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The Facebook experiment has failed

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Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#121

Post by djim »

josh2600 wrote: post #20

To be honest, I spend more time on HackerNews than I do on Facebook. I feel like I go to Facebook to see what people from Highschool and College are doing and to keep tabs on my local area, but if I want intellectual stimulation, it's too much work to dig through my newsfeed. This isn't the first time this has happened; I remember when Reddit was small too (and if you go back on HN, the old HN had higher quality comm…

I also spend far more time reading comments of strangers on HN (after reading the articles, of course) than I do on Facebook.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#122

Post by rythie »

jeswin wrote: post #84

Author here. Didn't think this would show up on HN. These were my thoughts when I wrote it: 1. Most stuff being shared is of no value to most people. Does not encourage exchange of good ideas. Sharing, as it works now looks like a fad. It has peaked. Most people I know are bored now, it's just the inertia that keeps them there. 2. If someone is genuinely interested in something, they will seek out good communities to…

I think what you're missing is, that facebook is a tool for extraverts - it doesn't matter that people don't have much to talk about - they just want to talk with friends - about anything really.

What you are describing is a tool for more introverted style people (like myself) who primarly want to talk about common interests

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#125

Post by einhverfr »

gonehome wrote: post #30
beatpanda wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This: If the idea is that there is some content you don't want a subset of people to see than it's a mistake to post it. is a privileged perspective. I'm guessing a lot of HNers aren't subject to gang injunctions, but imagine for a moment that you are. Suddenly, "pictures of me and my friends hanging out" become dangerous, something that can land you in jail. Or let's say you identify as queer to your close friends a…

What I'm saying is that if you have real secrets it's a bad idea to share them to a subset online because it's trivial for that to get shared outside of that group. I also think these situations are not the common case and because of this should not be the default. The ability to configure this exists within facebook.

But again, that's what's wrong with facebook. The Zucherberg has basically said he things we need less privacy, but humans need that safe place, and a society without privacy doesn't offer that.

The thing is many facebook users understand that.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#126

Post by einhverfr »

beatpanda wrote: post #37
pyre wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the general opinion of the parent poster is that if you are posting something that you wish to be private, then you shouldn't. The idea being that Facebook now has access to it, as do their advertisers (possibly). That information can now be released publicly intentionally or unintentionally. For example, the act of posting it, even to a subset of friends, is a risk. There's the possibility of a Facebook bug…

It's also important to point out that Facebook is decidedly not neutral on this issue. They take information that used to be private and make it public all the time , because they think it should be, and every new product feature is built from that perspective. That is a bug .

It's a bug for us, a feature for them :-/

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#127

Post by eLobato »

Does the OP know you can hide stories from everyone but your closest circle of friends and family? Honestly every time I see anything from an acquaintance I played beer pong with 5 years ago, I click on "hide all publications by this guy", and voila.

Facebook has already thought of that problem for you, OP.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#128

Post by calinet6 »

graue wrote: post #35

People really just don't seem to understand that experiences with social media are specific to the individual. I guess it's understandable. I see the same Google Maps as everyone else does. I see the same Hacker News as everyone else who visits HN. But Facebook isn't like that. Your Facebook timeline is based entirely on your friends and how you interact with Facebook. And so, every few weeks it seems, we get these p…

Brilliant. This is a perfect analysis of this article.

People are using Facebook because they want to, not because some weird social power is forcing them to. My friends love it, my parents love it, heck my grandma thinks it's absolutely magical. We get to share things and communicate with family in a way we've never been able to ever. It's not replacing the deep connections and interpersonal relationships—you need to actually meet up with someone and talk to them in person or on the phone for that. But we already have ways to do that!

The annoying people on Facebook are the ones who don't like it, like the author of this article. They're the ones that just post "Dang Facebook sucks more every day" or useless stuff like that and never actually use it for its capabilities. They expect Facebook to do their social for them, when it's really just a tool that you have to use optimistically.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#129

Post by einhverfr »

beatpanda wrote: post #47
hoopla2013 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) I really don't say this to attack you personally, but frankly using the word "privileged" like that is whiny typical out if touch grad-student speak, it's divorced from reality. People are not that helpless 2) Anyone who actually finds themselves under a gang injunction or might be hurt by bigoted family members ought to be smart and not post & overshare. 3) Self-censorship & under sharing is a wonderful strategy…

I don't mean this personally either, but I think anyone who believes using the word "privileged" is "out-of-touch" probably needs to get more in touch with levels of society outside their own.

IDK. I think the term is overly used, but having heard Clarence Thomas talk a bit about multiculturalism and the intersection of folks telling people what they should think based solely on race,[1] maybe there is a point.

I do think though that the term often obscures more than it elucideates. Part of the problem is that there is the illusion that privilege can only work one way, so we can't talk about, for example, the fact that in terms of supporting children that we biologically have, that women are in a far privileged position relative to men in our culture (and that male privilege is necessarily a product of this, and that it has very few if any reasonable solutions[2]), so on the whole I think we are far better off just talking about problems and how they interrelate rather than forcing things into an overly simplistic narrative of privilege (yes all narratives are simplifications, but realizing this I think is the first step).

But additionally I don't think it is a "privileged" viewpoint not to worry about what one posts. I think it is a foolish viewpoint. The fact is if you are in the most apparently privileged demographic (I say apparently because if privilege is a useful concept it only makes sense in specific contexts), you can still be ruined by indiscretions regarding sharing stuff on facebook.

[1] http://www.scotusblog.com/media/conversation-with-justice-th... Truly mind-blowing interview about history, life, and race.

[2] Any solution you can find to the problem of single mothers having all the rights regarding reproduction and single fathers only having secondary rights contingent on the mother's actions are far worse than the problem. But if you accept inequality here, in this fundamental aspect of life, it is necessarily impossible to expect that there will be full equality elsewhere, at least as long as work and family are expected to be separate. Additionally the contrary side is that if you make things uniform, asking a man to restrict paternity leave to two weeks is very different from asking a woman to do so.

Re: The Facebook experiment has failed

#130

Post by lenazegher »

nostromo wrote: post #51

Lately I've noticed something odd. When I find a story I find interesting, I email it to some of my closest friends and we talk about it in email. It feels very 2003, but it works and feels more private and intimate. Similarly, when I take a picture I want to share with my family, I sms it to them. Facebook is still great, but it's different than what it used to be. It's (for me) evolved into my less-close friends' v…

Perhaps even more oddly, when I have an interesting link, I tend to post it to the facebook group chat I have running with four of my closest friends.

It's useful because everyone can see everyone else's reaction.

I use facebook almost every day, but I can't remember the last time I posted a status update or read anyone else's status update.

I use it as a glorified chat/email hybrid client. It's useful because only people I've chosen to accept can send me messages (like chat), but it's truly asynchronous, stores everything and supports rich messages (like email).

If, tomorrow, facebook disabled the ability of everyone to post statuses, play games, use apps, answer quizzes, post photos and all the rest of it, my usage of facebook would be precisely the same as it is now.

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