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Facebook is an attack on the open web

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Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#271

Post by wutbrodo »

Tossrock wrote: post #19

I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90% great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos. There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events through Facebook, and now I…

> It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos.

I was almost done with college when FB suddenly became a cross-generational phenomenon and started being about more than photo sharing and event planning; I still fondly remember those days.

The one advantage I would add is the rare occasion when someone needs to get in touch with me easily: I've had extended family who lives on the other side of the world get in touch with me through FB on short notice when they were visiting my city. I could definitely imagine that some of these cases wouldn't have happened without Facebook, since they would be required to 1) know that I happened to live in this city and 2) go through probably three separate people across different continents to get my phone number. This is infinitely harder than searching their FB friends for my city and going "oh dang! wutbrodo lives there now? I haven't seen him since we were kids, I should reach out!".

That being said, all of the 90% downsides of keeping Facebook are, to some extent, within your control. I won't pretend that I'm congenitally immune to them, but all it took was a little discipline and a little time and it really wasn't that difficult to avoid the timesuck/endless scrolling/notification issues.

I've never really been able to relate to the idea of completely deactivating Facebook and losing the 10% benefits, with the possible exception of the few people who have a completely insurmountable psychological compulsion to use Facebook. This is especially true because of all of the levels of FB exposure you can have without going all-or-nothing: Chrome extensions to remove the newsfeed, disabling notifications on your phone, only visiting FB on the web and not the app, etc.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#272

Post by dsacco »

claytoneast wrote: post #246
notacoward wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook posts being inherently (mostly) simple text is 'killing the web'? I don't buy it. It's also misleading. If you want something more like a blog, then use notes instead of posts. The notes editing interface is actually better than most blog platforms, and IMO the results look just as pretty too. Then your notes appear in your timeline, searchable (within Facebook), with comments, etc. Is it everything an "op…

The difference is that Facebook articles are searchable by no one. Free web pieces are searchable and accessible via any search engine.

And this constitutes evil for you? A really aggressive robots.txt?

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#273

Post by mnm1 »

Chaebixi wrote: post #174
gthtjtkt wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook was great in the early years. No ads, no political spam, no viral garbage, no pictures of what your friend ate for dinner, no psychologically manipulative algorithms. Just people talking to their friends and posting pictures of themselves hanging out. If someone made a new social network like that, I'd sign up today.

> Facebook was great in the early years. That seems to be depressingly true of any social website. There seems to be a sort, sweet spot that exists briefly between the implementation of a good idea and when the parasites catch on and move in to ruin it.

I'd say that's depressingly true of any software that's in continuous development. The only difference is the relative proportion of the parasites that do the damage (users, product managers, and developers) to each other. Apache, I feel, is a counterexample, software with continuous development that hasn't turned to shit yet despite being around for quite some time. Some videogame series are also often quite strong over time. Most everything else is subject to this 'rule', sadly.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#274

Post by kilroy123 »

gre wrote: post #166
rcjones wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like my feed encourages me to do less scrolling than ever. My feed has become a haven for linked and sponsored content, and there's the occasional spatter of original content from friends. I don't see a lot of the stuff I actually care about (photos of friends, their newborns, lengthy posts, etc.) without going straight to their pages. I swear some of these personal posts never hit my home feed, they just get b…

Use https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/news-feed-eradicat... and treat FB as a chat program.

I agree! I also use this.

I tweet and have all tweets go to facebook automatically. So people will engage sometimes with those posts. Other than that, I only use facebook for certian facebook groups.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#275

Post by idibidiartists »

I switched to Observer Only mode on Facebook after Trump got elected because I did not want to be stopped and e-frisked at airports. It turned out that that was the best way to use Facebook: stay on top of happenings with your friends and relatives but let them reach out to you on other communication channels if they miss you or wish to communicate some news. All the sudden, I'm having more meaningful, coherent dialog over email and text as opposed to stupid Facebook comments and likes.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#276

Post by madeofpalk »

Tossrock wrote: post #19

I deactivated my Facebook account several months ago, and it's been about 90% great, 10% frustrating. It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions). The frustrations are real, though. Primarily it's around events and photos. There are some communities I participate in that regularly organize events through Facebook, and now I…

> It's great for all the obvious reasons (less timesuck, less compulsion to endlessly scroll your life away, no notification interruptions).

You're not able to exercise self control? I have Facebook, but I never use it apart from the events and Messenger for chatting with certain friends.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#277

Post by wutbrodo »

Vendan wrote: post #160
reitanqild wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you but I actually enjoy some pictures of peoples food, e.g. when my brother has made a nice wok. I also miss the "going to the beach", "this was a nice day" etc. I don't miss "join me on farmville", "1000 reasons why Trump and/or Hillary are dumb" etc.

If you made a nice meal, yeah, show it off. If you bought a nice meal, I fail to see the point in showing it off, unless you are specifically saying "wow, this place has great food!".

> If you bought a nice meal, I fail to see the point in showing it off, unless you are specifically saying "wow, this place has great food!".

I don't understand your comment at all. What else would you be saying when you show a picture of nice food other than "this food is great"? I'm not in the habit of posting food photos but I've never understood the hysteria around it on places like HN.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#278

Post by wutbrodo »

ikeyany wrote: post #165
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. You can have a Facebook account and just... Not use it unless you need it for something. All the benefits of the 'I deleted Facebook' crowd without the downsides.

That requires self control and a resilience to peer pressure, things we are encouraged to devalue for the sake of "followers".

FWIW, I've used Facebook for I think 11 years now and I've never once seen anyone refer to or even remotely care about friend count.

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#279

Post by dsacco »

joshbaptiste wrote: post #30

ah a "Why FB is evil" article, here come the slew of HN'ers to proclaim their deletion of FB years ago. I myself have no issues with the social network, I keep up with friends, family and it isn't a time suck for me anymore than HN.

Pretty soon we're going to need an "Anti-Facebook Evangelism Strike Force" or an "Open Web Evangelism Strike Force." Judging by the way people throw the word "evil" around here, you'd think Facebook was murdering kittens and using human batteries to power Free Basics, as Zuckerberg sat on a throne of acquired-company logos laughing to himself.

How dare Facebook provide limited internet to the developing world instead of nothing at all...

Re: Facebook is an attack on the open web

#280

Post by unabst »

aesthetics1 wrote: post #225
unabst wrote: post #223

They've been openly attacking the open web since day one. I think the problem now is that they've been too successful. Zuckerberg was on to something. He saw the web connecting pages, but not people. So he created a web connecting people and now it has grown to what it is. With both MySpace and Google+ practically buried, Facebook has no competition. We desperately need an alternative, and not just one for the sake o…

What does an alternative look like that does not eventually lead to another Facebook? I've seen decentralized platforms, platforms that do not sell your data or target you with ads - how are they sustainable?

This and this. Precisely the right questions.

I haven't checked the landscape in a minute, but I wonder if there are any new projects out there.

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