221–230 of 241 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I dislike Facebook but using it means you should agree with how they monetize their business.
Users of Facebook are not required to agree with Facebook's business practices, and there is no reason that they should do so. It is perfectly acceptable to use a company's product and criticize how the company operates at the same time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. If you are using their platform, then you have to abide to their terms of use. I don't use Facebook for this reason.
Not using Facebook is the best way to avoid Facebook ads, but Facebook's terms of service don't forbid ad blocking. https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms
Or you can use Pi-hole and remove any and all ads :)
Uh, no. Pi-hole is a DNS-based ad blocker, while the ads we are talking about are served by first party.
Sure, that also kills facebook access, so two birds with one stone!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users of Facebook are not required to agree with Facebook's business practices, and there is no reason that they should do so. It is perfectly acceptable to use a company's product and criticize how the company operates at the same time.
By using the product, you are incentiviaing the behavior. There is no free lunch. Either you abstain, or you make the problem worse.
There are plenty of cases where a person believes it's in their best interest to use a product, yet still criticizes it because some aspects of the product are hostile to them. It would be most effective to stop using the product, but sometimes, the criticism alone makes a difference.
I disagree with the parent comment's statement (that a person should agree with the company's practices if the person uses their product). Disagreeing with hostile practices is better than agreeing to them, even if the person continues to use the product.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn't work. Spending money on anything puts people on the disposable income demographic which is the exact audience the advertisers want to reach. It's impossible to reach a workable compromise with the advertising industry. They don't care about our convenience and would place ads under our eyelids if they could get away with it. The truth is we're way past the point of peaceful negotiation with the advertising i…
> Spending money on anything puts people on the disposable income demographic which is the exact audience the advertisers want to reach. Why do we care what advertisers want? Use regulation to force ad-funded companies to allow people to pay the average revenue per user to opt-out of ads and forbid using the fact they’re paying as a signal to raise prices.
Why should the government care what users want? How much money are users going to pay for lobbyists to lobby for this regulation you desire? None, of course. But advertisers will happily pay lots of money to lobby congresspeople to keep the laws advertiser-friendly.
Relatedly, uBlock Origin’s picker has really improved my quality of life on Facebook. I love Facebook, it’s my only remaining connection to some people, and it’s revived many friendships I thought I’d lost. However, as one gets on in life, People You May Know can be extremely emotionally impactful. It is a little part of the web UI that brings back the dead, ex partners I still miss, exes who have moved on, and toxic…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You can have a Facebook account and only use it when it benefits you and not Facebook. I used to think so too, but then I realized that Facebook would let people add me to group chats or something without my knowledge and that these people would then blindly assume that I had read the messages in those chat groups. I find that "I have a Facebook account but I almost never log in" tends to get misunderstood, whereas…
This is what finally pushed me to delete my Facebook account too. Many people only use Facebook to communicate even if they have my phone number. So, they'd send me something on Facebook and expect me to read it there. Sometimes they'd even get angry if I didn't despite me telling them many times that I don't login to Facebook. I mostly don't hear from those people anymore and I'm fine with that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're kind of misunderstanding how screen readers work. You're clearly seeing the "Sponsored" text on the screen, and so is the screen reader. It's not that the text isn't there , it's just that it's put there in a way that is nearly impossible to target with CSS-based ad blocking. That's all.
> It's not that the text isn't there, it's just that it's put there in a way that is nearly impossible to target with CSS-based ad blocking. I'm confused too, then. If the screen-reader can see the word "sponsored" easily, why can't any other code? What is the difference between how a screen reader finds "sponsored" vs an ad-blocker?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never liked facebook so I never really used it, deleted my account 3 years ago. I always was (and still am) against their practices and business model. I have a hobby which is growing carnivorous plants and last year I started a small side business selling my extra plants. The entire community is now on facebook (before that it was mostly forums) and I had to reopen an account to be part of it. Sadly it is essentia…
Its funny, I have a few hobbies that have settled on fb as the central hub of discussion. Yet, a single friendship irl still yeilds me more info. If the caliber of person guiding my hobby feels facebook is the best forum, I might already be ahead of the pack. Stop making excuses for sidlining your personal integrity, you are now just another part of the problem.
I quit using Facebook close to 10 years ago, yet I still have a robust social life, communicate regularly with friends and family, participate in hobbies (even ones who unfortunately moved their community to FB) and do all of the above without the unhealthy “like-obsessed” feedback loops. It’s great!
But when you tell people it’s possible to live without Facebook, all you get are lame excuses about why their case is special and they couldn’t possibly do it themselves!
I'm surprised I haven't seen a single comment say what ought to be the obvious: the easiest way to never see Facebook ads is to just not use Facebook. I should hope I'm preaching to the choir, I'm sure, but... quitting really isn't as hard as you tell yourself it is. It's not as essential as you think it is.
They don't realize the impact it's having on their lives. Facebook has become a justification to bring hate into our personal conversations. Their crazy aunt says something on there so they believe this makes it a public conversation, but I have no idea about that.
Their debates are personal conversations had in public. Facebook has made the problems of talking about class, religion, race and politics inescapable.
There's a reason we avoid those topics at holiday gatherings and business functions. They divide us and cause psychological injury.
Fb has capitalized on this fury and drives profit from anger, dispute, hate and all these other emotions we don't want to have. These are the conversations that don't end and people want to win. They're live long disagreements where people won't change their mind and find equally violating people to fuel their rage and others to direct it at.
These didn't use to be everyday conversations. Fb makes it easy to intact with those you disagree with violently and often. People you'd choose to avoid in real life but new can't because fb makes more money of pitting those two divergent personalities together and continually antagonizing them.
It's hurting their mental health to be surrounded constantly by dissenting voices trekking then they are wrong for whatever reason.
You're wrong. You're wrong. You're a bad person because you believe that. You're inconsequential. Someone said this thing about you.
It's ruining people and I don't know how to get that awareness through to them. They're telling me more often they wished they'd just never gone on there and I say don't go back. Fb is like the abusive spouse they are addicted to.
How do we save our friends and family from that abuse? How do we help them escape? I'm so sad for them and I feel helpless to save them from the peril that is so obvious from the outside.