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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

#651

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The answer to the one platform that resisted all temptations and did this well: Twitter. The #metoo #blacklivesmatters and not to mention numerous international protests and movements sprouted there. As both cause and effect, Twitter has missed the capitalistic financial success of similarly sized and engaged companies.

Twitter does seem to be replacing most of their feed with random posts from people you don't follow, poorly categorised by AI into topics they incorrectly think you're interested in though.

I find nitter helps a bit with this, certainly cuts down on the noise.

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

#652

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I remember being in Bilbao, Spain wanting to eat fries and a cheesburger in a Burger King. They didn't have anything like that. All I could choose from where potato wedges and weird Spanish style burgers with way too much stuff on it. Is it too much to ask for fries and a regular old hamburger in a Burger King nowadays?

Have you considered that what's a "weird Spanish style burger" to you is likely a regular old hamburger to someone who lives in Bilbao, Spain

Now that you mention it, that town was in deed pretty weird. good point.

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

#653

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Thanks for the information. > Knowledge of the legal environment in every country for a global operation makes programming in assembly seem trivial by comparison. That may be so but they still need to comply. I've just signed up with the same email address I had on my old account. I can't say for certain whether my data has been permanently deleted but I can't find any of it. I'll try to get in touch with others who…

I wish you every good thing. I'm going down something of a rabbit hole on this and was so surprised at the Wikipedia discussion on US privacy: 'Some conservative justices do not consider privacy to be a legal right, as when discussing the 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas (539 U.S. 558), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia did not consider privacy to be a right, and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argued that there…

Wow... That's dystopian at best.

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

#654

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> 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…

> one day they will simply slink away in the middle of the night leaving several thousand mine workers unemployed and holding the bag. When that day comes, the moment Facebook and Meta are declared dead I will go out, order the most expensive bottle of champagne, and celebrate all night. Future generations of an advanced technological society will look back in horror and disbelief that a small cadre of privateers wer…

Well, should really look into the history of communication technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. Television, the telegram, and radio were all dominated by private cos that crushed open competition at every opportunity. Do you ever give that any thought? I recommend The Master Switch by Tim Wu if not!

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

#655
post #74

It’s crazy to think the social media era may finally be ending. There’s really no viable platform anymore where you can just go passively keep up with what friends and acquaintances are doing. Everything is about feeding you content you didn’t ask for but may be targeted enough to catch your attention. And for what? To show you some ads here and there? To collect data that can be used to… sell more ads and products?…

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,…

>A closed, private space that admits no outsiders, marketers, or clout chasers, but strongly discourages developing relationships with new people or expanding one's horizons.

I've been thinking about these exact tradeoffs in building Haven[1]. Completely private, self-hosted or paid-hosting so no ads, or tracking. Built on RSS so you even get interoperability with the rest of the web.

But also no discovery.

I haven't decided yet if there is a reasonable way to do discovery which doesn't turn into a cesspool of promotion--I think it would have to lean on peer recommendations of some form, kind of a pseudo curation. Or maybe we just leave discovery to FaceTok.

[1]: https://havenweb.org

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

#656
I really miss the experience I had with MySpace back in 2004-2007. It gave users a lot of control over their personal pages, and I had a lot of fun adding all sorts of wacky things. I got to communicate with some of my favorite bands and authors, all the content in someone's profile was contained in a single place. There was almost a diy feel to it. I sometimes even feel nostalgic about the "Top 8" drama. It was a simpler time. I was also young so I probably overlooked the darker side of things then. People did warn a lot about putting your real name online because it might give murderers your information, granted there were fewer people on the internet then and it had a certain wild west vibe to it, the great unknown with associated fears- somewhere along the way society did a 180 and everyone started putting all their information online. It's really strange to think about the shifts, but even stranger to think about the sources of the moving parts bringing the changes.

There are alternatives to corporate-run social media (the Fediverse, to name one off the top of my head) that are less-known. I've personally just left social media altogether. I had a period of time I spent in cycles of addiction/absrinence and I have to say I much prefer to keep in touch with people on more personal direct contact (snail mail, e-mail, messaging) without meddling, extra baggage, advertisers, my data being sold off to unknown entities to do as they please according to their most likely not benign motivations. But the biggest factor in my exit from social media was how negative it all became.

I joined facebook in 2007 when you needed to be invited in and it was basically mostly students. Ober the years things went from "so neat I can connect to people all over the world" to an online battleground in the span of a decade (arguably 2 decades, depending on your online experience). The convenience of keeping in touch with relatives/friends overseas and the wonderment of making friends online has become eclipsed by all the other things which have nothing to do with people being able to connect. If anything these big platforms have become all about (directly, indirectly, incidentally, regardless) gaming the divisions between people to push them apart and foment rifts they can profit from, at least that's how I see it and I am just done with all that.

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

#657

Did Facebook ever really need to become such a behemoth? Could they not have been mildly profitable just hosting pictures and helping people stay connected? Would it have been impossible for them to simply keep operating without capitalism's Blob-like need for growth at all costs?

If you look into Mark Suckerborg's history, his character, his decisions and their consequences... it becomes pretty evident there are few motivations involved in what he chooses, and even fewer scruples about the consequences.

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

#658

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> their customers Just so we're clear, the users are NOT the customers. I think Facebook absolutely understands their customers -- the companies that spend the most advertising and marketing through Facebook.

All of the paying customers have Facebook accounts and most personally use them. If it's a bad experience and "boosting" posts leads to noise and garbage they're going away. The tiering of customers and users is incorrect, Facebook is the meeting place for the two sides of the attention market and they are increasingly doing a failed execution. The clean delineated hierarchy model where the users are treated as fooli…

Have we already forgotten the aphorism "if the service is free, you are the product"?

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

#659
post #94

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You all need to get out of Silicon Valley. Creole languages, such as Jamaican are not only completely normal and exist, it's actually not antiquated if you look outside of the US. I do think you need to read more about this. You seem hung up on a singular meaning, which to me says a lot more about you than me. In this context, unless you're going to be obnoxiously pandentic, creole simply means "a bunch of words and…

Yeah, and you used it in a way that made it sound derogatory. "Creole bullshit" I expect the Yankees and the city folk to do this unintentionally, but not one of our own. I have never lived in Silicon Valley. My parents are from N'awlins (New Orleans, Louisiana).

> Yeah, and you used it in a way that made it sound derogatory.

> "Creole bullshit"

They didn't write that it sounds like "creole bullshit", they wrote that it sounds like "investor creole language bullshit" ie) bullshit in an investor creole language ie) investors saying bullshit in a language consisting of words which mean one thing in English but which have a different meaning in the language the investors are speaking.

You've clearly totally misinterpreted the original post due to an unfamiliarity with the linguistics term "creole language", a term which does not even derive from the Creole peoples of Louisiana (although both the people and the term share a common French root).

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

#660
post #283

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By force. The same way they broke down the locked doors and windows and overwhelmed the police.

You don't control a country by controlling a single building. And worst case, you send the military and the crisis is over in a few hours. If you believe that this was an insurrection, that was the most peaceful insurrection ever in History.

> You don't control a country by controlling a single building.

This isn't some random building, it's literally the Capitol, with Congress in attendance. This was also not an isolated incident.

In 2020 Ammon Bundy of Malheur standoff fame led an armed mob which forced its way past the State Patrol into a session of the Idaho State House of Representatives. After occupying the gallery above the House they were "allowed" to stay and observe the session, with their guns.

On January 6th itself an armed mob forced its way past the gate at the governors house in Washington state.

Also on January 6th attempts were made to enter the capitols in California, Georgia, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Oregon. Some of these involved armed mobs and gallows.

On January 9th an armed mob showed up outside the Kentucky State Capitol.

Consider the connection between Waco, Ruby Ridge, and Oklahoma City to see how this escalates.

> And worst case, you send the military and the crisis is over in a few hours.

That worst case involves the mob actually reaching the representatives, killing them and claiming power. In that case the military can't just magically set everything right. If hostages are involved nothing is getting done "in a few hours". The military isn't going to undo any damage.

A successful attack on Congress that incapacitated, killed, or persuaded enough representatives absolutely could lead to control of the country.

> If you believe that this was an insurrection, that was the most peaceful insurrection ever in History.

A woman was killed by the Secret Service after breaching a barricade in pursuit of the Vice President. Members of the mob used chemical weapons on police. Call it whatever you want but it wasn't peaceful and it wasn't innocent.

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