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Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

nytimes.com

191–200 of 352 posts

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#191

CA scandal is just a final push. I kinda stopped using FB like half a year ago, for that I don't really know what I could get from this platform. Viral videos, nope. Sensationalized editorial with an angry face attached below, nope. Friends having party like no tomorrow, fine. But there are so many of them, and they are kinda repetitive. Since it is public and real name social network, I have to be extra careful shar…

I only follow people who post humorous or clever jokes, stories from their lives, or photos of them enjoying their lives, whether it be food or travel. I unfollow anyone who posts anything political, vitrolic, clickbait, etc. My timeline is quite pleasant. I get about 0.5 new posts per day.

It's amazing how different other people's timelines can look. I was at a friend's place and he deliberately doesn't unfollow anyone or anything, and likes to engage with viral videos and memes. His timeline is filled with memes and viral stuff. He loves it. Great for him.

Just make your timeline what you want it to be, like how your Twitter follow list is. Get your news elsewhere and subscribe to multiple periodicals across the spectrum.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#193
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.

Yeah, I'm surprised every time I see that number that it doesn't seem to get much scrutiny. Furthermore, the claim is that they are monthly active users.

Only 1/2 of the planet is even on the Internet. Yet they have 2B MAU?

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#194

CA scandal is just a final push. I kinda stopped using FB like half a year ago, for that I don't really know what I could get from this platform. Viral videos, nope. Sensationalized editorial with an angry face attached below, nope. Friends having party like no tomorrow, fine. But there are so many of them, and they are kinda repetitive. Since it is public and real name social network, I have to be extra careful shar…

Facebook R.I.P. 2004 - 2018

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#195
Good. It is about time people wake up to facebook and Zuckerberg's lack of belief in privacy[1][2].

I remember when this chart[3] first made the rounds. If this didn't convince people that facebook is evil. I don't know what will

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/21/facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg...

[3] http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#196

I am getting a bit annoyed by how shocked people on here are about this. The friends end point in the graph API was hardly a secret. It is an open API. There was no way for Facebook to enforce that data collected from authorized apps wasn't being saved. It's part of the reason the friends API was put under tighter restrictions a few years ago.

> I am getting a bit annoyed by how shocked people on here are about this.

Exactly. Didn't people know all the proprietary social networks are spyware+adware? That's the way they earn money. BTW Ghostery says it knows 92 trackers in the social media category.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#197
post #81

I already deleted my FB account once, maybe 6-7 years ago (not suspended, deleted). It was a mistake. I lost contact with a lot of people, including my relatives in Europe and old friends from grad school. Once I rejoined FB, it took a long time to re-build my friends list. FB has a lot of flaws and I don't use very much or share very much on it, but for staying in contact with people... I can't think of anything bet…

And then FB bans you and your friends for 30 days in random order. Users started to post reports about who is banned today, for how long, and where to find their backup account (usually, on Telegram).

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#198
post #90
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope I'm wrong but I think this in no way bringing facebook down. Keeping in touch with friends & family is too important to ditch entirely, and having everyone switch to a different platform is very hard. That said, my whole extended family uses whats app nowadays...

This is a false dichotomy, Facebook is in no way required or even useful to keep in touch with anyone.

The two billion facebook users indicate that managing social activity/network online is a product actually in pretty high demand.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#199
post #193

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.

Yeah, I'm surprised every time I see that number that it doesn't seem to get much scrutiny. Furthermore, the claim is that they are monthly active users. Only 1/2 of the planet is even on the Internet. Yet they have 2B MAU?

WeChat has a billion monthly active users, and they managed to do that mostly just in China and a few parts of Asia.

WhatsApp has 1.5 billion monthly actives.

It makes perfect sense that a global social network that dominates in most countries not named China, could get to two billion users.

I must have seen hundreds of skeptical statements on HN over the years about how Facebook can't have X number of users. I've never once seen any supporting evidence against their general scale. Not once, not ever. And again in this thread, skeptics and zero supporting evidence against Facebook having two billion users.

In their favor is extreme data: dozens of large and persistent research efforts put into studying use, by external parties. That spans everything from traditional media usage polling agencies, to large media ratings firms, to ad companies, to competitors, to services that see wide-spread use of Facebook-login, to Web traffic tracking services that indicate massive adoption. It also includes the massive usage that is seen on the iOS and Android app stores. The sole rebuttal possible, is to say: it's all fake! without any equally massive supporting evidence.

Companies like Google would have a very large interest in destroying Facebook by pointing it out, and Google would know as well as anyone if Facebook were lying to such an extreme degree.

Re: Users Abandon Facebook After Cambridge Analytica Findings

#200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see how there's any downside (other than the time of getting people to switch). Network effects. It's hard to switch if not all of your contacts also switch.

Absolutely, that's why people like you and me (who care) should put in the effort to try and influence those around them. Once enough people do it, and once it's cool to do it, it'll happen.

Not trying to be an arse here but just because our group of people do it doesn't mean it'll ever be "cool" to do it. It may get cool in our "techy" circles, but i highly doubt our less tech savy peers will come around any time soon.
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