The New York Times has just published an interesting OpEd by Chris Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, titled "It's Time to Break Up Facebook". The article discusses the current state Facebook has taken and it's influence on our everyday life. Chris laments what has become of Facebook and its CEO, Zuckerberg.
Would you stop using Facebook? Why? Why not?
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hugh…
Me too, on any platform, as soon as i start seeing more ads than things im actually interested in, im out.
I don't use Facebook, (I would like to think so!) but when there was (and still is) a lack of a public platform that connects people and businesses, the private companies filled the gap and got so big that they now overrule the laws of the land on a giant humongous platform that is larger and more powerful than several countries combined.
Then guess what, they have their own rules because they are private and can kill your virtual personality as they please. You can not talk with friends and family, can't communicate with other companies and can't do business. You are virtually and in reality doomed. Finished. Dead.
While I like a smaller government and I support private ownership and businesses and discourage governments interference with everything, I am not blind.
Private means private. A private company should be just a private business, not a privately owned government which overrules the public, the government, your life, the nation and the world. That is a group of unelected elitists of higher class, deciding for ordinary people and the whole world and that's the future that is happening now and that's scary.
You don't need to "use" Facebook (or any other marketing, data harvesting, tracking worm) for them to track, gather data on, target their drivel advertising at, and sell your personal data.
Being a "user" makes it even easier, but it's certainly not necessary.
If you want to use the internet then you have no option but participate.
/this ignores using somewhat covert means to avoid being tracked, etc - ordinary people can't do this, and is not practical.
Would you stop using Facebook
Never started using it.
I've never had a social media account apart from a phony one to take up deals, but I'm in a tiny minority of my demographic.
Facebook's greatest con was to convince its users to trade their privacy for a tiny piece of internet celebrity. In return, they received all the downsides of celebrity with few of the upsides.
And now they have a monopoly on communication over the young western demographic.
I urge everyone to encourage your friends away from Messenger and over to Telegram or even WhatsApp.
@iseenya: Yes, it features end-to-end encryption which implies privacy in transit, a much better interface, and much better content sharing and communication features than Messenger.
Telegram is preferred, for not being owned by an advertising company and having more features such as cloud hosting and a standalone desktop app, but WhatsApp already has a large userbase so it's worth supporting as a practical alternative.
@Scrooge McDuck: Hmm I thought whatsapp was secure too but recently a topic I've only had online and real life conversations about came into an ad for me. Its a bit of a bombshell topic that isn't common (for me anyway) and I saw the ad days after the whatsapp conversation.
I'm not surprised anymore when this happens to convos/even pictures on facebook messenger, but it shocked me that it happened to whatsapp.
@Bargainbeth: I hear you but there are other valid explanations:
@Scrooge McDuck: Hmm haha nope I wouldn't have searched this topic- first time I've ever dealt with it after getting a phone call about it a few days earlier. I doubt my close friends wouldve searched this. Admittedly, I've worked in a field regarding this topic for 3 years (3 years ago) and had convos about that field, and haven't noticed ads ever come up back then.
It's possible its too coincidence too, though a very random one. Or that it's come up every now and then and I've only noticed it stick out like a sore thumb now (confirmation bias).
I know Fb spies, for example, because my friend sent me a picture of a unique piece of jewelry specifically designed for her. I never see wedding ads despite my friends getting them, and the ad companies would be right that I have no interest in it :P. Few days later, I see an ad for that exact specific ring in a different brand.
@Bargainbeth: Did you have Facebook Messenger installed on a phone/device and talk/speak about stuff?
The app still listens to your real life convo even if you haven't opened it… the only ways are to stop it from listening is to either revoke the microphone permission or delete it altogether!
@nignucial: Yes actually. Shoot, forgot about that. Just went and disabled microphone and other permissions for both facebook and instagram. Now all they have permission to is storage. Hmm. Stil suspicious. Annoyingly I use microphone when I'm too tired to type.
@nignucial: Yes I can confirm I tested this after watching a YouTube video which confirmed it (which was initially watched with disbelief).
We were in a similar position to the person who made the YouTube video, we own only dogs. As an intentional trigger, with the device with Facebook installed nearby, we spoke about getting a cat, mentioning the word ‘cat’ numerous times during our conversation.
Sure enough the day after when using the desktop computer (separate from the device with Facebook installed) the very first ads we got were cat food, cat toys, and even kitten toys.
@thebadmachine: Hahaha wow, that's creepy. That's what I did with my sister, as a Philadelphia cream cheese ad came on the day I was foodgasming about how good my philly toast was.
To test that it was the phone and not my paranoia, we both talked about "butter" and how we'd love to buy it and didn't know where to get it from, and kept talking about butter and it's uses etc for about five minutes. I did get an instagram ad for cake the next day, but not butter lol. Maybe butter doesn't sell on the web or my phone seemed the sarcasm haha.
@Bargainbeth: My guess is kittens are a more impulsive and influenceable purchase, compared to butter which is more a regular ordinary household item.
@thebadmachine: Haha, but we'd never seen ads for butter before. We don't really cook. So it was a valid test, for us at least.
@Scrooge McDuck: Telegram isn't very secure either.
Telegram's security model has received notable criticism by cryptography experts. They criticized the general security model of permanently storing all contacts, messages and media together with their decryption keys on its servers by default and by not enabling end-to-end encryption for messages by default.[26][27] Pavel Durov has argued that this is because it helps to avoid third-party unsecure backups, and to allow users to access messages and files from any device.[28] Cryptography experts have furthermore criticized Telegram's use of a custom-designed encryption protocol that has not been proven reliable and secure.[26][29][30][31]
Telegram isn't very secure either.
Compared to what?
I'm comparing it to Messenger which it is undoubtedly better than.
@munecito: That's the either.
If you say A is bad and B isn't good either, there needs to be a thing or things C that you're comparing A and B to.
But it seems you simply don't know what you're talking about.
What if I told you that ozbargain is social media?
You really do have a Tight Bottom.
Yep way too powerful and Zuckbot doesn't have decent control over it or clue how to reign it in. Huge threat to democracy world wide, break it up only way forward.
Stopped a few years ago, Lamebook is mentally hazardous. Glad be be rid of that toxic garbage, social media in general.
Would you stop using Facebook? Why? Why not?
Used to use it a lot back when I was at uni, reasons why I keep with it is the messenger feature to be honest, everyone seems to prefer it as its less invasive then asking someone their number and its how all my friends message me.
I never use the main page anymore though (where posts are at) largely because of facebook themselves, before I used to get friends posts in order they made them, and I got to see what all my friends where up to. Now facebook doesn't show heaps of them, instead forcing me to only see specific ones they want me to see. On top of that if I scroll too far to see more I'm shown 'news sites and articles' most of which are advertisements layered into them. Recently I joined a 'facebook group' and now my front page is littered full of their memes, most of which are average at best. Its funny how the biggest turn off from Facebook has been Facebook implementation.
Truth be told, I'm happy to use it as just a messenger page now.
I'm in much the same boat. It seems to be the most widely used messaging system in my circles, and it's also useful for hobby buy/sell groups.
Yeah getting sick of it full of people posting photos of their babies and whatever on their mind without thinking, every single hour. People tagging others without permissions, etc. Just stupid.
That’s all fixable.
Scroll past what causes you misery. Don’t be friends with people you don’t like or whose life you aren’t interested in. And there is a setting so that you have to approve tags before they can appear on Facebook.
I think replacing Zuckerberg would be enough for now.
"Control over nearly 78.9% of the Class B shares gives Zuckerberg 53.3% voting rights in the company."
He would have been fired by now for performance, otherwise.
So you want Facebook to perform better ?
I think the CEO in charge during the privacy scandals should have fallen on his sword long ago.
Why? Breaching privacy is Facebook's business model.
Yep, because random OzBargainers know how to do better than one of the most successful companies in the world!
I stopped using Facebook and Instagram a couple of years ago (I deactivated Facebook so I could still use Messenger) - I think it was one of the best decisions of my life!
Shhh Facebook is watching
I only use messenger and marketplace. Not really interested in the rest. I don't really care what Facebook does.
marketplace is full of good deals, sometimes its better than ozbargain ;)
I can't see market place under me account :-/
It has just become a rogue political platform that only want to allow one side to have their say.
That you Hillary?
Never had a Facebook account but did sign for Messenger, without an account, earlier in the year.
Clearly Ive never seen value in what Facebook offers its users.
But I don't think it should be forced to demerger either. As long as consumers have the choice to use the service, or not, then enterprises like Facebook should be able to do whatever they want.
I have two facebooks, one for friends and actually talking and one with no one on it just to manage my pages, I rarely check the first because social media IMO has become a cancer to sociality. Every one wants to be liked and with social media taking that globally it messes with peoples heads. Eg, my uncle (who I no longer talk to) and I both do photography and are (were) both trying to make it a job, and when ever he posted to social media (insta) and got more "likes" than my post, he would in turn use it as self-esteem building, but when he didn't it took its toll on him. Am I saying social media as a whole needs to be regulated a bit more, maybe. But does Facebook need to broken up, yes, they have too much power to squash any potential competitor, I would also say the same for the Disney Corp.
If they break up Facebook then how I will know what my friends had for dessert last night?
Will I have to call them up and ask them?
or even worse yet…actually leave the house and have a dessert somewhere with them.
i only like some of my friends because i very rarely have see them.
may facebook never die
I never knew why ppl shared their dinner/desserts on Facebook, especially if it was common food court stuff, but with some shocking things that ppl post, sometimes I wish they stuck to photos of their desserts :)
Facebook is a meme catalog
facebook is the last connection to my high school classmates.
if facebook is gone, so does the connection.
i mean i would like to have a class reunion sometime 20 years later.
Perhaps you're holding onto something that doesn't exist. Not being mean, I'm just saying that if it's "the last connection", perhaps there really isn't a connection there at all.
I think Facebook preys a lot on that sentimental value that people hold - the fear of letting go of the past.
Too deep, sherlock! I guess you either hate your high school life or you don't have memories of it.
Contact your school. Most of them have an old scholars group, so you can join that now, or recontact them closer to the 20 year anniversary.
I'm concerned about people sharing undeniably fake stories, without even fact checking. Eg. Sharing faces of innocent people accusing them of violence, or memes of ppl stating "Ppl dont think I'm beautiful. Prove them wrong. 1 share=1 amen" etc!
Cmon Facebook lovers! Defend yourself here! So far only the opposing side commented.
I love Facebook.
Great way to find out which of your friends are stupid/vain/needy/narcissists/racist/sexist/enablers/virtue-signallers/spell "lose" as "loose"/right wing nazis/leaner lefties/religious zealots etc
but we as human does not have right to judge other!
Facebook lovers can't venture off Facebook.
I only use it for events, otherwise I'd never know when it was my wife's birthday.
Love facebook…its a great medium for keeping up with my kids and Mum. I spend at least 15 minutes aday on it, normally if i arrive at site early and they not ready to load/unload me i will flick through.
its a great medium for keeping up with my kids
Did you mean stalk your kids?
its a great medium for keeping up with my kids and Mum.
Kids mum or yours?
Tbh both…lol
I only use it for events with friends and for messenger. That’s all it’s good for.
Some ex politicians probably wish they broke up Facebook before the election campaign.
I browse it often but never post. I mostly use it for event invites.
Faecebook broken up? Meanwhile google is whistling and trying to look inconspicuous.
I use it for community pages only - car meets, local community groups etc. Like a notice board. My wife uses it for looking at pictures of dogs…
Facebook has no competitor, Google+ is dead. And i believe that new young generation always tries to explore, they have time to invest. I closed mine 6 years ago, I'm happy as i no longer spend time looking at others life instead look after myself.
only really used it (like everyone else pretty much) in my younger days to show off: look at me at this nightclub, look at me at this sporting event, look at me at this airport etc
stopped using it years ago. i only signed up with a basic account a few months ago for facebook market place, i like it better than gumtree and ebay now.
also, the picture of their 10 year projection ending with "drones, satellites and lasers" is pretty scary.
You know you can't rip pages out of a book. But it will go the way of MySpace and all that came before it.
If you don't like it, don't use it. Nobody is forcing you. I haven't used it for over a decade.
But there's also no need to go meddling with these businesses (I've also seen the idea of breaking up Amazon floating around).
Existing anti-trust laws need to be actually enforced for once in our lives. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Amazon, all 4 need to be told that we don't tolerate monopolists exploiting the people and pushing a far leftist political agenda and silencing the right's right of free speech. Dismantle them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyc93qg0yUw
I dont post any more.
Just reply to other peoples posts.
Like a number of others here, I deleted my account about 2 years ago.
I found it amazing how I was almost instantly happier. I also had much more free time, since I was no longer mindlessly/habitually opening the app, only to be bombarded with ads (and rarely anything from my friends).
2 years on I don't miss it whatsoever, and I'm sure my overall happiness has improved remarkably from not being constantly bombarded by the toxicity of faceless humans on the internet.
I would delete my FB account but I keep using it because it is a good Bday reminder of my friends.. :)
I deactivated my main account and converted it to a Messenger only account about 3 months ago, haven't looked back!
I must say that I have been much happier without it, it's just a waste of our limited time.
The only reason I ever got it was to keep in touch with friends, so Messenger only is the best way for me.
You can't divide it. It's a for-profit company, not a social enterprise
Stopped using it years ago when it was no longer University-focused and opened to all. As with most internet forums it devolved into a cesspit of garbage, time wasting, just people showing off how great their lives are (when reality different) and having your data tracked, leaked and sold. No point to it.
As much as I despise it and choose not to use it, no, I don't think external factors should control a private business or dictate how it should operate (beyond confines of law). If you don't like it, don't use it. It's not hard.