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Quit Social Media (2016)

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Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#251

Post by llm_trw »

ryandv wrote: post #108
michaelt wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is the kind of argument you can make in both directions. A site is full of ragebait, hot takes and pictures of boobs? The ad economy has pushed them towards things that get a lot of engagement. Clicks are money! A site is devoid of ragebait, hot takes and pictures of boobs? The ad economy forces everything to be brand-safe and censored.

Sure. Chomsky et al continue in the cited chapter, In addition to discrimination against unfriendly media institutions, advertisers also choose selectively among programs on the basis of their own principles. With rare exceptions these are culturally and politically conservative. There are two options; either Chomsky et al are incorrect in their assertion, or they are correct. If they are incorrect, then non-conserva…

LGBT rights have been enshrined in US law for over a decade now.

It's time to wake up to the fact that being LGBT friendly is the conservative position. This may come as a shock to people who were cutting edge radicals in their youth in the 1990s - a decade that is now 30 years in the past.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#252

Post by alecco »

dang wrote: post #238
alecco wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck with a contrarian post or comment here. They get flagged or downvoted to oblivion.

That's partly true, but there's also a confounding factor that contrarian posts are more likely to break HN's guidelines [1]. For example, they're more likely to be snarky or ranty. These qualities are rightly downvoted and flagged on HN, not contrariness per se. This comes from fundamentals, unfortunately, so it's hard to change. The trouble is that someone posting a contrary view usually feels under pressure going…

Thank you, dang.

It was always like this. At least it's not as bad as reddit. :)

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#253

Post by rustcleaner »

motohagiography wrote: post #159

I was one of those security/privacy people in the 00's who declined to join facebook or do any of the social media stuff. Feels like it was the right call. Meta was the best possible company name for the social media machine, because when you turn it all off, you really do become less meta. I'd suspect it's a bit like being a vegan, where it's a self-imposed constrant that makes you aloof from others and makes them t…

I was one of those technology skids at that time and had more hope for the world. It was a time before I learned ****** was an *** *** *********** job. Before I watched Ron Paul collect the largest grassroots donation drive ('Moneybomb') and then his reach get clubbed like a baby seal by the establishment thereafter. It made me realize The Farm is real and what slop most Farm animals enjoy is just that: slop, prepared in a manner which makes the animal more useful/productive relative to cost. I also realize that there are complexities to ascending to the class of Farmer (or merely Farm-hand) which call for the cybernetic sentimental feedback system being built. How do you manage a farm of human livestock and not get killed? How do you do it in such a way that you can plan a hundred years out and hand it all off to your choice grandson(s)?

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#254

Post by shadowmanifold »

uejfiweun wrote: post #44

I quit social media, but the problem is that in the modern dating world a lot of people care whether you have an Instagram and that sort of thing. I truly hate social media, but I find myself considering remaking it just to improve my dating life. It's kind of a depressing situation, to be honest.

It reminds me when I was young thinking I couldn't get a date because I didn't have six pack abs.

Then when I got in really good shape I thought it was because I didn't make enough money.

When I started making money I thought it was because I wasn't tall enough.

There is no way having social media or not is mattering that much. It is just in your head.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#255

Post by randmeerkat »

fny wrote: post #232
causal wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is social media, but I'd argue that it lacks the worst incentives of social media: monetization and ads, which lead to attention-hacking algorithms and regression to lowest common denominator content.

It still leverages social and internet points which for some is attention-hijacking enough.

> It still leverages social and internet points which for some is attention-hijacking enough.

The difference is it’s not deliberate, it’s just how they get us to rank training data for ChatGPT 5.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#256

Post by sourcepluck »

Clubber wrote: post #208
sourcepluck wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re-reading my own comment, and worried the poster I responded to might take that as a reverse-jibe about their own naivety - I didn't even think of that the first time I wrote it, and now want to explicitly say that wasn't my point. I sincerely thought people would quit social media following the Snowden revelations, and I did myself, and then could not believe that they didn't seem to care at all. It was a painful a…

>might take that as a reverse-jibe I did not, but thanks for being considerate. I took it as this: >I sincerely thought people would quit social media following the Snowden revelations, and I did myself, and then could not believe that they didn't seem to care at all. It was a painful and jarring learning experience. It's been over 11 years now. I would imagine it's not unlike living in a former soviet country in tha…

Indeed. The same people from before who scoffed at the possibility of mass surveillance are the very same who pivoted immediately to a new justification of the status quo - something about national security, or it not being that bad, or it being a bit of a crazy world which we have to face, or whatever.

It's almost as if their reasoned arguments were always nothing more than poorly slapped together ad hoc justifications for whatever happens to be the norm at a given moment.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#257

Post by aktuel »

I don't use any of facebook, instagram, LinkedIn, tiktok, X, bluesky, mastodon, snap, ... and it's not even hard. On the rare occasions I took a look at those I found them boring beyond believe. Even mastodon following people I am actually interested in feels like a 90% waste of time.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#258

Post by morgansmolder »

fragmede wrote: post #198
morgansmolder wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it a scam? They are running a service to connect you to other people looking for a relationship. The service works - I found my last 3 girlfriends through dating apps. I'm not going to message random people's Instagram unsolicited, I would find it annoying to on the receiving end of that. My mother and girlfriend have both complained about receiving unwanted attention from unknown men through social media. Hon…

Presumably your mother and girlfriend don't have their Instagram profiles listed on their dating app profile that say to message them there. Just like there's a very critical difference between a solicited and unsolicited dick pic, if someone is literally asking to be messaged on Instagram, it's different than messaging random people that didn't actually ask to be messaged, especially about crypto scams.

In my post I specifically said "unsolicited". There is of course ethical ways to message people through Instagram, but even in that case it is going to be less efficient then just using the dating app as intended.

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#259

Post by immibis »

Kye wrote: post #146
immibis wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But federation is no longer on the table?

What do you mean? It's federated now.

Source? From everything I've read, BlueSky made a theoretically federated protocol, pulled millions of users onto its single central instance, then refused to enable federation in any meaningful way, so you're either on the central instance or you're effectively on some other platform that is separate from BlueSky and is shit. (Meanwhile on Mastodon, there are so many instances and no clear center - not even mastodon.social, since I block that one and rarely notice any loss)

Re: Quit Social Media (2016)

#260

Post by gspencley »

mrweasel wrote: post #227
gspencley wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, people are returning to how online communication worked before Facebook. Offline, people have always tended to come together around common interests and values. My wife and I, for example, are part time performing magicians and we're a member of a local magic group that meets IRL. Prior to what we have come to call "social media", existed forums. Forums were this wonderful utopian paradise of yesterye…

> people are returning to how online communication worked before Facebook. Except now it's all on Facebook and it's incredibly hard to leave Facebook, because all communications with any type of group happens on Facebook. I have friends who can't leave Facebook, because their kids soccer team holds them hostage. Leave Facebook and we'll kill your child's social life. I can't even join the parents group for my child's…

That's a valid complaint, and I sympathize because I have no love for Facebook.

My only counter-argument, and it's not even a counter-argument really, is that this is a fact of life that exists with or without Facebook.

My personal pet peeve is that I don't want to own a mobile phone at all. Not even a dumb phone and not even a landline. If I find myself in an emergency without the ability to dial 911 that's a risk I'm willing to take on a personal level. I just don't want a phone because I find the idea of a noise making device that can interrupt me at unexpected times to be a crime against humanity. But more and more essential services like banking are assuming that people have smart phones. My bank would deny services to me if I didn't even have a landline, since they require a phone number tied to their account records. My work assumes that people not only have their own smart phone but are willing to install authenticator apps for MFA etc. And my workplace is not alone.

If it's not Facebook that "everyone" is using that leaves minority opinions wishing for an alternative, it's something else.

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