Deleting Facebook permanently • Hacker News Board

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#181

Post by yabones » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:49 PM UTC

What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that each member owns (sort of like a co-op).

E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great, but they don't really address the real reason social network sites are so toxic - We have to entirely remove the advertisers from the equation.

People would be far less likely to post or share dumb stuff if being banned means there's a risk of losing your 'equity' in the platform.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#182

Post by sundarurfriend » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:51 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #53

k__ wrote: post #11

I have to admit, in times of Corona, without parties and concerts, the value of Facebook has sunken drastically. My main activity was to stay up to date on events. What's happening, who goes where, etc.

> I have to admit, in times of Corona, without parties and concerts, the value of Facebook has sunken drastically Huh? For many people it's exactly the opposite. The value of Facebook was in casual chat, posting, etc, to connect with friends and random followers in the age of Corona.

They specifically say "My main activity was to stay up to date on events". Which seems to be a significant portion of FB users - Events seem to be/have been its most important feature for a lot of people. As someone who has never once used that feature, that was a surprising thing to learn for me.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#183

Post by z3ncyberpunk » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #181

What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that each member owns (sort of like a co-op). E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great, but they don't really address the real reason social network…

Advertising needs to be removed from the world entirely. There is no advertising in the sense that you would make a post in your local newspaper about goods you're selling, all advertisements since the days of mad men are nothing short of propaganda.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#184

Post by bromonkey » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:52 PM UTC

Cmortoc wrote: post #22

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #16

I am 28 and none of my peers is using FB anymore. I have some older friends that do their yearly christmas party invite on FB and some people who chat with me on FB messenger. There primarily are ads, spam, people posting commercial content and people congratulating each other for their birthdays. Is facebook this dead for anyone else?

What are you all using instead?

Signal Messenger

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#185

Post by WhompingWindows » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #164

Am I the only one who only used/uses IRC? Back in '92 I started using IRC as my primary "group chat/social platform", and ICQ for IM's among closer friends. I stayed on IRC for a very long time, and grew-older with the same circle. It was nice. It was personal. I know people in that group that got married. Time passed, people moved on; had families, etc. I've tried a few other platforms like facebook, but they all se…

I use a tad bit of IRC, but I prefer Signal messenger and Discord for gaming specifically. Signal is encrypted, allows videos, audio messages, emoji reactions, has search functionality, it's just a great app IMO.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#186

Post by mgh2 » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:53 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #181

What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that each member owns (sort of like a co-op). E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great, but they don't really address the real reason social network…

> People would be far less likely to post or share dumb stuff if being banned means there's a risk of losing your 'equity' in the platform.

Isn’t this like HN already? Also who will define what is “dumb” if even the community can be eventually polluted and biased? Would a moderator or owner decide this?

Careful, money and greed can pollute anything. I tend to find that content that is not profit motivated are often the most truthful- ex: whistleblowers

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#187

Post by WhompingWindows » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

How does everyone else who deleted FB deal with the "old friends" problem? I don't have email or phone numbers for dozens of old friends from HS and University, it'd be fun to ping them with this or that once in a while.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#188

Post by throwawaysea » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:54 PM UTC

drcongo wrote: post #149

throwawaysea wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My take is that FB lost its value when it started to become taken over by content that wasn't part of its initial offerings. Instead of photos and personal posts, we mostly see news, political posts, ads, pages, groups, etc. It starts to become more like an aggregator of things we did not initially intend to follow, but we've chosen to follow bit-by-bit - maybe that speaks to the design of Facebook leading us down th…

Facebook has shadow accounts, so even if you don't even have an account on Facebook, they know exactly who you are, where you live, what you browse on the web, who your friends are, what you buy and where you buy it from, what illnesses you've been looking up on WebMD, who your health insurance is with, and so much more. Twitter and Reddit aren't even playing the same game, let alone in the same league.

> Facebook has shadow accounts

This is typical for every company to the extent that they have the data to do it. Reddit for example, can personalize your feed without needing an account, because they are able to track your behavior based on IP address. Google does the same thing across all their properties, such as YouTube, and arguably their presence is more pervasive than Facebook's.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#189

Post by savanaly » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:56 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #181

What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that each member owns (sort of like a co-op). E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great, but they don't really address the real reason social network…

Why lump getting rid of the algorithm in with the other stuff? I don't use facebook but I use Youtube which also has a much ballyhooed algorithm. I've tried skipping their homepage (and thus skipping the algorithm) and just going to the list of videos posted by my subscribtions in what I presume is chronological order, and let's just say I usually find what I want more quickly the former way than the latter. I can only imagine it would be the same with a social network.

It turns out that even for channels I subscribe to the percentage of stuff they post that I want to see is pretty damn low, even lower than the "hit rate" of the algorithm which also isn't great. Now imagine a social network where you connect with people for reasons other than that you think you'd like what they post (you met them IRL and they asked you to add them, you want to talk, etc). An algorithm of some sort would be absolutely mandatory.

Re: Deleting Facebook permanently

#190

Post by Everhusk » Wed, Jan 06, 2021, 6:57 PM UTC

yabones wrote: post #181

What I want is a social network you have to pay for. Make it $2.50/month, and make everything order by 'created date' (ie no magic sorting algorithm). Then, every quarter after the hosting bills are paid put whatever's left into some sort of shares that each member owns (sort of like a co-op). E2EE, Federation, self-hosting, open source, etc. are all great, but they don't really address the real reason social network…

This is effectively social.network. It’s powered by a decentralized autonomous organization called the Social DAO which is where username registration, governance, and economic incentives are coded. The goal is to change from an ad driven model to one that creates a better society for future generations.