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Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

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Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#191
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get this. Google tracks more of your data than Facebook and yet you are praising google and denouncing facebook? Also the silliness about russian election meddling has got to stop. The "russians" also spent a few thousand on google/youtube too. A few thousand in ad spending isn't going to affect an election where billions are spent. This seems to be a constant here for some odd reason. Facebook does X hence f…

>Google tracks more of your data than Facebook Yes, there are stories[0] that say they track more data but the difference is Facebook's track record for abuse. So far, I'm unaware of any harm Google has done with my history of search queries tied to my wifi MAC address (as another poster commented I should worry about). >Google does the same X hence google is good. No, I don't buy Google's "don't be evil" slogan. >To…

You claim that Facebook has a record of abuse that google doesn't. What does facebook do that google doesn't do? You claim google's activity hasn't harmed you. How has facebook harmed you then?

Also, what evidence shows that Zuckerberg has different set of ethics and principles than Page or Tim Cook? You make general claims but you haven't provided any concrete examples. As far as I can tell, they are all equally greedy billionaires trying to make as much money as possible. Of the 3, Tim Cook probably has more to answer for considering Apple's long history in china and the use of sweatshops.

The only thing concrete you provided is a a wsj article which supports my argument. So I'm confused why you included that.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> providing real value for companies to be able to connect with tribes of people Listen to yourself holy shit

Is it not real value for companies to be able to connect with tribes of people that then may become the biggest proponents of your product? Take fashion, a very tribal concept where each subculture has their own take on it. If you're a fashion brand wouldn't you want to find a way to reach the subculture you're a part of? As much as you might want to deny it, marketing matters and more of it is coming online because…

I find marketing gross, regardless of whether it is necessary or not, and when people use language like that it makes me gag. People who speak that way are drones for a worthless, parasitic industry. That's my complete thought. Have a good one.

Oh and it's funny you think this site is any different from any of the other cess pits out there.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#193
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was so special about Gmail? Except for the user interface and mailbox size, Hotmail and Yahoo were just as good and people used them for a long time.

not sure, to be honest. thats how it was in my circles until ~05-06. everyone kept switching emails and used a different address on each service/forum. until gmail came along. suddenly everyone used their gmail address for everything. and even that got phased out when facebook came along.

The big difference that I remember from gmail was the superior spam filter (other inboxes filled with spam quickly) and better security (everyone with a yahoo mail account had it compromised and started sending spam / virus laden links after a while).

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#194
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Google tracks more of your data than Facebook Yes, there are stories[0] that say they track more data but the difference is Facebook's track record for abuse. So far, I'm unaware of any harm Google has done with my history of search queries tied to my wifi MAC address (as another poster commented I should worry about). >Google does the same X hence google is good. No, I don't buy Google's "don't be evil" slogan. >To…

You claim that Facebook has a record of abuse that google doesn't. What does facebook do that google doesn't do? You claim google's activity hasn't harmed you. How has facebook harmed you then? Also, what evidence shows that Zuckerberg has different set of ethics and principles than Page or Tim Cook? You make general claims but you haven't provided any concrete examples. As far as I can tell, they are all equally gre…

Also, what evidence shows that Zuckerberg has different set of ethics and principles than Page or Tim Cook?

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=list+of+mark+zuckerberg%27s+apolog...

here, answered that for you.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#195

Before Facebook, if I lost someone's contact information, and drifted outside of their social circle for a long enough time, chances were I would never ever see or speak to that person again. Before Facebook, if people wanted to organize conversation and cooperation on an information technology platform, the options were to pay $X00-$X000 for a proprietary system, get lucky enough to know about mailing lists, have so…

> Before Facebook, if people wanted to organize conversation and cooperation on an information technology platform, the options were to pay $X00-$X000 for a proprietary system, get lucky enough to know about mailing lists, have someone who knew sysadmin do it basically for free, or have everyone learn how to use something like IRC. There were like 20 years in between what you describe and Facebook's dominance. Before…

Before Facebook there were thousands of thriving independent forums on wide varieties of topics.

They solve different problems. Usenet of my youth provided way more value, both social and otherwise, to me than Facebook ever will. However Usenet would never have let me serendipitously reconnect with the good friend from high school I hadn't spoken to for over 10 years.

Facebook has the advantage of being a passive social network. If I stopped posting to Usenet (or twitter) for a month I essentially disappeared. With Facebook I don't have to do anything, people can still just as easily find and contact me if they want to.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorta, it had filters you could add to pictures iirc was the biggest thing going for IG. I can't recall if those came from the getgo or after the fact it looked like Flickr.

Very accurate, but most of all, Instagram is where the girls are. The filters Instagram supplied to the common end-user brought girls in by the truckload. All of the people that recommended Instagram to me, begore it was well known, before they were acquired by Facebook, all of the people that pushed Instagram by word of mouth were girls, and almost without fail, photogenic girls, or there somewhat less-so friends. T…

Heh I only joined Instagram for my wife (then a would-be girlfriend) at the time. I do like finding funny videos on it, but otherwise I hardly post. Sometimes I use it to chat with some friends, but if I had them all elsewhere I'd outright delete it.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#197
post #8

I'd be curious to hear what people think are the top 3, because I feel like Twitter and Instagram are strong contenders. Or if indeed Twitter belongs in the top spot.

I would place Twitter at number one. I can very easily remove Facebook from my life. Even though I still have an account, I can easily restrict it to only using Messenger for group chats and maybe checking the feed for less than 1 minute every few days (my usage statistics can confirm this). With Twitter, I am constantly bombarded with people soapboxing their opinions, trying to start arguments, virtue-signalling, tr…

> With Twitter, I am constantly bombarded with people soapboxing their opinions, trying to start arguments, virtue-signalling, trying to force group outrage, witch-hunting... all manner of things. Even news articles have started using Twitter as sources. Its ridiculous.

What stops you from removing Twitter from your life just as easily as Facebook?

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#198
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

email addresses were treated as disposable and temporary from how i remember it before gmail went mainstream. providers came and went and custom domains for emails were extremely rare... at least in my circles

> email addresses were treated as disposable and temporary from how i remember it before gmail went mainstream. Not at all. On the consumer level they were typically associated with your ISP account. So you'd get to be @ My parents still have the email they set up with the minuscule local cable company in the early 2000's. That's only the second email they've ever had outside of the dialup provider email they had in…

Works fine until you move and change providers, or as in the case of many of my friends/colleagues, change email addresses due to spam, which is often related to signing up to services which eventually get hacked. I regularly get spam addressed to custom email addresses, one of the first times was adobe28593@mydomain.com.

Re: Facebook is the worst thing that's ever happened to the internet

#200
post #8

I'd be curious to hear what people think are the top 3, because I feel like Twitter and Instagram are strong contenders. Or if indeed Twitter belongs in the top spot.

With Twitter I can pretty easily block/unfollow/etc people. I can also ban words. I use Twitter to follow interesting people.

On Facebook I want to follow friends, but I can't mute topics, which means I get a ton of crab.

People complain about Twitter because they don't block enough, or because they can't stand the idea that some people out there have different opinions than they do; which will cause them a ton of grief, but if you can't figure out how to use a tool, does that make it a bad tool?

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