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The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

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Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#21

Post by the_snooze »

pasta wrote: post #3

I never had Facebook but still got my friends, family and places to go to. As an outsider I find the fuzz around Facebook amazing. So what Facebook does only care about money. Are they supposed not to? If you don't like Facebook just leave and don't be so dramatic about it.

Yes, it really is simple to leave Facebook, their web and app tracking ecosystem, contact list scraping, purchase of information from data brokers, and creation of shadow profiles.

Simply "leaving Facebook" isn't as meaningful a choice as you're suggesting it to be.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#22

Post by humanrebar »

pasta wrote: post #3

I never had Facebook but still got my friends, family and places to go to. As an outsider I find the fuzz around Facebook amazing. So what Facebook does only care about money. Are they supposed not to? If you don't like Facebook just leave and don't be so dramatic about it.

Facebook still tracks non users in photos. There are some benefits to getting especially you close friends and family to quit.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#23

Post by mrits »

humanrebar wrote: post #22
pasta wrote: post #3

I never had Facebook but still got my friends, family and places to go to. As an outsider I find the fuzz around Facebook amazing. So what Facebook does only care about money. Are they supposed not to? If you don't like Facebook just leave and don't be so dramatic about it.

Facebook still tracks non users in photos. There are some benefits to getting especially you close friends and family to quit.

What are your thought on resolution advancements in satellite imaging?

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#24

Post by needaccount »

jamesrcole wrote: post #6
finaliteration wrote: post #5

Facebook prioritizes "connection", but doesn't question whether all of those connections are -good- ones. I know there are a million comments out there about how deleting Facebook led to someone having less anxiety, depression, etc., but I'm also in that camp for a reason that I don't think gets mentioned a lot. I suffer from PTSD due to childhood abuse and neglect (and I'm talking heavy drug use, physical, verbal, a…

Sorry to hear of what you've been through > Now it's just a platform that reminds me of the past by forcing these "connections" It doesn't force those things.

I view FB as a negative force in the world but mostly not malicious.

Although FB software doesn’t “force” any connection, as the comment above so well illustrates, there can be incredible social pressure enabled by FB to do something such as stay connected to an abuser.

If you consider FB to be literally the software only, rather than the software plus community, then you may be technically correct. This IMO is a narrow and limited view of what companies and products are.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#25

Post by danharaj »

jamesrcole wrote: post #20
danharaj wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hold conversations with people, not dictionaries.

Are you saying that definition is not in line with what that term means in practice? What do you think "forced" means, if something quite different that?

Colloquially 'forced' is often used in a sense weaker than coercion. For example, a train delay might force you to take the bus. A move in Chess can be forced because all alternatives immediately lose. In this weaker sense, it might be taken as "left with no better option".

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#26

Post by EliRivers »

jamesrcole wrote: post #16
danharaj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the structure of Facebook encourages those kinds of pressures. No, facebook the company did not force them at gunpoint to add their parents. That's correct. There are degrees of pressure, yes? If someone found them too much to put up with, is it unreasonable to accept the term 'forced' as apropos?

Yes, it is unreasonable to call "encouraging" (your term) "forcing" ("forced" - "obtained or imposed by coercion or physical power" - Google's definition). [EDIT: to the people downvoting this, the subtleties of language matter. There is a big and specific difference between concepts like "encouraged", "presssured" and "forced"]

"the subtleties of language matter", yet you're the one interpreting language like a robot with a dictionary.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#27

Post by jamesrcole »

needaccount wrote: post #24
jamesrcole wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry to hear of what you've been through > Now it's just a platform that reminds me of the past by forcing these "connections" It doesn't force those things.

I view FB as a negative force in the world but mostly not malicious. Although FB software doesn’t “force” any connection, as the comment above so well illustrates, there can be incredible social pressure enabled by FB to do something such as stay connected to an abuser. If you consider FB to be literally the software only, rather than the software plus community, then you may be technically correct. This IMO is a nar…

I'm saying no-one is being forced to friend anyone (whether by the software or the larger social context).

To me there is a clear and significant difference between "pressuring" someone and "forcing" someone, and I'm honestly a bit baffled by why this simple (to me) and small point seems controversial in the subthread anchored in the grandparent comment.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#29

Post by panarky »

jamesrcole wrote: post #13
finaliteration wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe "force" is too strong a word. However, it strongly pushes them by generating lists of people you may know even if you haven't talked to them in over a decade. It also makes it easier for someone to just click "Friend this person" rather than having to find someone's number and pick up the phone. Guilt is a strong motivator, as least for me, so granting someone that access makes it a lot more difficult to set ap…

It's up to you to accept a friend suggestion or request. And the UI makes it easy to delete any friend request. If there's pressure it comes from outside FB itself.

> If there's pressure it comes from outside FB itself

When I was a kid, long before Facebook, my mom would frequently receive an anonymous chain letter in the mail.

The letter would have some dramatic emotional appeal, or it would claim to be raising money for a poor family in the church, or it would promise pyramid riches, or it might have some mystical mumbo jumbo warning about breaking the chain.

But in the end, the stories about heartbreak or helping people or mysterious calamities were complete horseshit. Their only purpose was to convince my mom to copy the letter and send it to 12 other people, thus expanding the base of the pyramid for the benefit of whoever started the chain letter.

Facebook is the modern chain letter.

Just like chain letters, Facebook has lots of horseshit stories about connecting people, with implied mysterious social consequences for not participating.

But underneath all that, the real purpose of Facebook is to amplify social pressure to get people to expand the base of the pyramid for Facebook's benefit.

Re: The Time Has Come to Finally Delete Facebook

#30

Post by kerng »

jamesrcole wrote: post #6
finaliteration wrote: post #5

Facebook prioritizes "connection", but doesn't question whether all of those connections are -good- ones. I know there are a million comments out there about how deleting Facebook led to someone having less anxiety, depression, etc., but I'm also in that camp for a reason that I don't think gets mentioned a lot. I suffer from PTSD due to childhood abuse and neglect (and I'm talking heavy drug use, physical, verbal, a…

Sorry to hear of what you've been through > Now it's just a platform that reminds me of the past by forcing these "connections" It doesn't force those things.

It also reminds you at the most inappropriate times about people either via "people you might know" and other annoyances on whom you should be connected with. These unwanted reminders can certainly create unwanted distress.
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