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Facebook wants your children's mind

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Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#121

Post by emiliobumachar »

egypturnash wrote: post #101

What if we declared Facebook to be a monopoly and broke it up like we did Ma Bell in the 70s? I dunno. Feels like it's too big, too ubiquitous, and is too much oriented towards encouraging behaviors that are much better for their pockets than for anyone using it. Hell, look at this story: Facebook already has (according to a quick google search, [citation needed]) about 58% of the US' entire adult population, or 3/4…

An interesting idea, which raises a lot of questions:

Along which lines could it be broken up? Datacenters? Subsets of the social graph? Would you liked to be grouped with your family, your school or your church?

It seems very plausible that one of them would grow and engulf everyone, while the others woulg go the way of MySpace. What then?

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#122

Post by kruczek »

smt88 wrote: post #26

All advertising is (intended to be) mind control. It wants to get you to take an action you weren't previously inclined to take. It follows that any product that's successful at controlling people can sell that control. If you consider the implications of Facebook-as-mass-mind-control, then Russian election-meddling, viral suicides, and all of Facebook's other facets make a lot of sense. It also makes sense that Face…

> All advertising is (intended to be) mind control. It wants to get you to take an action you weren't previously inclined to take.

That is one reason for advertising, but not the only one. Advertising is also meant to simply notify people of the existence of a certain product. In that sense, it isn't supposed to force people to buy something they don't need, but it is supposed to make them choose advertised brand, once they need such product.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#123

Post by pbhjpbhj »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #105
acjohnson55 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I am incredibly privileged to be able to do so. But I also know that some of the people I interact with wouldn't otherwise have much exposure to a non-strawman version of my point of view that they can actually interact with. At the moment, I think it's probably the most politically effective thing I can do.

I don't necessarily think you shouldn't have strong/ controversial conversations. Indeed, growing up, that was pretty much what the internet provided me: both a way to be exposed to new ideas, to challenge others, etc, and a way out of the stiffling intellectual backwater that was highschool/suburbia. But, "back in my day", we did it privately. Anonymously. We had handles/aliases. In person friends had conversations…

What's wrong with being identified with your beliefs?

Using aliases is rarely really anonymous, you can probably infer my identity pretty easily.

One can be above if one chooses, it's seems ultra-paranoid to want to discuss nothing unless you're anonymous - what do you talk about then in social situations IRL, do you wear a mask when you go out?

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#124

Post by pbhjpbhj »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #85
opportune wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Associating my actual views with my real identity makes me uncomfortable as well - not so much concerned about what Facebook would do with that data, more concerned with the fact that it will cause people I know or have a strong chance of meeting to dislike/hate me for a reason that I'd rather not give them. Also, having a "debate" over FB sounds only moderately more pleasant than having a debate in…

I don't do it because it's pleasant. In fact, it's often really stressful. I do it because I think it's crucial, in the same sense that I think any sort of political or social engagement is crucial. As far as the risk of people hating me, I try really hard to always be respectful of people I debate with. I think for that reason, I've been able to keep friendships with people I regularly have some pretty intense disag…

Same, it's important to have safe contentious discussions and for people to be challenged in their social-media bubble.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#125

Post by rock_hard »

pvdebbe wrote: post #118
rock_hard wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate phone calls! It’s worse than any notification I have ever gotten. Additionally the only calls I get these days are spam anyways :( It baffles me that we ever thought it’s acceptable for any person to just call you whenever they pleased...it’s such a intrusive and awkward medium. I would never go back to that and 100% happy with Facebook, email, etc

Protip: you can call businesses but you don't have to answer any calls from numbers you don't know or approve. This is a nice balance that I maintain. I used to be phone-shy but at some point I just realised that it's usually the fastest way to get the answers or service I look for.

The phone rings anyways though...and they keep trying relentlessly

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#126

Post by acjohnson55 »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #105
acjohnson55 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I am incredibly privileged to be able to do so. But I also know that some of the people I interact with wouldn't otherwise have much exposure to a non-strawman version of my point of view that they can actually interact with. At the moment, I think it's probably the most politically effective thing I can do.

I don't necessarily think you shouldn't have strong/ controversial conversations. Indeed, growing up, that was pretty much what the internet provided me: both a way to be exposed to new ideas, to challenge others, etc, and a way out of the stiffling intellectual backwater that was highschool/suburbia. But, "back in my day", we did it privately. Anonymously. We had handles/aliases. In person friends had conversations…

I think the ability to debate pseudonymously is very important. But I think it's also totally reasonable to do so under your real identity, if you feel comfortable. Lots of people blog, for example. In many ways, Facebook serves much the same purpose as a blog to me, but with better discourse.

Also, real identity carries weight in a discussion because you're socially accountable for your views and conduct. Now, again, I'm privileged to hold views that are socially, politically, and professionally acceptable in the spaces I inhabit,even if they're not often fully shared. But I also don't think that's coincidental.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#127

Post by 659087 »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #123
ACow_Adonis wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily think you shouldn't have strong/ controversial conversations. Indeed, growing up, that was pretty much what the internet provided me: both a way to be exposed to new ideas, to challenge others, etc, and a way out of the stiffling intellectual backwater that was highschool/suburbia. But, "back in my day", we did it privately. Anonymously. We had handles/aliases. In person friends had conversations…

What's wrong with being identified with your beliefs? Using aliases is rarely really anonymous, you can probably infer my identity pretty easily. One can be above if one chooses, it's seems ultra-paranoid to want to discuss nothing unless you're anonymous - what do you talk about then in social situations IRL, do you wear a mask when you go out?

> What's wrong with being identified with your beliefs?

Depending on what your beliefs are, maybe nothing.. for now. However, if government or corporate interests decide that your beliefs are an issue for them at any point in the future, having them permanently stored could become an issue for you in the future.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#128

Post by pvdebbe »

rock_hard wrote: post #125
pvdebbe wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protip: you can call businesses but you don't have to answer any calls from numbers you don't know or approve. This is a nice balance that I maintain. I used to be phone-shy but at some point I just realised that it's usually the fastest way to get the answers or service I look for.

The phone rings anyways though...and they keep trying relentlessly

Yeah, I hate that too.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#129

Post by RepressedEmu »

Pulcinella wrote: post #39
Fice wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sole purpose of existence of a corporation is to make money, and it would be strange to expect them to be nice and not use every opportunity for profit. Thus, enforcing ethics is a consumer responsibility: if you believe that something is bad, don't use it.

The sole purpose of getting a job is to make money and yet we expect our fellow citizens to have stronger morals than just greed.

People get lots of different jobs for lots of different reasons, some of which include money. I think your fellow citizens deserve a stronger consideration for their morals, choices, and concerns than that of a faceless, sociopathic megacorp like Facebook.

Re: Facebook wants your children's mind

#130

Post by p10_user »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #21
vm wrote: post #14

Part of me thinks the the anti-Facebook media sentiment is because Facebook replaced newspapers/magazines as the highly profitable media aggregator. Old media struggles for relevance and lashes out at Facebook, the new winner. Facebook makes fantastic communications tool and gives them away for a whopping $0. I love staying aware of what's going on with my grandparents, old classmates, friends, and family, AND not ha…

This post is akin to calling Malboro 'the greatest supplements company ever created' in 1970

That’s an extreme comparison - there’s no such thing as a healthy level of cigarette consumption while there is for social media (at least a non-harmful level).
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