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Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

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Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#41

Post by carlob »

rhacker wrote: post #37
dbingham wrote: post #8

The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook, and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on. If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to…

It seems like we are all royally screwed if policy is now being decided on and only through facebook. I have never had a FB account and will never have one. It seems extremely crazy to be required to go through a bunch of legal terms of service just to participate in government. In fact it may be illegal technically.

I totally agree with you. And I'm very scared of the day a job, the school my kids go to or whatever important life activity will require me to have a facebook, whatsapp, linkedin, twitter or whatever account. We need something to replace these, possibly a federated, open standard, but I guess even the self hosted forums of yore were much better than this.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#42

Post by pixl97 »

gexla wrote: post #26
shock wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misread…

You're also constraining yourself to updated from people who use FB. What about the rest of those people? If you want to get updates (and update) multiple people, why not create an email list and blast all your friends and family? Or maybe a text message?

Because the number of people religiously on FB is far higher than those that check email on a regular basis?

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#43

Post by tjr »

bilbo0s wrote: post #12
mrkstu wrote: post #5

While a great idea the problem of course is there isn’t a ready replacement for what Facebook provides. Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook. Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a sufficient network effect?

I don't have a Facebook, never have, so take any opinion I give with a grain of salt. That said, a lot of us really need to come to the realization that these are social networks. They are not called private networks. So even if you pay, it is highly unlikely that you would get privacy. And please everyone, if only for the protection of your own privacy, consider thoughtfully whether a company promising "Private" "So…

When I was a Facebook user (closed my account six years ago), I was mindful about what I shared. The privacy concerns that eventually prompted me to close my account were not due to the information that I willfully shared, but rather, due to Facebook's behavior collecting more information about me (and about others, through me) that I was not intentionally sharing.

E.g., tracking users across the web at large, building shadow profiles of non-users, trying to obtain information about non-users through users, etc.

In my observation, most Facebook users share way more personal information than I ever did. Which makes me wonder, given how much information people are sharing willfully, why does Facebook feel the need to try to secretly collect even more information?

Scary.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#45

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

shock wrote: post #15
rococode wrote: post #10

To me, Facebook provides enough value that I don't feel the benefits of deleting it outweigh the benefits of keeping it. Without it, I have no connection at all to some of my old friends. While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. LinkedIn fulfills this desire in some ways, but I don't typically connect with my "outside-of-work" friends on Link…

> While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misread…

Not the person whom you're asking, but to me a phone call is extremely invasive, and it feels awkward to call anyone that is not a really close friend or relative. And I also don't particularly like to be on the receiving end of such a call. A text is much better, but still more awkward and invasive than Facebook for people that are just acquaintances that you see very seldom.

I think it's a generational thing. I'm 36 and I see that most people over my age accepts phone calls to nonclose friends or acquaintances as normal or even desirable, as you do, while most people under my age instinctively avoid them.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#46

Post by maximente »

AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #32

I imagine a good number of people are like me and would like to close their Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family that they have no other easy way of contacting. A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.: "I've decid…

you could just close and not delete. it's very easy (too easy imo) to re-open a closed facebook account.

or do you mean the people with whom you don't regularly contact but might one day? i've found this is sort of an unwillingness to close doors type thing, hanging on to things that cannot be hung on to (especially true of more vagabond types, travelers, movers etc. who have a lot of these connections in areas they don't live).

the truly important people you can FB message with contact details, wait until they ack, then proceed.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#47

Post by jtr_47 »

dbingham wrote: post #8

The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook, and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on. If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to…

What if our very own public Libraries had the ability to host local communities' dialogs etc. One of the things that it would protect is "freedom" of speech and it would be a better platform for communities to voice their concerns etc, without the fear of having their data mined or even have their voices or issues removed, because it was offensive.

Of course it would not be a perfect platform, but as an American, we need to start understanding and protecting the liberties and rights our own Constitution is providing us.

Peace.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#48

Post by ulfw »

mrkstu wrote: post #5

While a great idea the problem of course is there isn’t a ready replacement for what Facebook provides. Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook. Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a sufficient network effect?

You can share photos and videos and comment on them easily with Google Photos (or iCloud/Apple Photos).

Not sure what Facebook offers families more.

Facebook is great if you want to go beyond families and follow what your long-lost fourth cousin or way-back-when classmate from twenty years ago has been up to. I really wouldn't bother using it for immediate family.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#49

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

rococode wrote: post #23
shock wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people are doing every once in a while. Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement, it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misread…

Actually just wrote an edit to address this but I'll repeat here - I think it's a generational thing. It's not really about keeping up with specific people - when I want to do that, I just message them like you say (side note - in my experience people in my age group don't tend to have many people's phone numbers). Basically, I grew up using Facebook, which meant I've always had these constant life updates from peopl…

> It feels a bit like a mild addiction since it's not totally rational to care about these tiny updates in the lives of people I'm unlikely to ever meet again

For all we know, human groups have always used gossip as a way to bond. I guess these Facebook updates are addicting because they are a good implementation of something humans have always felt the need for.

Re: Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently

#50

Post by ryanmercer »

The things that hold me to Facebook are:

- It is how I know what's going on in the lives of all of my friends. While the bulk of us still live within 20 miles of each other, we might see each other once a year (if that) because most of them are married with grade school aged children and when they do have free time, they're using it to take family vacations or day trips. With Facebook we know what is going on in each other's lives and still interact just like we did in high school, shooting the shinola on each others posts just like we used to in the hall between classes.

- As a strength athlete, it is how we find out about events. Take strongman, there are 200~ ish of us that are all mutual friends with the bulk of those being here in the United States. When someone creates a new FB event page for a competition, you find out about it because you see "friends a, b and c have expressed the are going/are interested in going" or someone tags you "you going to this?" or when the person putting the event on creates it, they tag 20-50 people that they know are likely to either compete or volunteer to work it. And during stuff like Arnold, those that are of the caliber to actually compete at the Arnold, we get play by play from the people competing and their coaches/handlers and those of us that aren't competing but went. When Jessica Fithen won the SHW championship belt in 2017, I was messaging her congratulations (and getting a reply) from my bedroom in Indiana about a minute before the online online feed even got to it.

There just isn't a way to replicate either of those things without a social media platform. I like know what is going on in my friends lives even though we just don't get to see each other that often. Do we trade some privacy for that? Sure. Do we waste more time on the platforms than we should, for the most part yes, but considering I do get to see what is going on in their lives without having to schedule months in advance an hour where we might get to cross paths if something doesn't come up, then it is worth it to me. And with the strength sports thing, we might be in the same location once a year, even those that are here in Indiana with me we might see each other a few times a year because we are spread out 120-200 miles but Facebook lets us bust each other's chops and support each other and carry on just like we do in person on our phones all day long.

A few weeks ago I was at an event volunteering and had a couple people walking by me "hey Mercer!" that I've never actually met but have this genuine friend/camaraderie connection with because we have this digital space where we are there for each other and do bust each others chops in a fun way.

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