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Meta preps new social app

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Re: Meta preps new social app

#111

Post by The_Colonel »

berkes wrote: post #63
asim wrote: post #18

Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are just attention seeking. We've been trained to say things that will garner likes and retweets. I welcome text and chat, maybe even voice to text but not in the public form. Closed networks only now.

Facebook has such a network: WhatsApp. In the US apparently not that omnipresent, but it's everywhere in many countries. Facebook has the data, and knows exactly how such closed-networks are in demand, can (not) be monetized and what features are needed to make them grow. In e.g. The Netherlands anything from your neighborhood-watch to parents-info, or anything related to school, via business-groups, your bachelors p…

True, but Facebook has another such network - Facebook.

People hate it with a passion, but its core model has always been having real friends on there. Followers etc. are just an add-on.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#112

Post by yosito »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #109
yosito wrote: post #100

The thing I don't like about mainstream social networks is that they control not just what you say and what you see, but also how you say it and how you see it. Meta says we're all gonna share our thoughts and opinions via short texts posts on Instagram now, so that's what *we're gonna do. Don't like it? Well, too bad, because that's how the app works now. Oh, and by the way, you can post whatever you want, unless th…

> you can post whatever you want, unless the algorithms decide it's against the community standards To the extent that social media is like a village (a medium-to-large number of people expressing themselves), there have always been community standards in any society. > mainstream social networks People who sufficiently resent aspects of broader society can find smaller groups. These smaller groups will themselves ha…

> there have always been community standards in any society.

When Meta says "community standards" they aren't actually community standards at all. Meta unilaterally decides what their "community standards" are. I've had posts about lighting a campfire for my family, and showing off vegetables from my garden flagged as "violating community standards". We're not even getting into sex, religion and politics, which I also believe are areas of life that we need to be able to have open conversations about in public forums, rather than having an unaccountable organization unilaterally decide for us what is right and wrong.

> The expectation of unfettered freedom of speech is at best naive, especially when the things people say incite violence.

Given the tendency for violence to be associated with calls for free speech, I understand how you could assume that I'm talking about speech that incites violence. But actually, I'm talking about much more innocuous things like talking about non-traditional relationship styles, alternative lifestyles, body positivity, open medical data, thought experiments and well thought out challenges to the status quo.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#113

Post by classified »

yosito wrote: post #100

The thing I don't like about mainstream social networks is that they control not just what you say and what you see, but also how you say it and how you see it. Meta says we're all gonna share our thoughts and opinions via short texts posts on Instagram now, so that's what *we're gonna do. Don't like it? Well, too bad, because that's how the app works now. Oh, and by the way, you can post whatever you want, unless th…

That's what you get for making yourself dependent on a megacorp's "free" service.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#114

Post by iambateman »

asim wrote: post #18

Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are just attention seeking. We've been trained to say things that will garner likes and retweets. I welcome text and chat, maybe even voice to text but not in the public form. Closed networks only now.

Don’t look now but you wrote this on a public network. :)

That said, I agree the current iteration of public social networks is pretty rough.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#115

Post by asim »

iambateman wrote: post #114
asim wrote: post #18

Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are just attention seeking. We've been trained to say things that will garner likes and retweets. I welcome text and chat, maybe even voice to text but not in the public form. Closed networks only now.

Don’t look now but you wrote this on a public network. :) That said, I agree the current iteration of public social networks is pretty rough.

The irony. HN is probably one of the few places left I feel like actually every so often leaving a comment. Why is that? The value of the network perhaps. Or that it does in some ways feel like a closed network. It's so niche, the self promotional nature is quite limited to posting about things you're working on. There's no retweet/advert like culture that results in infinite threads.

Anyway, if HN was a closed network that would be good too. I don't see why the comments need to be public, I don't see why any of it needs to be public. I mean in 2009 a friend recommended it to me, but equally if it was invite only he could have sent me an invite. But that's the way I discovered most great things, someone I personally know told me about it or shared an invite. And I think if there was to be a great new network that it should actually be invite only, totally private and even then I think "public" spaces within that private domain should be limited to fixed size groups. On any given day, if a room has more than 10 people in it, I probably know I'm not going to enjoy that conversation or setting. I think its the same of the internet. Crowds are not cool, they're anxiety inducing. So 20 people max in a group.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#116

Post by soco »

berkes wrote: post #63
asim wrote: post #18

Public networks are dead. We did it for two decades and now people need to go back to something more real and private. Social networks in the current form are just attention seeking. We've been trained to say things that will garner likes and retweets. I welcome text and chat, maybe even voice to text but not in the public form. Closed networks only now.

Facebook has such a network: WhatsApp. In the US apparently not that omnipresent, but it's everywhere in many countries. Facebook has the data, and knows exactly how such closed-networks are in demand, can (not) be monetized and what features are needed to make them grow. In e.g. The Netherlands anything from your neighborhood-watch to parents-info, or anything related to school, via business-groups, your bachelors p…

On a much smaller scale, that's also what Meetup is offering. But definitely not largely used.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#117

Post by bob_theslob646 »

rglullis wrote: post #98
asim wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I use WhatsApp, my family uses WhatsApp, my wife's family uses WhatsApp. I found it to be an incredibly effective tool and was a really big fan of Jan Koum and Brian Acton pre-sale to Facebook. And now, I wonder how to replace it. Signal did not become a replacement, if anything it's not that great because user friendliness trumps everything else. Networks are sticky and shifting a network is a damn near impossi…

> I'm personally developing more and more conviction around the idea of doing something that first tries to tackle this on a personal level before doing it for others e.g How do I get my family off WhatsApp. You are on the right track, but I would say we don't need even need to get them "off" WhatsApp, we just need to get an intolerant minority [0] who refuses to compromise. I deleted WhatsApp from my phone and told…

>deleted WhatsApp from my phone and told my close friends and family "For reasons X, Y and Z, I don't want to use Facebook products anymore. If you want to reach me, I am using Matrix. I can add you to my communick account [1] and I can help you set up your client. I know that this is an inconvenience but I think we should all revise our priorities and stop putting "convenience" above all else

I'm assuming you're social life has suffered?

This is the problem via the lack of universal messaging standards... I am looking at you Apple..

I wonder what percentage of your friends and family dropped off?

I ran a similar experiment to you and found it really really difficult as almost 90+% didn't want to deal with the hassle of using a different application.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#118

Post by asim »

rglullis wrote: post #98
asim wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I use WhatsApp, my family uses WhatsApp, my wife's family uses WhatsApp. I found it to be an incredibly effective tool and was a really big fan of Jan Koum and Brian Acton pre-sale to Facebook. And now, I wonder how to replace it. Signal did not become a replacement, if anything it's not that great because user friendliness trumps everything else. Networks are sticky and shifting a network is a damn near impossi…

> I'm personally developing more and more conviction around the idea of doing something that first tries to tackle this on a personal level before doing it for others e.g How do I get my family off WhatsApp. You are on the right track, but I would say we don't need even need to get them "off" WhatsApp, we just need to get an intolerant minority [0] who refuses to compromise. I deleted WhatsApp from my phone and told…

Thanks for sharing that sentiment. I don't quite take the same view on it but understand the approach can be effective. I stopped using slack at some point and it meant I did not speak to the specific group of friends who only communicated through slack. It turned out to be a so-so thing. In some ways I don't know whether it had more negative or positive impact. By taking a stance on it, maybe it was only detrimental to myself or beneficial, whichever way you see it.

On the family front, there's a WhatsApp group and people have learned to use it for that activity, so I can't see that behaviour changing especially when 60+ year olds are in it too. It just became the defacto mode of communication somehow. Yet funnily 10 years ago, I was not a WhatsApp user. A friend of mine dragged me on there. It reminds me of 2006 when people kept asking "Are you on Facebook", like a bunch of drug addicts.

I personally want to move some of my private content and conversations off public servers and on to one I control. Off public networks and on one I know I've secured. That to me as an engineer now makes a lot of sense. But there's also a significant burden to that and I don't think anyone else can do it. Also I don't imagine anyone will setup VPN across my extended family. So there's some things to think through before trying anything.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#119

Post by falloutx »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #109
yosito wrote: post #100

The thing I don't like about mainstream social networks is that they control not just what you say and what you see, but also how you say it and how you see it. Meta says we're all gonna share our thoughts and opinions via short texts posts on Instagram now, so that's what *we're gonna do. Don't like it? Well, too bad, because that's how the app works now. Oh, and by the way, you can post whatever you want, unless th…

> you can post whatever you want, unless the algorithms decide it's against the community standards To the extent that social media is like a village (a medium-to-large number of people expressing themselves), there have always been community standards in any society. > mainstream social networks People who sufficiently resent aspects of broader society can find smaller groups. These smaller groups will themselves ha…

I have become less and less concerned about freedom of speech since I have been on the internet. If an app wants to delete my posts, thats okay for me unless I am paying them. Governments in the past have had full control of the information flow, and I don't think that has changed. Whatever freedom of speech we had is now maligned by really annoying and vocal people. Internet just feels hostile. I spend most of my online time on Nintendo games now, they don't let me say more than 4 pre chosen cheers and I am perfectly fine with it.

Re: Meta preps new social app

#120

Post by 29083011397778 »

iakov wrote: post #105
lakomen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telegram seems like the logical choice. It has everything WhatsApp does and more.

Why is this downvoted? Telegram is IMO the best alternative to WhatsApp. It has a much better UX than Signal, more desirable features, not to mention more users and channels. There is an on-demand E2E encryption for those who want it. Pavel Durov is not on a friendly terms with Russian govt now for those who care about it. You can pay for the service to support the company, get rid of ads and gain some meaningless fe…

> What's not to like?

> on-demand E2E encryption for those who want it.

E2E is only available as a one-to-one, not a group. It must also be switched on for every chat. Part of the allure of E2E is that an individual who needs it (say, a reporter) is indistinguishable from those that don’t (the general public), and those that are best blending into the crowd (like an anonymous source).

There are other failure modes here (who speaks to whom isn’t necessarily hidden, just the text), but it’s a better starting point than “on-demand e2e for those that want it”.

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