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Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

nytimes.com

71–80 of 352 posts

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#71
post #25

"The hashtag #DeleteFacebook appeared more than 10,000 times on Twitter within a two-hour period on Wednesday, according to the analytics service ExportTweet. On Tuesday, it was mentioned 40,398 times, according to the analytics service Digimind." Is this really such a big deal for Facebook? Suppose 50000 persons delete their Facebook everyday, then it will just lose 1,825,0000 users one year, not counting new users…

> And Facebook has 2 billion users. I simply do not believe 1/3 of the planet is on Facebook. I am not. Half of the planet does not have access to clean drinking water, I do not believe they are on Facebook either.

A good number of those two billion user accounts are not real people. They are either additional alternate identities a person had created, or out-and-out fiction.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#72

The question is - will this be just a minor blip to Facebook and then normal services will resume after the indignation wears off? Or will it the beginning of the end of the social media dominance of the platform? For me personally, I use FB primarily to keep in touch with friends, family and old colleagues who are spread all over the world. It is purely a contact tool, and not really used to market products of servi…

It will be a minor blip. Most users are utterly addicted and don't value their privacy over their convenience despite what they say. I deleted my account in 2010 and there was absolutely no change in my daily behavior, but then I wasn't a chronic addict either. Honestly, if users haven't figure out by now that their privacy is utterly void when they use Facebook they absolutely don't care.

> don't value their privacy over their convenience

For lots of people, it's "don't value their privacy over being able to keep in touch with friends and family", not merely convenience.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#73
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will be a minor blip. Most users are utterly addicted and don't value their privacy over their convenience despite what they say. I deleted my account in 2010 and there was absolutely no change in my daily behavior, but then I wasn't a chronic addict either. Honestly, if users haven't figure out by now that their privacy is utterly void when they use Facebook they absolutely don't care.

> don't value their privacy over their convenience For lots of people, it's "don't value their privacy over being able to keep in touch with friends and family", not merely convenience.

I have a phone for that.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#74
post #47

I've had a dormant FB account for years. I don't like the site and I never add content. I believe that social media has become a net detractor to quality-of-life for many (most?) humans who use it. I think Mark Zuckerberg is either incredibly naive, or a sleaze bag, but in either case should suffer some consequences from this. That said, I probably won't delete my account. It remains the only way many of my friends p…

I am sure that MZ is the latter. F*book is a farce. You are the problem. Be the change you want to see. Reach out to people other ways for events. FFS, you are connected 24x7 to the internet, not facebook exclusively, never in the history of humanity have we had this level of instantaneous hyperconnection, that excuse is a lie.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#75

The question is - will this be just a minor blip to Facebook and then normal services will resume after the indignation wears off? Or will it the beginning of the end of the social media dominance of the platform? For me personally, I use FB primarily to keep in touch with friends, family and old colleagues who are spread all over the world. It is purely a contact tool, and not really used to market products of servi…

I highly recommend deleting the fb app from your device to prevent it listening on you, tracking location, draining your battery and bombarding you with notifications.

If you must use messenger in mobile,

https://mbasic.facebook.com/

works

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#76
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And Facebook has 2 billion users. I simply do not believe 1/3 of the planet is on Facebook. I am not. Half of the planet does not have access to clean drinking water, I do not believe they are on Facebook either.

A good number of those two billion user accounts are not real people. They are either additional alternate identities a person had created, or out-and-out fiction.

So why even tout the figure? It's obviously inflated. I would be surprised is if it is 500M actual users.

What % of American voters users Facebook? I would be surprised to see over 80%. Nothing has adoption rates that high.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#77
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter resurgence? Is there one? I am basically turned off Twitter far more than I am Facebook at the moment. The signal to noise ratio there has tilted FAR into the red zone of late. The proliferation of bots, and the ability for anyone with a pulse and a stupid meme graphic to plaster them into any conversation has just killed the conversational or learning capacity of that platform for me.

I'd love to get off both Twitter and Facebook, but that network effect... I went and had a look at Vero, but it doesn't allow posting text, only associated with an image, movie, link or book. I checked how Diaspora was going, but the most popular pods have 2K users, and there are no pods in NZ or even Australia. I guess I should get off my chuff and set up a New Zealand pod, but life is full enough already without ta…

ah the network effect. Same reason im still on fb. Diaspora is brilliant but I feel its never going to capture the imagination of the general public. Maybe we should all go back to blogging. - if only, sigh I get more and more depressed browsing my fb newsfeed (which I mostly do when I am taking a shit and run out of things to read)

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#78
post #39

How many people here would scale back their Facebook use to one day a week, say Facebook Friday?

scaled back to zero already. edit to add... this is like some sort of Russian roulette. ignoring the Russian connection pun, that's still a funny joke.

Which is great.

It seems to me that zuckerburg cares about ad revenue, which means he needs eyeballs and needs to keep them for as long as possible. And, he has proven to care very little about privacy. Therefore, for those who can't shake the habit 100%, cutting back to one day a week is a good way to get the connections you need while slicing into the attention getting ad revenue.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#79

What's interesting is that of the 5 people the article profiled, only 1 seems likely to have voted for Trump. Based on location and occupation, I would guess the others were not Trump voters. My impression of this whole scandal, is that where you are on the political spectrum affects how you see it. I think a lot of the anger at Facebook is not because of what they did, but what they people see as the consequence fro…

Consequences matter. I'm generally okay with animal testing that is focused on finding disease cures and generally not okay with animal testing that supports bio-weapons programs.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#80
If you want this to happen, users need an alternative. I'm not sure it matters to them if the alternative truly protects their confidentiality or if they will understand whether it does or not. I know there are alternatives out there, is there one that is user-friendly, confidential, and secure, and that users can switch to right now?

It reminds me to remind myself: A project that seemed quixotic a month ago suddenly has potential and value. You need to start developing such things when the market is in the 'quixotic' stage in order to have them ready when the world suddenly understands. Congratulations to those who started months or years ago.

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