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Get your loved ones off Facebook

salimvirani.com

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Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#251

Post by bzbarsky »

bargl wrote: post #98
throwanem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never used Facebook. But if I had, to the extent you have, it would horrify and frighten me to reflect upon the fact that so much of my emotional life were all but inextricably tied into one private company, such that staying in that company's good graces had become a necessary part of maintaining access to my own memories .

I think you are taking this a little out of context. The best part for me is the feed into other peoples lives. It's a service I'd be sad to loose. It's interesting to find someone on here who maintains all of their files/email/photos/etc locally in a redundantly backed-up manner at home on their own personal server. How did you do that? Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person? If you don't t…

I know you're just trying to make a point, but...

> Can you recommend me a way to do that for a non-technical person?

1) Use IMAP with copy-to-local-drive for email; Thunderbird or Apple Mail or a variety of other applications will do this reasonably for a non-technical person.

2) Store your files and photos on your hard drive, or a hard drive plugged into your wireless router which can then expose it as a network drive (e.g. Apple's Airport Extreme can do this, as can other wireless router).

3) Use Crashplan for backups. This is fairly easy to set up, even if you're non-technical, if you back up to their server.

This does rely on Crashplan, but they're the backup, not the only copy of the data.

> I mean what would you do if apple/google wrote an update to their os that wiped all of your contacts for good?

Restore from the contacts backup I store on my hard drive every so often (and which hence gets backed up via Crashplan). This part is fairly rocket-science for non-technical people, unfortunately.

> just like your example of loosing access to my memories because Facebook decides to destroy it's own brand.

The real question is what happens if/when Facebook goes out of business...

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#252

Post by newscracker »

mgorenstein wrote: post #236
newscracker wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your current script name seems to imply that it only helps delete everything one has posted/shared. But you mention exporting as well. Is it going to be anywhere close to the paid/subscription product digi.me [1], except for not being in a proprietary format? Digi.me allows export of one's content from groups and pages too. [1]: https://www.digi.me/

I didn't create the original scripts, which are indeed focused on content deletion. Having fumbled around with various possibilities for the last week or so, I'd guess that the most robust solution to data export from FB would require use of a scraper to extract individual items from the activity log. Ideally that scraper would also visit and clone referent posts (i.e. if I once commented on a post, also save the pos…

Scraping pages has limitations, and may also be prohibited/banned on the platform depending on how it's done (there are some Terms of Use and permission request forms to fill in if scraping is done by programs - I'm not sure if it applies to all kinds of scrapers, including personal ones).

The way digi.me and other similar solutions work is by getting the user to authorize the app and use that authorization with the Facebook APIs to retrieve content. It'd be faster than page scraping, and likely less intrusive (guessing here) on Facebooks Terms of Use.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#253

Post by newscracker »

davnicwil wrote: post #241

For anyone looking for an alternative right now, there's https://postbelt.com - a text-only social network that's built around privacy, and has no ads. It charges a (small) monthly subscription over a certain number of connections, making you the customer rather than the product. If it sounds interesting, please check it out (it's a side project of mine).

I like the idea of privacy focused sharing platforms, but yours will be a niche one for several reasons (I'm sure you already knew that). Not allowing images or video, which comprise the majority of the content types shared on social media (including memes, GIFs and videos), is a huge drawback when it comes to attracting users. The ones who do prefer privacy focused services and would pay for it may not like that it's still yet another centralized platform.

It's not clear to me how your text-only platform is different from web based forums that have been around for a long time and continue to thrive.

That said, we do need more experiments like these to see what could work on a larger scale and learn.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#254

Post by newscracker »

throwaway32131 wrote: post #235

[offtopic] This struck me as being very similar in goals to Aadhar and projects like GSTN and NCIL (all private entities) being pushed by its promoters in India: "mining every aspect of human life, for serving 'customers' better". This is offtopic and political, but it's perhaps also a reification of the fears that many have for when a state entity merges with such corporates from SV. US definitely has a better const…

It's really sad to see how privacy is being knocked off everywhere (around the world). When most people don't even care or don't bother to understand, I don't see how things can ever improve without getting a lot worse and causing some irreparable damage first.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#255

Post by newscracker »

lyra_comms wrote: post #213
williamle8300 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awesome. Do you do photo-hosting? I could see that easily sapping away all of your money. Or is it just text?

We just do text - but we do it well. Text is both very cheap, and very expressive.

As I mentioned in a reply to a comment about another text-only platform, not allowing photos and videos will not attract many users. There will be a small niche of users, but it won't become massive without those. It'd be quite similar to web based forums and discussion platforms. I hope you can figure out how to keep the platform running while allowing non-text content.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#256

Post by newscracker »

gh1 wrote: post #93

Is there a way to enjoy all the advantages of the fb stack while preventing this breach of privacy? Would love to know how if someone has ideas.

One can only minimize the privacy related ill effects, not eliminate them completely. To start with, see my recommendations on using Facebook from a browser (and never an app) in another comment on this post. [1]

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14395789

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#257

Post by newscracker »

known wrote: post #228

Use FB anonymously

It's possible to be pseudo-anonymous to a good extent, but full anonymity from FB while having a network of close friends, relatives and colleagues and interacting with them is not possible. Many people who use FB share their entire contacts/address book with it (this includes names, phone numbers, email addresses, etc.). FB can use that information easily to figure out who you may be, collect and correlate information and target ads for you.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#258

Post by whyever »

batiudrami wrote: post #248
marricks wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the things that got me to leave was how crappy facebook has gotten for actual communication. This part of the post really resonated with me > If you’ve ever had that conversation, you’ve noticed that there’s a big disconnect between your expectations when you communicate on Facebook and what really happens. Basically, Facebook filters out your posts based on whether or not people will use Facebook more if they…

For actual communication (messaging) it is actually one of the best. It is fast, reliable, and has genuinely great value adds like group messaging, encrypted messages, expiring messages and photos, location sharing, rich attatchments, seen notifications, integration with facebook profiles means I can find anyone (who has a profile) even if I don't have their contact details. Sure the app is a bit heavy with features…

Signal has most of these features as well.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#259

Post by batiudrami »

whyever wrote: post #258
batiudrami wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For actual communication (messaging) it is actually one of the best. It is fast, reliable, and has genuinely great value adds like group messaging, encrypted messages, expiring messages and photos, location sharing, rich attatchments, seen notifications, integration with facebook profiles means I can find anyone (who has a profile) even if I don't have their contact details. Sure the app is a bit heavy with features…

Signal has most of these features as well.

Sure, but Facebook Messenger has all my friends.

Re: Get your loved ones off Facebook

#260

Post by davnicwil »

newscracker wrote: post #253
davnicwil wrote: post #241

For anyone looking for an alternative right now, there's https://postbelt.com - a text-only social network that's built around privacy, and has no ads. It charges a (small) monthly subscription over a certain number of connections, making you the customer rather than the product. If it sounds interesting, please check it out (it's a side project of mine).

I like the idea of privacy focused sharing platforms, but yours will be a niche one for several reasons (I'm sure you already knew that). Not allowing images or video, which comprise the majority of the content types shared on social media (including memes, GIFs and videos), is a huge drawback when it comes to attracting users. The ones who do prefer privacy focused services and would pay for it may not like that it'…

You summed it up perfectly - it's an experiment based on my own curiosity into whether a niche noise-free discussion focused social network would be something people would pay for.

I'd been saying for a few years that if something like it existed, I'd pay for it and use it. I got various responses to this ranging all the way from agreement to mocking :-) so I built it to actually test it in the wild.

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