Social networks are no longer social • Hacker News Board

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#11

Post by lazyjones » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

This article brought to you by the Oath network, a faceless media conglomerate that slaps a hostile privacy policy in your face when you dare click on such links and asks you to agree to their dubious handling of personal information and preferences.

The social aspect of the Internet used to be about people communicating with people. Today it's about large corporations deciding how you interact, who gets to know about it and what consequences it'll have for your life in the following decades. Disgusting.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#12

Post by j45 » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

paraditedc wrote: post #10

Err, the tone is way too personal. This kind of editorial rants reminds me of articles on medium.

Thoughts alone aren't relevant, feelings have a valid place too.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#13

Post by octosphere » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:14 PM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #4

The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days. For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window once companies started pressuring people use their real identity, and that became the norm.

You can still be anonymous on Facebook if you use their onion service[1]. Although I think you can't register for an account under Tor, which is counter intuitive (I mean why would you offer a Tor hidden service if you can't register under it?). In that case I would register using a 3G/GSM IP which many people share (instead of a unique IP where few people share it); and then, once registered, proceed to browse Facebook with their hidden service.

Just be careful, because if you are using Facebook with Tor, you run the risk of outing your real identity from things like your social graph, search queries, likes, and other metadata.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebookcorewwwi.onion

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#14

Post by octosphere » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #11

This article brought to you by the Oath network, a faceless media conglomerate that slaps a hostile privacy policy in your face when you dare click on such links and asks you to agree to their dubious handling of personal information and preferences. The social aspect of the Internet used to be about people communicating with people. Today it's about large corporations deciding how you interact, who gets to know abou…

Outline to the rescue: https://outline.com/2XKLG2

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#15

Post by yifanl » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:16 PM UTC

werds wrote: post #9

Surprised that he doesn't mention Reddit, where the lost communities he described certainly do exist and thrive.

Reddit's a bit different than forums as far as I can tell. There was a forum I used to frequent, even years later I can recognize someone's avatar, crack inside jokes with them.

Reddit's a little too open to have that kind of connection.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#16

Post by Swizec » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:18 PM UTC

PavlovsCat wrote: post #8

evrydayhustling wrote: post #5

I love this take. When we can get past the breathless danger of social networks (which, to some, spells "opportunity"), we can treat their failure modes for what they are: systems acting as boorish neighbors. The most scalable defenses against exploitation of social networks will be distributed cultural notions of etiquette, self determination and even hygiene - not instantly-out-of-date regulation or even technologi…

from http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/ > Right now the social networking sites occupy a similar position to CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL in the mid 90's. At that time each company was trying to figure out how to become a mass-market gateway to the Internet. Looking back now, their early attempts look ridiculous and doomed to failure, for we have seen the Web, and we have tasted of the blogro…

> some interesting, organic, and human ways to bring our social lives online.

Let me introduce you to The Private Group Chat where 90% of online social activity happens between people under 30. It’s rrally quite fascinating.

It’s everything Google+ wanted to be, but totally organic, apread over dozens of chat apps and services, and without the big brother oversight.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#17

Post by agumonkey » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:19 PM UTC

pcurve wrote: post #4

The article mentions of days when you were anonymous, getting to know strangers through common interests and exchanging ideas. I do miss those early days. For me, social network stopped being social as soon as reasonable assurance of anonymity when out the window once companies started pressuring people use their real identity, and that became the norm.

There's a lot to say about before and after. The ~old guard of boards and simple messengers (icq, aim) were really low on issues. There was a subconscious push a bit before facebook to "leverage" web 2.0 dynamic and ubiquitous nature. And then the web became a new substrate for society (payment, shopping, identity). Not helped by the capitalistic side of things which means new / large => money => even weirder ideas.

Now we realize that real life social structures were 1) seasoned 2) nicer and social networks are reinventing all the problems, but amplified by speed and scale. And also weird companies interests and paradigms, that weren't meshing well with us.

I'm getting fuzzy ..

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#18

Post by wybiral » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:21 PM UTC

I vote we return to the age of late Geocities, forums, and early blogs. Less conformity in design, less "social" by modern definition, but more people who just liked one topic enough to build something about it and communities forming around them.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#19

Post by dkersten » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:22 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #11

This article brought to you by the Oath network, a faceless media conglomerate that slaps a hostile privacy policy in your face when you dare click on such links and asks you to agree to their dubious handling of personal information and preferences. The social aspect of the Internet used to be about people communicating with people. Today it's about large corporations deciding how you interact, who gets to know abou…

Yeah. That privacy policy really put me off any of their sites.

Re: Social networks are no longer social

#20

Post by buckysock » Mon, Dec 24, 2018, 3:23 PM UTC

I don’t think this is the endgame and another paradigm shift needs to and will occur. Fb is going to be around and relevant about as much as Microsoft is around and relevant.