiktok/Youtube/Television was extremely effective. It convinced a very, very specific kind of person that the by-the-numbers worst candidate in modern history was going to win in an absolute landslide. It will be years before these people realize how much the media was controlled from 2020-2024 specificall…

I think you need to make the argument about Nazis on its merits. Trump's people do much that fits the definition of fascism, many try to normalize or advocate for fascism, dictatorship, and even normalize Hitler. His most prominent member of government did a proto-Nazi salute (and don't say he's too dumb to know what it would look like).

And that paragraph would not be objectionable to many people in that political grouping.

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