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Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

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Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#21

Post by bogomipz »

anigbrowl wrote: post #6
bogomipz wrote: post #3

I find it disturbing that FB sees itself as the arbiter of which events and what people are in need of alerting.

I don't. For many people it's their primary communication platform, and things like this are to a large extent driven by demand for such features in the wake of previous tragedies/disasters, after setting up impromptu groups or check-in mechanisms. It's not a simple problem to solve. Now I don't think they're doing it very well and the fact that it's subject to the typical feature creep is a problem, but then feature…

>"and things like this are to a large extent driven by demand for such features in the wake of previous tragedies/disasters, after setting up impromptu groups or check-in mechanisms"

Do you have a citation for this claim that 'FB is just answering the demand'?

>"It's not a simple problem to solve."

Who asked them to solve it?

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#22

Post by austenallred »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #18
austenallred wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What rationale could I possibly give someone to stop using Facebook that would convince them to forgo all of the value they get from it?

There's obvious abstract reasons why they should stop using it: 1. Facebook knows about all of your interactions on Facebook, and they probably know what you are buying and what sites you visit through tracking mechanisms. In real life we call those people stalkers. 2. What utility are they really getting? Is keeping up with every part of your friend's life (or the good parts they show you) really worth the stress an…

> Facebook knows about all of your interactions on Facebook, and they probably know what you are buying and what sites you visit through tracking mechanisms.

So what? I mean that earnestly - why is it inherently bad if a company knows a lot about me?

> What utility are they really getting? It's fake utility.

Do you really believe that easily keeping up with friends is "fake" utility? You really think that billions of people log on to a website every day that provides no "real" utility?

> People somehow existed for something like 300,000 years without this utility, so what value is really there?

People existed for a long time without the the lightbulb, automobiles, the wheel, computers, etc. You're basically arguing that there can't be any utility in anything new.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#23

Post by ars »

> However 97 are worryingly labelled “not marked as safe yet”.

That's the problem.

It should be a positive notification only, without any negative one. People can say they are safe (I see value in that). But facebook should not say anything at all if someone has not declared themself safe.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#24

Post by onewaystreet »

It wasn't long ago that Facebook was being criticized for not enabling Safety Check:

https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/15/facebook-says-it-will-enab...

>Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg committed to turning on Safety Check in more human disasters going forward, responding to criticism that the company turned on its safety feature for Paris but not for Beirut and other bombings.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#25

Post by austenallred »

whatevthrow31 wrote: post #20

Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate. Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized? Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don't turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on). Why does…

The combination of a wildly successful company, not caring about privacy, and a (formerly) bombastic founder. It's the perfect storm for HN shitposting.

They have an enormous target on their back and could never do anything right. They got ripped for not enabling safety check recently too. https://techcrunch.com/2015/11/15/facebook-says-it-will-enab...

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#26

Post by userbinator »

pcunite wrote: post #4

Its all fun and games until FB starts taking over your sense of security, your world view, and your life.

FB has apparently realised that the safety/security argument is extremely powerfully persuasive, and can be used not just to take away freedoms as is usually the case, but to increase profits.

I am probably in the extremely small minority of individuals who don't think of safety and security as a universal good, but as only one of many possibly desirable properties to be weighted and contrasted with others. Coincidentally, I also do not use FB.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#27

Post by [deleted] »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #17
duncan_bayne wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm busy shutting down a throwaway FB account that I used to sign up to Spotify back in the day. They don't make it easy. The process, according to Spotify support, is: + Create a new Spotify account + Contact Spotify support to migrate playlists etc. across. + Cancel my paid subscription on the old account. + Create a new paid subscription on the new account. + Migrate my family members onto the new account. This is…

Was there a time, and if so was this throwaway FB account part of it, when you could only sign up to Spotify with a FB account? I was a paying member of Spotify for about two years and my account wasn't tied to FB but Spotify had already been around for a few years prior.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#28

Post by adrianlmm »

whatevthrow31 wrote: post #20

Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate. Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized? Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don't turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on). Why does…

Facebook is mainly hated here by Google employees or Google advocates because is some how more successul than them.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#29

Post by fratlas »

whatevthrow31 wrote: post #20

Ok, I had to make a throwaway for this because apparently its a heated debate. Why does everything Facebook do have to be so heavily criticized? Safety Check is a wonderful feature. If I remember correctly, it started off as an internal hackathon project that got turned into a full feature. They get shit if they turn it on (here), and if they don't turn it on (past tragedies where they failed to turn it on). Why does…

I agree with you up until the mic comment. I ran a few tests with friends. We talked about very obscure topics repeatedly (and nothing else) that we would otherwise would have never messaged, and after scrolling 2 mins, targeted ads appeared for those topics. Happened for multiple topics.

Re: Facebook’s Safety Check is a stress-inducing flip of social norms

#30

Post by oliv__ »

userbinator wrote: post #26
pcunite wrote: post #4

Its all fun and games until FB starts taking over your sense of security, your world view, and your life.

FB has apparently realised that the safety/security argument is extremely powerfully persuasive, and can be used not just to take away freedoms as is usually the case, but to increase profits. I am probably in the extremely small minority of individuals who don't think of safety and security as a universal good, but as only one of many possibly desirable properties to be weighted and contrasted with others. Coinciden…

Yeah they're a little late to the party. Governments have been using this for years.
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