Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye Facebook.

techsavvybutterfly.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 158 posts

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#51

Post by idleloops »

I have privacy concerns about Facebook, and resent the fact that it's such a silo, but in the main in succeeds where other technologies have failed.

It's useful for finding people - a directory. If I want to get in touch with someone - and I don't have their contact details I can probably find them on Facebook and fire them a message.

If email was just as easy, people would have probably taken to that. Which is a shame, because Email could have been that easy. Privacy used to be more of a concern, and spam drove people away from publishing their addresses in directories.

I've left (privacy and personal reasons.) I since have missed the community. It's encouraged me to pick up the phone more, which is a nice thing. You just can't have the same rich interaction with people when typing compared to talking. But you can have a greater audience. Perhaps you communicate to more people with less content over something like Facebook, compared to having richer relationships with fewer people. It might all balance out.

Ultimately time is a premium. I certainly don't think G+ is the answer - it's much of the same.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#52

Post by AznHisoka »

chrislomax wrote: post #16
richardv wrote: post #5

Aside from the fact that this post is mostly pointless, it's also totally misinformed. The OP started off by stating his reasons for dropping FB in this "experiment".. namely losing touch with the people for which he originally signed up under. But he clearly doesn't engage with them if he's not seeing their updates. Your social graph needs fine tuning. It's like any good bayesian filter, it learns over time what int…

I don't know why you have so much hate for the comment you made but I couldn't agree more. Facebook is a tool, all tools need to be guided by yourself, they never just work. Equally one tool will not work for everyone so sometimes you have to adapt that tool. People commenting it's just a money making machine, where do they make money off me? I don't click on anything I don't want to and I'm not forced to buy stuff.…

I agree, FB is a tool.

However, because of the nature of FB, it makes relationships less personal/authentic, as we try to show off our "best self" to others, rather than our real selves. The tool itself encourages this, so instead of adapting to it, for some people it's best to not use it.

It's like eating at a fast food restaurant. Yes, you can adapt to it and order the salads, and healthy dishes.. But noone's forcing you to go there, you can just not go to them in the first place.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#53

Post by padobson »

Curation of social media is becoming a big problem that only occured within the last few years. Trying to solve it algorithmically with plus ones and likes and upvotes seems to work when the content is centered around a specific topic, but not something so general as your Facebook friends list or Twitter feed.

And you can't just deny people you know from being your friend on Facebook. It's rude. If you're ok with being rude, this doesn't apply to you, but the quality of my Facebook stream is not worth sacrificing my manners - not when I can get better content elsewhere without having to do so.

I haven't left Facebook, I just ignore it, because there's nothing interesting there. I don't want to clean it up when my accounts on Twitter, Quora, Hacker News, and Stack Exchange provide much more interesting content.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#55

Post by cs702 »

As I see it, the seeds of this user's disappointment were planted as soon as she starting gaming the system: "my posts became more and more filtered as the 'Friend' list increased. Now, they were getting the facade, the highlights because I donned the 'happy' mask. My closer friends were still catching the true story through instant messaging, text messaging and phone calls..."

The faint echoes of Gödel and Turing in the back of my mind say: no social algorithm can ever optimize its results to take into account how people will modify their behavior in response to the algorithm itself.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#56

Post by ovi256 »

planetguy wrote: post #48

I'm considering leaving facebook for the first time, because of the Sponsored Stories thing, which is showing up with disturbing regularity, and frequently winds up as ads for things that make me angry. Nowadays, if you "Like" something, then that something can pay for the privilege to insert whatever stories it likes into your friends' facebook feeds, under the heading "so-and-so likes such-and-such" followed by you…

Facebook already includes tools to solve your issues. Either unfriend the vague acquintances, hide all their posts from your feed, or hide the annoying posts following some criteria.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#57

Post by nitid_name »

planetguy wrote: post #48

I'm considering leaving facebook for the first time, because of the Sponsored Stories thing, which is showing up with disturbing regularity, and frequently winds up as ads for things that make me angry. Nowadays, if you "Like" something, then that something can pay for the privilege to insert whatever stories it likes into your friends' facebook feeds, under the heading "so-and-so likes such-and-such" followed by you…

Why are you facebook friends with people who post things you don't like?

I don't facebook often... don't they still have the ability to turn down how frequently you see posts from people? Can't you put them in facebook's equivalent of "circles" and keep their crap out of your feed?

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#58

Post by warmwaffles »

planetguy wrote: post #48

I'm considering leaving facebook for the first time, because of the Sponsored Stories thing, which is showing up with disturbing regularity, and frequently winds up as ads for things that make me angry. Nowadays, if you "Like" something, then that something can pay for the privilege to insert whatever stories it likes into your friends' facebook feeds, under the heading "so-and-so likes such-and-such" followed by you…

When you are about to grant access to an application, be sure to read the policies and pay attention to your feed. Remove any unwanted crap.

It's like maintaining your inbox unfortunately.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#59

Post by planetguy »

ovi256 wrote: post #56
planetguy wrote: post #48

I'm considering leaving facebook for the first time, because of the Sponsored Stories thing, which is showing up with disturbing regularity, and frequently winds up as ads for things that make me angry. Nowadays, if you "Like" something, then that something can pay for the privilege to insert whatever stories it likes into your friends' facebook feeds, under the heading "so-and-so likes such-and-such" followed by you…

Facebook already includes tools to solve your issues. Either unfriend the vague acquintances, hide all their posts from your feed, or hide the annoying posts following some criteria.

Actually I've discovered that the ads keep appearing even if you do hide all their posts from your feed.

Re: Goodbye Facebook.

#60

Post by scott_s »

obituary_latte wrote: post #12

My problem with fb and the reason I don't use it is simple: principal. I understand the model, and oblige with google (though not g+ as it is pretty quiet in my neck of the woods). But to not only give them the value of my data but also have them go around changing things like registered email without so much as a heads up is a slap in the face. It's like a conceited bus monitor that just goes ahead and "does what's…

I saw the email thing as a non-issue - if you're looking at my info on FB, then the easiest way to contact me is on FB. It doesn't bother me that people aren't referred to my Gmail account instead.
Post reply on HN