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Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

nytimes.com

191–200 of 281 posts

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do I tell Facebook to not steal my phone number and texts from phones of my friends? https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/03/fact-check-your-call-an... "Call and text history logging is part of an opt-in feature for people using Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android. ... This feature does not collect the content of your calls or text messages"

So, to reiterate, how to stop Facebook from stealing your phone number from your friend's phones? Phone numbers aren't content - FB is still stealing it.

It's not stealing if your friend consents to it. If you don't want your phone number shared with Facebook, don't share it with people who are going to share it with Facebook.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#192
post #49
post #39

I tried explaining my 20 year old cousin about FB. Her constant argument was "I don't share anything private on FB". She checks in on FB everywhere she goes. Posts her pics all the time. I could not instill any sense of concern for privacy. What I could conclude is that the appeal of social is too great to have any caution. Call me a pessimist, but I don't think FB is going anywhere. People will keep using it inspite…

> It's like a smoking addiction It's awesome to watch massive shifts in values and priorities. Smoking used to be seen as cool, sexy, even healthy. Now it's widely seen as unhealthy and disgusting. Same thing with high-fructose carbonated beverages. I remember people using terms like "retarded" and "gyp" without hesitation. Today even people who hate political correctness don't talk like that in public. It wasn't lon…

What does "gyp" mean? I googled it but I feel like I'm missing something.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One important functionality gap, between FB and email, is that email always creates copies that are easily controlled by the recipient by design. While it's technically true that a FB recipient could be auto-scraping everything, practically that's not true, which allows people to retroactively delete things with a large chance of success. I feel like reasonably effective retro-active deletion is an important feature…

It's just not a reasonable expectation. Either you give the control over the data to a central authority, or you give the control to the user, you can't have both.

> Either you give the control over the data to a central authority, or you give the control to the user [receiver?], you can't have both.

No, there are middle grounds, such as a decentralized/local authorities. E.g. you send a hyperlink to the message on your server, rather than the message itself. Theoretically, you've still ceded control to the receiver, but practically, in most cases, you haven't.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I tried explaining my 20 year old cousin about FB. Her constant argument was "I don't share anything private on FB". She checks in on FB everywhere she goes. Posts her pics all the time. I could not instill any sense of concern for privacy. If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? Maybe she does fully understand the implications but has a different value system to you? I feel that when…

>If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? The problem is that it's not just her privacy she's violating, but the privacy of everyone else, including OP, whose photos get shared by said cousin. When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to…

"When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to Facebook. I have a Facebook account, but I deliberately have a very minimal presence on it. What my friends were seeing was the photos that my mother had posted, and which I had been tagged in. My privacy was violated by someone else's inability to understand Facebook's privacy settings."

Ironically, it was your OWN inability to understand Facebook's privacy settings.

Go to Settings -> Click " Timeline and Tagging Settings" -> Edit " Who can add things to my timeline? " section : " Review posts that friends tag you in before they appear on your Timeline?" make " Enabled "

There, you will never be tagged in another photo or post, and you now have a review process for anyone who attempts those things, so you can manually up or down those things.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#195
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had the same thought. Charge a small monthly fee in lieu of running ads or selling user data. Might cut down on fake/spam accounts as well. But I don't think it would work (and I'd totally work on something like this if I thought it would). People say they care about privacy, but when you present them with the option of paying $5/mo for a service that respects their privacy or using a "free" service that tracks…

Does FB make $5 a month off the average user? If not, $5 a year? Regardless of what FB makes, could $5 a year keep a FB clone alive at FBs current volume? Would people even pay that?

App.net failed charging $50 a year. I think they should have tiered or been cheaper. But that’s one datapoint.

FB does tens of billions in revenue on 2.1 or 2.2B users worldwide. Far more than $5 a year. I assume a $10 a year social network could break even or even profit. But how many people will really pay? Especially when you scope out to every type of person from every country FB has a hold on.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#196
post #118
post #104

Has anyone seen a product that was functional, polished, and enjoyable to use that would be capable of replacing Facebook? I haven't. Diaspora, Mastodon, Ello are the only things that I can think of, and none of them come close to matching the basic functionality and the "it just works" factor of Facebook. Maybe someone should put in some resources to create a polished product and see what happens? It doesn't even ha…

An even bigger problem is making critical mass. Young people are already tired of old Facebook. The problem is Facebook keeps acquiring the competitors gaining ground (WhatsApp/Instagram), and if not possible just ripping off the features. It's grown too big to be upended easily. And they are not stupid. They see the writing on the wall.

Don’t a decent portion of people sign up to FB once they finish high school/begin college or after they finish college (or are around that age). FB would obviously want every age signing up, but having young people sign up eventually doesn’t seem so bad either.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#197
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Reddit is good evidence that the beauty element is optional, for the goal of Many Users.

Reddit is a perfect example of a tech-focused product for a minority of young, white, tech-oriented men (and a minority of others) that while it influences the outside world, is mainly invisible to it. If you want to build a reddit, you'll never end up with a facebook, that's just reality, the target demo is completely different.

I don't think that's true. I don't think I know anyone who doesn't at least occasionally use Reddit; my aunt told us a story at the family get-together that started "I saw this on AskReddit...".

Certainly anecdotal evidence, and I'm inclined to believe the largest user base may still match your description, but personally I feel like you're describing 4chan, not Reddit.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it could be considerably safer. If my card is lost or broken? The system you describe seems clearly at less risk of inappropriate disclosure. Whether it's safer is perhaps another question.

a) You still need physical access to a terminal to use the key, and b) you revoke the key when it's reported lost.

Those are just more reasons why it's harder to inappropriately access the data. My point was that you may need access to the key fast for health-related reasons, and so from that perspective it may reasonably be deemed "less safe" even if it's more secure.

cf. the difference between "fail safe" and "fail secure", in a slightly different context

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If she's happy with this level of privacy though, what's the problem? The problem is that it's not just her privacy she's violating, but the privacy of everyone else, including OP, whose photos get shared by said cousin. When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to…

"When I got back from a trip I took abroad with my family earlier this year, my friends mentioned that they'd seen the photos that "I" had posted to Facebook. Except... I hadn't posted any photos to Facebook. I have a Facebook account, but I deliberately have a very minimal presence on it. What my friends were seeing was the photos that my mother had posted, and which I had been tagged in. My privacy was violated by…

I am reminded of a basic fact: You can’t opt-out of other people talking about you online.

Keeping people from tagging you is pretty close, though.

Re: Don’t Fix Facebook, Replace It

#200
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like a smoking addiction It's awesome to watch massive shifts in values and priorities. Smoking used to be seen as cool, sexy, even healthy. Now it's widely seen as unhealthy and disgusting. Same thing with high-fructose carbonated beverages. I remember people using terms like "retarded" and "gyp" without hesitation. Today even people who hate political correctness don't talk like that in public. It wasn't lon…

What does "gyp" mean? I googled it but I feel like I'm missing something.

https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/12/30/242429836...

It's a slur against the Roma (gypsies).

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