I have yet to receive my federal tax refund because I submitted my taxes through a preparation service and, thinking that physical checks were still an option (the tax software didn't tell me otherwise), I did not give the federal government an ACH account number for direct deposit. The IRS then told me I'd have to open an account to update/provide direct deposit info, which in turn requires me to register with ID.me…
Never Give Them Your Face
211–220 of 468 posts
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#212I quit facebook over a decade ago. Then, a few months back, I was under some pressure to sell something, and the facebook marketplace appears to be the way to go locally. So I tried to create a facebook account. They wanted to scan my face, and in a moment of weakness, I performed the ritual. Thirty seconds later, they suspended my account due to violations of their terms of service: "this decision cannot be appealed…
Google Ads is ghosting me too. I really could get behind legislation that requires companies to have a human point of contact in these cases, but I guess a private company has the right to ignore people they don’t want as customers.
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#213This and every post like it hurts the cause. Don't argue "Resist!" like a child, argue with an alternative. You're not bringing anything to the table other than teenage angst, ensuring nobody takes the _very valid and terrifying concerns_ seriously. Instead, suggest a feasible alternative. Bonus points if it works better, cheaper, and safer.
And don't handwaive away the real problem with children on social media. It's not good enough, not gonna cut it, there's strong consensus around fixing this big societal problem. Go ahead and blame the parents all you want - to a critical mass of people nowadays, it reads like the equivalent of blaming them for a 10 year old being let into a casino and getting addicted to slot machines. The debate will then just move…
Not saying we should stop trying to verify age in a privacy-respecting way, but the current incentive structure means that we cannot really EXPECT this in the near term.
If we cannot expect it, then we should not legislate or require it until the right solution has been found and we need to encourage our lawmakers to FUND the right way to do this.
I'm not handwaving the problems of children on social media, but it is within parental control to a certain extent, and preventing access with age verification will not prevent access in other places, nor help them deal with the onslaught when they are of age to make decisions.
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean the analogy sounds about right, why downvoting?
How does it
There's the analogy, it was primarily beneficial for a small group yet for many, particularly Government workers and those in medical care it became a condition of employment that you were vaccinated. [2]
There was a lot of pointless policies despite knowing:
- Being vaccination did nothing to prevent transmitting Covid, it only gave the vaccinated individual better protection from mortality. [3]
- Herd immunity for Covid was known to be impossible once the infection rates got too high with Delta and Omnicron. So trying to vaccinate everyone including children was pointless. [4]
- There is Evidence that being vaccinated actually increases transmission of respiratory viruses. You were less likely to get seriously ill, while potentially increasing the risk of passing it on to your family. [5]
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/covid/risk-factors/index.html
[2] https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/1000-nsw-health-workers-...
[3] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/
[4] https://theconversation.com/herd-immunity-was-sold-as-the-pa...
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trying to put this all on Meta with a look at their 2025 lobbying spend is missing the point. The “think of the children” panic about the internet pre-dates this by years. Remember the debate around the TikTok ban? The states instituting laws about porn age checks pre-dates all of this too. I think trying to blame Meta is convenient because it’s easy to think there is just one villain coordinating everything, but the…
While the panic is indeed nothing new, Meta could have chosen a path of solidarity across the tech industry, lobbying for the ways age/identity verification makes people of all ages less safe, especially in the context of phishing and data harvesting. Instead, its strategy has become to advocate for increasing the net levels of tracking and regulatory burden, so long as it is positioned to burden other parts of the t…
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#216Earlier quoted context omitted.
I visit my facebook once a year and always regret it
At this point I purely use it to log in on my birthday to pass pleasantries with relatives that don't use any other platform and then turn it off again for a year.
For 15+ years, I've thought long and hard countless times about what could sustainably replace social media platforms that do not serve us well. I know a paid app is not super likely to succeed, although WhatsApp did use to cost a dollar! It seems like a nonprofit wouldn't be that great, and so I wonder about a mission-driven public benefit corporation (not to be confused with a B corp, though it could be one of those too). Of course it has to be cool or no one would use it. Not a fuddy duddy wannabe social network. Anyway, to sustain itself, would ads or paid offerings (that don't harvest personal data) be successful?
Happy to discuss with anyone interested!
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
And increasingly, everyone isn’t using them, even if they’re on them. I’m on Insta and WhatsApp and I use them a few times per year. I’m on Messenger and have seen a dramatic dropoff in messages. I’m on FB frequently and notice only a small fraction of my friends bother anymore and it’s become an interest platform to make up the lack, so I’m trending toward less time there. I’m on Twitter/X but check in maybe once a…
I'm very much like you. There are several apps that I use to communicate with a handful (or less) of people in the world. I see people on travel sites saying "Just use WhatsApp" and I'm more or less, yes it's installed on my phone and I use it with a couple people but it's certainly not something that most people I know use. Probably something of a demographic (geography/age) thing.
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#218I quit facebook over a decade ago. Then, a few months back, I was under some pressure to sell something, and the facebook marketplace appears to be the way to go locally. So I tried to create a facebook account. They wanted to scan my face, and in a moment of weakness, I performed the ritual. Thirty seconds later, they suspended my account due to violations of their terms of service: "this decision cannot be appealed…
I tried to make an account while forgetting my VPN was engaged. Another US IP address but one from a block of IPs I’m sure is used for nefarious purposes. So because I briefly shared an IP block with ne’erdowells, I am, without an option to appeal, banned from interacting with Facebook forever. Google Ads is ghosting me too. I really could get behind legislation that requires companies to have a human point of contac…
but I guess a private company has the right to ignore people they don’t want
as customers.
The problem is the monopolistic power these companies have.Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#219I quit facebook over a decade ago. Then, a few months back, I was under some pressure to sell something, and the facebook marketplace appears to be the way to go locally. So I tried to create a facebook account. They wanted to scan my face, and in a moment of weakness, I performed the ritual. Thirty seconds later, they suspended my account due to violations of their terms of service: "this decision cannot be appealed…
I tried to make an account while forgetting my VPN was engaged. Another US IP address but one from a block of IPs I’m sure is used for nefarious purposes. So because I briefly shared an IP block with ne’erdowells, I am, without an option to appeal, banned from interacting with Facebook forever. Google Ads is ghosting me too. I really could get behind legislation that requires companies to have a human point of contac…
Re: Never Give Them Your Face
#220I quit facebook over a decade ago. Then, a few months back, I was under some pressure to sell something, and the facebook marketplace appears to be the way to go locally. So I tried to create a facebook account. They wanted to scan my face, and in a moment of weakness, I performed the ritual. Thirty seconds later, they suspended my account due to violations of their terms of service: "this decision cannot be appealed…