I have no friends.
I'll be your friend.
I see we have the same phone. We have things in common already!
Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
11–20 of 58 posts
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#12This is a puff piece designed to puff up Telegram. If you look at, say, Instagram it is growing rapidly. Specifically to Facebook, the issue is 3 pronged: - Disassociated Graph. The truth is the friends you had in high school and your family are all great but it is highly likely you don't share a lot of things in common with them. For example, your love for kayaking and the outdoors might resonate with no one on your…
Hmm, I agree that your point about social networks distancing you from your community is true in the United States. In Mexico, on the other hand, a huge amount of community information is passed through FB and WhatsApp groups. No matter what activity you are involved in, from mountain biking to the city dog park, there's a very active WhatsApp group and a FB page. It feels like how social networks were meant to be.
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#13This is a puff piece designed to puff up Telegram. If you look at, say, Instagram it is growing rapidly. Specifically to Facebook, the issue is 3 pronged: - Disassociated Graph. The truth is the friends you had in high school and your family are all great but it is highly likely you don't share a lot of things in common with them. For example, your love for kayaking and the outdoors might resonate with no one on your…
As far as I understand it, the first two of these problems, you could theoretically fix (to some extent) yourself. If you share nothing in common with your high school friends, your family etc., just don't be 'friends' with them. Only friend/like pages related to your interest. In theory, that would fix problem 2 as well, to some extent, because the majority of the junk that fills your feed comes from your twice-remo…
> As far as I understand it, the first two of these problems, you could theoretically fix (to some extent) yourself.
How will the average person fix that? I assume you are talking about an ad blocker? Then it only get's rid of the side ads. It does not get rid of the junk in the main feed. Even training the system won't get you the result you desire.
> If you share nothing in common with your high school friends, your family etc., just don't be 'friends' with them. Only friend/like pages related to your interest.
That is not what Facebook is about. You only add people you've met at some point in real-life. You can't do what you are suggesting because Facebook works on real identities. People are afraid to friend people they don't know because it is almost like a 2nd identity card in a way.
You are right about Facebook Pages but I think the early 2010-2012 brand push by Facebook really ruined that product. Secondly, a Facebook Page is more of an entity. It is not tied to you. I can make a profile on Instagram called "outdoors_guy" and it is my handle and all the people are following me and my life. A Facebook page doesn't capture that.
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#14I wiped out (actual permanent deletion) my Facebook account late 2016. Email and long form communication for people that matter. Gathered anyone I regularly chatted with or wanted to IM with onto Signal. Don't miss anything about Facebook other than a group or two I was a member of. Decentralized forums still exist and work fine. We deserve better than Facebook.
I have been wanting to do this for literally years now, but I don't think I could convince the vast majority of my friends to move onto anything together, let alone Signal. Most of them are non-technical, and it just holds no appeal. Plus, because they would basically just be installing it just to talk to me, they would probably nearly never be online or check their messages, so I'd almost never get to talk to them a…
You could unfollow everyone. i did this a few months back and haven't missed it at all. way less distraction.
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#15I wiped out (actual permanent deletion) my Facebook account late 2016. Email and long form communication for people that matter. Gathered anyone I regularly chatted with or wanted to IM with onto Signal. Don't miss anything about Facebook other than a group or two I was a member of. Decentralized forums still exist and work fine. We deserve better than Facebook.
It's so nice to see such rare and nuanced discussion on HN, declaring that one has deleted their Facebook account; a refreshing and entirely not beat to death reminder indeed.
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#16I'd love to see an FB replacement with just groups and events. All the rest is just noise to me, but I guess it's hard to get a viable userbase without the fluffier features of FB. And of course there's the whole problem of everyone already using FB.
Ideally, it'd be federated, perhaps an extension of GNU Social, but wishes ain't horses...
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#17I wiped out (actual permanent deletion) my Facebook account late 2016. Email and long form communication for people that matter. Gathered anyone I regularly chatted with or wanted to IM with onto Signal. Don't miss anything about Facebook other than a group or two I was a member of. Decentralized forums still exist and work fine. We deserve better than Facebook.
It's so nice to see such rare and nuanced discussion on HN, declaring that one has deleted their Facebook account; a refreshing and entirely not beat to death reminder indeed.
Heh, alright. Well, if it is news some famous Russian guy unfollowed his network activity helps other HNers have a tiny bit more information about what others are doing. I will elaborate some though. I am in information security and have been reforming my overall footprint online. I have been making an effort to cut down on the analytics I generate for other companies and keep my data and activity on the Internet to myself. I have migrated away from Mac and Windows as primary operating systems due to analytics and ongoing downward trend for Apple (Sierra was not a good update from a privacy perspective).
Perhaps I am simplifying too much, but this problem does not seem complex -- but we have collectively made it complicated. People need to claw back their privacy one app, and website at a time. I have also made efforts to begin educating my family.
I have also connected my entire home Internet to a full time VPN end point that tunnels everything out. The VPN endpoint IP is changed every day at night (Trail of Bits -- Algo, cron and a bash script, and a good amount of battle with IPSec to make the gateway work). No more ISP super tracking cookies in my home. Everyone that is on the home network goes through is so it is easy for everyone to use (nothing changed on my home network from the end user perspective).
Consistent usage of privoxy. Casual browsing is done using Chrome in a docker container that is removed when chrome closes.
There are other things, but most of that has been over the last 6 months. It is a good start... But there are still a lot of obvious leaks. I have also been steering friends and family towards paid service with no advertising over anything where they are the "product".
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#18I'd think Durov was the kind of person who uses social network only for PR and is not otherwise interested in it...
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#19This is a puff piece designed to puff up Telegram. If you look at, say, Instagram it is growing rapidly. Specifically to Facebook, the issue is 3 pronged: - Disassociated Graph. The truth is the friends you had in high school and your family are all great but it is highly likely you don't share a lot of things in common with them. For example, your love for kayaking and the outdoors might resonate with no one on your…
I think you're not using Facebook appropriately. There are many groups and pages that keep you engaged and entertained as well as informed to some extent. You join the ones that cater your interest. I actually spend a lot of time on facebook daily because I managed to get a good selection of interesting sources. I have heard the same old tired tale that facebook is dying etc and it feels so vibrant right now. I guess some people don't realize that facebook is more than following your friends.
Also instagram is a very limited platform compared to facebook. It doesn't have a vast array of communication tools that facebook has. It's basically just sharing pictures to other people and some limited comment system.
Re: Pavel Durov Has Unfriended Everyone
#20I wiped out (actual permanent deletion) my Facebook account late 2016. Email and long form communication for people that matter. Gathered anyone I regularly chatted with or wanted to IM with onto Signal. Don't miss anything about Facebook other than a group or two I was a member of. Decentralized forums still exist and work fine. We deserve better than Facebook.
I have been wanting to do this for literally years now, but I don't think I could convince the vast majority of my friends to move onto anything together, let alone Signal. Most of them are non-technical, and it just holds no appeal. Plus, because they would basically just be installing it just to talk to me, they would probably nearly never be online or check their messages, so I'd almost never get to talk to them a…
I guess that is what it comes down to. I am now missing a lot of low quality interactions with friends and family. I do still SMS with folks. It was mostly about Facebook. I took the time to plan out how to stay in touch with each and every one of my contacts I cared about or thought would care about me. It is a good question -- what will you really be missing? How did the thinkers of generations gone by live without pervasive and instant contact with friends and family. Did they still foster deep and meaningful relationships? Can we still do that now without a tool like Facebook or Twitter.