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Facebook loses users for the first time

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#511

Post by raducu »

marto1 wrote: post #502
sujesh wrote: post #327

I deleted my FB a while ago and it truely helped my online mental health. The fb feed was full of false news and hate speech. I reported as much as I could but nothing happening. There wasn't any regulations and I felt more toxic on the contents. I am not gonna lie there was a positive side like knowing the news instantly but It's not worth it apparently.

> false news and hate speech I believe there's something much more sinister than that going on with that feed. I believe it's specifically programmed to fish out your mental vulnerabilities and bully you with content that touches on exactly that.

Just unfollow everybody. It's such a liberating thing to do. You can still manually check on people if you want to and you can still message them.

After a few weeks it feels like a superpower "wow, so I can just use facebook for 5 minutes every couple of days and easily stop using it? Unbelievable!"

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#512

Post by jl6 »

randomsearch wrote: post #504

This is how the narrative of Facebook looks to me: Zuckerberg got lucky and then executed brilliantly, transitioned from nerd hacker to CEO amazingly well. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Since then, Facebook have innovated very little. Zuckerberg recognised this, and bought Instagram and Whatsapp in lieu of building an innovative company. The latter is clearly really difficult to do. Without a stream of new id…

> … VR is a good play

I find your analysis excellent apart from this bit. It’s really far from obvious to me that VR has any future outside a gaming niche.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#513

Post by srg0 »

bseidensticker wrote: post #282
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except there are 2 major differences: 1. Even if FB isn't forced to divest their recent acquisitions, the regulatory environment will make it much more difficult to do the equivalent of buying Instagram in the future. 2. Any good ideas on how I can short "The Metaverse"? I still think the Metaverse is bullshit and will continue to be bullshit for the near future. The very first time I got on Facebook I was pretty ent…

I'm sorda looking forward to the Metaverse. Or rather, I'm pleased that FB is baiting the rest of the tech giants into an arms race on VR hardware and software development. I'm a huge fan of VR gaming. The state of the art is incredible right now, but it'll get so much better the more money is shoveled in.

I'm skeptical about Metaverse and collaborative VR in general:

* much higher barrier to entry (requires specialized hardware)

* much more difficult to produce content (3D worlds to build from the ground up vs text and images of the real world)

* less cool than most video games (YMMV, there might be good VR games, but toons with amputated legs flying around are not cool, and that's what we saw in the Facebook demo)

* several safety and social acceptance issues (basically, you don't see the real world when you're using a VR headset)

* VR is not fun to spectate (checkout twitch, there is not much VR content)

* VR has been around for many years already, and it stays... a niche game accessory.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#516

Post by qualudeheart »

alex_duf wrote: post #505
hamolton wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To Instagram, which they already bought

I hate to tell you that but Instagram is probably two generations too old. I doubt teenagers are joining much anymore.

Tiktok is the most common app among gen z.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#517

Post by martinsb »

sujesh wrote: post #327

I deleted my FB a while ago and it truely helped my online mental health. The fb feed was full of false news and hate speech. I reported as much as I could but nothing happening. There wasn't any regulations and I felt more toxic on the contents. I am not gonna lie there was a positive side like knowing the news instantly but It's not worth it apparently.

For me, personally, FB just became boring and uninteresting at some point. I sometimes open FB for Marketplace and, I think, this is it. Had no need to go cold turkey and delete the account. I still have it for Messenger which I use as an app both for desktop and mobile because I don’t want to lose touch with my friends, esp. during these times.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#518

Post by raducu »

t_christensen wrote: post #438
haskal wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just stop visiting FB? You might lose access to things you logged in with "Login with Facebook" or lose out on some connections that are only on FB. Doom-scrolling FB is a bad idea, but whenever I log in to FB, I do it with a purpose (usually to text someone on FB) That's a big jump from the time when typing "facebook" in the address bar used to almost be a reflex on opening a new tab.

Another approach is to unsubscribe from everything (friends, groups etc.). You feed is empty, but you can still visit profiles/groups etc. but nothing will be pushed to you.

I did the same thing when I read about a plugin that was banned by facebook for allowing you to unsubscribe form everything and decided I was going to do it manually. Funny that facebook temporarily banned me from unfollowing people even though I was doing it manually, not using an app/plugin.

It's wonderful really.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#519

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

WeekSpeller wrote: post #368
sujesh wrote: post #327

I deleted my FB a while ago and it truely helped my online mental health. The fb feed was full of false news and hate speech. I reported as much as I could but nothing happening. There wasn't any regulations and I felt more toxic on the contents. I am not gonna lie there was a positive side like knowing the news instantly but It's not worth it apparently.

I recently reported a hate speech targeted at Indian minority (not Muslim). The text literally had gen$c!d3 threats and other usual trigger words in it, and there were like copy paste of same post in thousands (probably a campaign). Facebook replied "does not violate their conditions blah blah".

Just curious, why did you write “gen$c!d3”? The options I can think of are:

1. You’re worried that a script on HN will delete your comment, similar to how this seems to work on YouTube

2. You’re censoring that word to avoid “triggering” people

3. You’re copying verbatim an excerpt from the hate speech you’re referencing

I’m asking in earnest; I honestly don’t know which of those three (or any other option?) it is.

Re: Facebook loses users for the first time

#520

Post by bryanrasmussen »

randomsearch wrote: post #504

This is how the narrative of Facebook looks to me: Zuckerberg got lucky and then executed brilliantly, transitioned from nerd hacker to CEO amazingly well. He deserves a lot of credit for that. Since then, Facebook have innovated very little. Zuckerberg recognised this, and bought Instagram and Whatsapp in lieu of building an innovative company. The latter is clearly really difficult to do. Without a stream of new id…

>Facebook have innovated very little. Zuckerberg recognised this, and bought Instagram and Whatsapp in lieu of building an innovative company. The latter is clearly really difficult to do.

I can't remember who it was - maybe Stratechery - that theorized that Zuckerberg thanks to his experience running Facebook had a really good intuition for when Social media where going to go far and thus was able to make deals that at first looked wildly overpriced but in the end seemed to be a steal.

Perhaps their problem right now is that there hasn't been a social media with the growth potential that has been worth their acquiring.

At any rate not sure if I would say just because they failed one time (even with scandals of last few years) that they're really in trouble, that strikes me too much like most financial journalism that says oh no company X had a bad quarter that's it they're toast and then it turns out they come back the next quarter. I say that as someone who does not care for Facebook or any of their acquisitions (although lots in my family like Whatsapp)

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