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Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

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Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#631

Post by robswc »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #399
edmundsauto wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Other humans often perceive updates on their friends, family, and connected entities as much more valuable than the discussion we are having. The most important rule for HN is that this forum and the people on it are not representative of the general population.

That picture gets distorted quickly, as people have 200 "friends" on social media, most of whom share a rather filtered and polished image of themselves online. People in many cases don't really get an accurat idea.

Yep. Pulling a number out of thin air, I'd be shocked if even 10% of people use facebook in the "keep up with friends and family" way.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#632

Post by thaanpaa »

DrBazza wrote: post #532
dreamcompiler wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook just doesn't respect its users or care about their needs. Facebook cares a great deal about its users--advertisers. You and I aren't Facebook's users; we are the ore Facebook has been mining at a cost approaching zero for over a decade and selling at a huge markup to its actual customers. But now the mine is playing out. We no longer cost Facebook zero to mine and the advertisers are beginning to realize t…

> nobody under 30 uses FB any more As someone the wrong side of 50, I can actually tell you that practically none of my friends in my age group use FB any more either. For my non-techie friends, we're all in whatsapp groups. The only thing that keeps me on facebook are sports clubs that I'm a member of, organise a lot of activities via facebook.

Yep, 47 here, and no one except a couple of right-wing, anti-immigration activist "friends" seem to actively use Facebook anymore, out of hundreds. In fact, that's the main reason why I and many of my friends don't use it — it's around 90 % conspiracy theory, and hatred towards government and minorities now, and it's super tiresome. Everyone else is long gone.

In my opinion it's not the UI that is the problem; it's the decision they made to allow all nutcases with their nutjob theories to run rampant, in order to make a quick buck out of peoples' outrage.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#633

Post by tizzy »

roody15 wrote: post #553

So this is my own conspiracy rabbit hole… I get the impression all of these sites that use quick 10-15 second video clips followed by screenshots of a tweet or quote are a dystopian method of controlling human behavior. It seems like a way to implant a thought or feeling and minimize critical thinking. In the past social media sites reddit / facebook had great comment sections and links to actual articles. Although t…

It's the reduction of attention-span. Can't have critical thinkers if they can't focus for more than 15 seconds at a time.

I've noticed a lot of people hold conservative views despite growing up fairly liberal because a lot of the solutions to difficult problems are difficult. An easy way out is to accept the first thing that seems fine without any thinking involved. Add to that the fact that it's a worldview that doesn't make sense at first (like many things in maths and science) and people just give up.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#634

Post by naravara »

ulfw wrote: post #75
naravara wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I started using Facebook it wasn't a newsfeed, it was just a personal homepage with a photo album and a bulletin board attached. I'd love to have something like that again that everyone uses, but everything is about goosing the influencer economy now rather than letting me socialize.

You're basically describing myspace.

That's basically what Facebook was (though really it drew more from Friendster). As I remember it, the big appeal of Facebook over MySpace was that the interface was clean and that people felt like migrating from MySpace to The Facebook was a way of shedding their high school selves and reinventing how they presented themselves for college. So it was still loose but looked a bit more "adult." But they very much were viewed as doing the same thing.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#635

Post by WorldPeas »

poglet wrote: post #256
caseyross wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is weird, isn't it? To have what was essentially a solved problem 10 years ago become... what you described. On Facebook/Instagram/Twitter/LinkedIn, I still have tons of people I'd be interesting in passively keeping up with. Maybe even actively, sometimes. But all that latent sociality is increasingly just dead out of the gate, seeing as I no longer use any of those platforms regularly. My closest friends,…

I agree. I setup a Discord server for a few friends and it turned out to be infinitely better then current social media platforms when it came to keeping up with what everyone was up to.

if only someone could make a discord that wasnt owned by an adtech corp

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#636

Post by naravara »

nine_k wrote: post #120
threeseed wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't. Many companies e.g. Path, Google have tried and failed to build a social network that focused on more personal relationships. They simply don't offer enough value over say a WhatApp group.

I think they wanted hockey-stick growth and prospects of a big payout, while the sustainable model may be a lifestyle business that barely pays for itself.

This. Though I'm not even sure about the "barely pays for itself." I mean, Automaticc/Wordpress sustains itself okay and had the resources to buy Tumblr. I think they're just under $100M in annual revenue. Outside the world of absurd Silicon Valley valuations, that would be considered very respectable

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#637

Post by stevenjgarner »

cassianoleal wrote: post #624
stevenjgarner wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am way past that point. I used to use Slack personally but I like Slack about as much as FB, so I now primarily have reverted to my own personal blog, where I make posts with video etc and take comments, and post those posts on FB, Twitter and other social media. It's like I have gone back to what works. My closest family and friends have a login to that blog where we share posts that are private. All our YouTube v…

> Meta still owns your content. It never gets deleted. How can you verify that? This would be against the GDPR and other data protection laws in other countries.

I urge you to read Facebook's "Terms of Service" [0]. 'Facebook's terms allow them "a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook." In layman's terms' [1]

Obviously the internal procedures Meta follows regarding content is unknown. It is probably different for different countries - you mention GDPR, well very little of my content is shared in Europe, so I'm sure the rules that apply to me are completely different from rules that apply for Europeans. It is probably different for different time periods in Facebook history, and it is definitely different for different levels of universality of sharing. That is if you post something "Publicly" then it gets shared by another user, then the original post account is deleted, in all my testing the content that was shared by the other user persists. Facebook has argued that it is "public" content [2]. I personally have seen corporate posts get LIKED and commented by users who delete their accounts, but their content endures on the corporate page.

I do not envy Meta. Knowledge of the legal environment in every country for a global operation makes programming in assembly seem trivial by comparison. I had a friend who was a federal (securities) agent who told me back in the 1980's that the legal environment in the US is deliberately complicated/obfuscated to the point where if you are in compliance with one law, you are automatically in violation of another. It is up to you to pay for representation to contest constitutionality on appeal to a high enough level for acquittal.

If you are unsure about what Facebook does and it matters to you, then test it - you will find FB still has a few human users, some of whom may be interested in running tests with you. Posting content of different types, different sharing, deleting different users etc ... test it! Just delete your account. Then later try and recover the account. It is all still there.

For me, I just assume when FB says 'it may retain copies of "some material" from deleted accounts' [2], I just assume there is no privacy and that I own nothing.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/terms.php

[1] https://www.findlaw.com/legalblogs/law-and-life/who-legally-...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ok-youve-deleted-facebook-but-i...

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#638

Post by greyhair »

The same problem has destroyed instagram. I closed my Facebook account years ago, pre COVID, but still enjoyed instagram.

In the last six months, a steady rot has crept into instagram. I hardly see any of my friend's photos anymore. Just reel after reel after reel from people I have never heard of. I wish they had a settings button to block all reels, but they don't.

So, that is the end of instagram for me.

Meta sucks.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#639

Post by stevenjgarner »

Banana699 wrote: post #367
stevenjgarner wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us in families that are spread over the globe in a dozen time zones and separated in different countries, what other methods of connection even come close to social media? Facebook (and the rest) have provided a way for us to vicariously experience glimpses into each other's lives and in many cases reconnect with people who we never would have otherwise.

Why not "closed world" apps like Whatsapp or Discord ? I personally loath them (specifically Discord) but they seem optimized for the kind of use case you want. Facebook and friends are a huge and dysfunctional towns square, but you don't need a towns square to talk to your family, you need a private shed.

One of the things I do enjoy is Google Meet videos with my grandchildren that allow for the video to be saved. I can then save that video in my own (private) blog on my own private server. I have found that recording Facetime QT video on macOS/iOS is too problematic.

Re: Facebook's TikTok-like redesign marks sunset of social networking era

#640

Post by DrBazza »

thaanpaa wrote: post #632
DrBazza wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody under 30 uses FB any more As someone the wrong side of 50, I can actually tell you that practically none of my friends in my age group use FB any more either. For my non-techie friends, we're all in whatsapp groups. The only thing that keeps me on facebook are sports clubs that I'm a member of, organise a lot of activities via facebook.

Yep, 47 here, and no one except a couple of right-wing, anti-immigration activist "friends" seem to actively use Facebook anymore, out of hundreds. In fact, that's the main reason why I and many of my friends don't use it — it's around 90 % conspiracy theory, and hatred towards government and minorities now, and it's super tiresome. Everyone else is long gone. In my opinion it's not the UI that is the problem; it's t…

The signal-to-noise ratio gets lower and lower with every "overhaul" of FB. Without even looking (and I can't be bothered either), it feels like 1 friend post to 10 or more group or ad posts.
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