On 10/4/2021 at 3:00 PM, E Rocc said:

 

Well it's my daughter's 11 birthday tomorrow, and she likes the replies.   :)

 

Seriously, as much as some complain about it and as dumb as it sometimes gets, it's where the most people are.

 

 

young people certainly are not on it. i mean, they have an account as a courtesy to family, but they do not actually use fb. most actual users skew to oldens.

 

and the whole thing with fb censorship or lack of it or being down or whatever else is just ridiculous.

50 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

Imagine if UO prioritized and promoted its worst users and posts rather than its best.

What is your definition of worst & best?

3 minutes ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

young people certainly are not on it. i mean, they have an account as a courtesy to family, but they do not actually use fb. most actual users skew to oldens.

 

and the whole thing with fb censorship or lack of it or being down or whatever else is just ridiculous.

 

It's 85 percent disengaged people that are only on there because everyone else is (not clicking a single ad ever) and 15% clicking WalMart ads like mad and misinforming each other all day every day.

8 hours ago, LibertyBlvd said:

What is your definition of worst & best?

 

Manipulative liars are the worst.

Edited October 7, 20213 yr by GCrites80s

3 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

It's 85 percent disengaged people that are only on there because everyone else is (not clicking a single ad ever) and 15% clicking WalMart ads like mad and misinforming each other all day every day.

 

 

😂

i figured.

 

i dont fb, but my spouse has it and i do check it like quarterly to see baby pics and stuff.

 

she hasn't posted in years, but she changed her sig pic last summer as an experiment and a bunch of conservative types almost instantly gave it likes, so that fits your assessment lol.

I have a facebook account mainly so I can look back at old photos. It's much easier to keep my account and be able to find things I want to show people than to download everything, sort it, and make it as easily searchable as it is on Facebook. I pretty much never post or comment on it.

 

 

Lately, these are the kinds of ads I've been getting on Facebook. It's no wonder our politics are becoming more polarizing and vitriolic. This was not the case for me before this year. The post has 75k likes and 9k comments. I can only imagine these are the posts Facebook is pushing onto people who actually follow/like conservative sites. I have no idea why I'm getting these, but it's definitely pushing me toward deleting my account altogether. There are dozens of "suggested posts" that facebook is sending me when I scroll the page. It's really toxic, and not just an outlet for free speech. They are actively pushing this.

I don't really like Facebook, but I have been able to re-establish contact with former neighbors, classmates and co-workers. That is about the only positive thing about it for me.

On 10/5/2021 at 9:02 AM, YABO713 said:

It's wild that almost everyone unanimously agreed - right and left - that Facebook being down was a positive for society...

 

Then immediately went back on once they had access 

 

How do you know?

44 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

I have a facebook account mainly so I can look back at old photos. It's much easier to keep my account and be able to find things I want to show people than to download everything, sort it, and make it as easily searchable as it is on Facebook. I pretty much never post or comment on it.

 

 

Lately, these are the kinds of ads I've been getting on Facebook. It's no wonder our politics are becoming more polarizing and vitriolic. This was not the case for me before this year. The post has 75k likes and 9k comments. I can only imagine these are the posts Facebook is pushing onto people who actually follow/like conservative sites. I have no idea why I'm getting these, but it's definitely pushing me toward deleting my account altogether. There are dozens of "suggested posts" that facebook is sending me when I scroll the page. It's really toxic, and not just an outlet for free speech. They are actively pushing this.

 

This band encapsulated everything I hated about the early 2000s. Then and now.

1 hour ago, mrnyc said:

 

 

young people certainly are not on it. i mean, they have an account as a courtesy to family, but they do not actually use fb. most actual users skew to oldens.

 

and the whole thing with fb censorship or lack of it or being down or whatever else is just ridiculous.

Where are the young people(besides TikTok)?

10 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

 

This band encapsulated everything I hated about the early 2000s. Then and now.

Early 2000's? It's been a while...

5 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

I have a facebook account mainly so I can look back at old photos. It's much easier to keep my account and be able to find things I want to show people than to download everything, sort it, and make it as easily searchable as it is on Facebook. I pretty much never post or comment on it.

 

 

Lately, these are the kinds of ads I've been getting on Facebook. It's no wonder our politics are becoming more polarizing and vitriolic. This was not the case for me before this year. The post has 75k likes and 9k comments. I can only imagine these are the posts Facebook is pushing onto people who actually follow/like conservative sites. I have no idea why I'm getting these, but it's definitely pushing me toward deleting my account altogether. There are dozens of "suggested posts" that facebook is sending me when I scroll the page. It's really toxic, and not just an outlet for free speech. They are actively pushing this.

 

"Watchin' the threads of Old Glory come undone"

 

Omg that sounds like some kind of South Park parody song. 

5 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

I have a facebook account mainly so I can look back at old photos. It's much easier to keep my account and be able to find things I want to show people than to download everything, sort it, and make it as easily searchable as it is on Facebook. I pretty much never post or comment on it.

 

 

Lately, these are the kinds of ads I've been getting on Facebook. It's no wonder our politics are becoming more polarizing and vitriolic. This was not the case for me before this year. The post has 75k likes and 9k comments. I can only imagine these are the posts Facebook is pushing onto people who actually follow/like conservative sites. I have no idea why I'm getting these, but it's definitely pushing me toward deleting my account altogether. There are dozens of "suggested posts" that facebook is sending me when I scroll the page. It's really toxic, and not just an outlet for free speech. They are actively pushing this.

 

I always knew Staind was a ridiculously bad band, so not really surprised by this.

On 10/5/2021 at 9:02 AM, YABO713 said:

It's wild that almost everyone unanimously agreed - right and left - that Facebook being down was a positive for society...

 

Then immediately went back on once they had access 

 

Pretty much.   Because most of the criticisms of Facebook are criticisms of social media in general.    And social media has done more good than harm for all but the most gregarious among us.    

On a major events scale, imagine last year's events without it.   The breaking point would have happened much quicker and the backlash would have been more disorganized and far more dangerous.

The charge against social media is led more benignly by people with "soft skills" but no affinity for technology, more maliciously by those who seek to control (and manipulate) people's access to information, and more simplistically by people who fondly recall the best parts of the "good old days" without remembering the drawbacks.

It is what it is, people have adopted it across the board, and it's not going back into the bottle without some serious social coercion and control.

In other words, the only "cure" is far worse than the disease.

38 minutes ago, E Rocc said:

On a major events scale, imagine last year's events without it.   The breaking point would have happened much quicker and the backlash would have been more disorganized and far more dangerous.

 

I disagree strongly with this assumption. You just cavalierly throw this out as a fact. I think the pandemic would have been much better controlled if social media didn't exist.

 

I agree it's largely too late to put the genie back in the bottle. But I don't think it's a net good.

56 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

 

I disagree strongly with this assumption. You just cavalierly throw this out as a fact. I think the pandemic would have been much better controlled if social media didn't exist.

 

I agree it's largely too late to put the genie back in the bottle. But I don't think it's a net good.

 

I tend to agree. Misinformation was accelerated by social media because everyone was already at home. 

 

There's no way people are taking a horse medication to treat Covid without social media. 

26 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

I tend to agree. Misinformation was accelerated by social media because everyone was already at home. 

 

There's no way people are taking a horse medication to treat Covid without social media. 

 

Really?  You don't think the same people would have heard the same misinformation in a nearly identical vacuum-sealed information bubble of AM radio and other things we barely think of any more because of the social media revolution?  Antivax misinformation has a long history prior to social media.

 

I think there's a salience bias in the notion that "everyone" says that FB being down was a good thing for society.  It's not like my life was seriously upended by being without it for a few hours, but I certainly think it has done much more good than harm overall.  I've maintained friendships from high school, college, and law school that would have been much more difficult to maintain and probably would have withered much more without FB, if we had to actually make time for phone calls (very difficult when we all have kids and two jobs and all the rest of 21st-century white-collar midlife existence) or to write letters.  FB Groups and FB Events have become bedrocks of the social scene of my various parents groups.

^You don't need to have highly promoted misinformation to have those things.

12 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Really?  You don't think the same people would have heard the same misinformation in a nearly identical vacuum-sealed information bubble of AM radio and other things we barely think of any more because of the social media revolution?  Antivax misinformation has a long history prior to social media.

The only difference is, the right wing AM radio frequencies aren't capable of jumping over to FM frequencies and infiltrating your radio "feed."   They also don't exist in everyone's pocket.    Antivaxxers have always existed, but not NEARLY to the extent they do now, where in some southern school districts there are movements to end measles, mumps and rubella vaccination mandates. 

 

I like to say, there used to be a drunk guy at the end of the bar spewing his crazy nonsense to the three people willing to sit near him.  Now that same guy speaks to the world.   This won't end well... 

10 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

The only difference is, the right wing AM radio frequencies aren't capable of jumping over to FM frequencies and infiltrating your radio "feed."

 

"We now interrupt Rush for Rush..."

Edited October 7, 20213 yr by GCrites80s

FB connects everybody to people from all over the world, which is amazing- even when some of those people are nutjob antivaxxers.  That's fine.  The problem is that FB's algorithms elevate, and therefore legitimize, the most fringe and inflammatory ideas.  And since all engagement is good engagement in FB's evaluation, even trying to refute nonsense elevates it.

 

My idea to make FB less toxic is that it should have a thumbs down button.  That reaction button should not be primarily to register disapproval, but to sink garbage content in the FB algorithm.  A lot of online crowdsourced help sites have something similar.

10 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Really?  You don't think the same people would have heard the same misinformation in a nearly identical vacuum-sealed information bubble of AM radio and other things we barely think of any more because of the social media revolution?  Antivax misinformation has a long history prior to social media.

 

I think there's a salience bias in the notion that "everyone" says that FB being down was a good thing for society.  It's not like my life was seriously upended by being without it for a few hours, but I certainly think it has done much more good than harm overall.  I've maintained friendships from high school, college, and law school that would have been much more difficult to maintain and probably would have withered much more without FB, if we had to actually make time for phone calls (very difficult when we all have kids and two jobs and all the rest of 21st-century white-collar midlife existence) or to write letters.  FB Groups and FB Events have become bedrocks of the social scene of my various parents groups.

 

Agreed - but AM radio doesn't follow you on your phone, work computer, and home computer. There's always been anti-vax movements. But there hasn't always been anti-vax movements that show up at schools and school board meetings threatening violence - Anti-vax movements without social media are explosive, no doubt - with social media, anti-vax movements are the Beirut explosion of 2020. 

 

And I also agree with you - Facebook probably only has the negative impact I'm describing on 20-30% of people... But taken in aggregate, that's a LOT of people. 

41 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

Agreed - but AM radio doesn't follow you on your phone, work computer, and home computer. There's always been anti-vax movements. But there hasn't always been anti-vax movements that show up at schools and school board meetings threatening violence - Anti-vax movements without social media are explosive, no doubt - with social media, anti-vax movements are the Beirut explosion of 2020. 

 

And I also agree with you - Facebook probably only has the negative impact I'm describing on 20-30% of people... But taken in aggregate, that's a LOT of people. 

Facebook did to boomers what boomers thought heavy metal would do to Gen X.

46 minutes ago, freefourur said:

Facebook did to boomers what boomers thought heavy metal would do to Gen X.

 

As much as I love this, I have to admit there are plenty of fellow Gen X'ers fully captivated by the propaganda as well.  

1 minute ago, Cleburger said:

 

As much as I love this, I have to admit there are plenty of fellow Gen X'ers fully captivated by the propaganda as well.  

 

Agreed. A lot of people showing up to school board meetings and threatening violence are the current parents of school age kids. Gen X fits that age range as they are currently about 40-55

40 minutes ago, Cleburger said:

 

As much as I love this, I have to admit there are plenty of fellow Gen X'ers fully captivated by the propaganda as well.  

Yes, true. An old friend of mine is completely wrapped up in this stuff.  

8 hours ago, X said:

FB connects everybody to people from all over the world, which is amazing- even when some of those people are nutjob antivaxxers.  That's fine.  The problem is that FB's algorithms elevate, and therefore legitimize, the most fringe and inflammatory ideas.  And since all engagement is good engagement in FB's evaluation, even trying to refute nonsense elevates it.

 

My idea to make FB less toxic is that it should have a thumbs down button.  That reaction button should not be primarily to register disapproval, but to sink garbage content in the FB algorithm.  A lot of online crowdsourced help sites have something similar.

 

Reddit has this, and it's one of the worst features of reddit, almost assuring groupthink on any political subreddit or any subreddit about any potentially controversial topic.   /r/politics is, for all practical purposes, a no-go zone for any content that does not validate the beliefs and agenda of the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic Party, because people of that bent will downvote anything that challenges those beliefs or that agenda en masse and bury it in the algorithm, whether posts or comments.  The notion that people will actually use a downvote button as anything other than registering disapproval is a naive fantasy; look at the history of reactions and reputation on this site, for that matter.  Downvotes are always overwhelmingly used for the sole purpose that you suggest that they should not be used for.

 

The fact that FB reactions do not include a downvote is one of the most positive and inclusive features of the site.

 

Reddit had to take direct, corporate-level action against /r/TheDonald precisely because of the dynamics of the downvote.  The effect of mass downvoting is to rapidly drive away any who challenge the orthodoxy of the ruling gang--"ruling gang" in this case being whichever faction in any subreddit is large enough and trigger-happy enough with downvotes to control content prioritization and cancel anyone defending any opposing viewpoint.  I unsubscribed from /r/politics years ago because of this.  I'd spend 20-30 minutes drafting a principled, multi-paragraph defense of a conservative position and it would be buried in downvotes minutes after posting and generate almost no other engagement.  The posts that get mountains of upvotes are nuanced thoughts like "yeah, f*** Trump and everyone who voted for him!"

14 hours ago, ryanlammi said:

I agree it's largely too late to put the genie back in the bottle. But I don't think it's a net good.

 

I think social media started as a net positive, and I'm not sure there are very many people who think it's *not* a net negative now, or at least in the middle.  The pendulum is definitely swinging towards negative and no company or person seems to have any ideas of how to get social media to exist while remaining a net positive.

I thought this could go here and bring some levity to this discussion. 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

Reddit had to take direct, corporate-level action against /r/TheDonald precisely because of the dynamics of the downvote.  

 

I mean....not really.

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/884819923/reddit-bans-the_donald-forum-of-nearly-800-000-trump-fans-over-abusive-posts

 

Quote

Reddit announced on Monday that it is shutting down a forum dedicated to President Trump's most ardent fans, saying it repeatedly violates the online platform's rules against harassment, hate speech and content manipulation.

 

Full announcement - https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/hi3oht/update_to_our_content_policy/

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/08/us/politics/reddit-bans-forum-dedicated-to-supporting-trump-and-twitter-permanently-suspends-his-allies-who-spread-conspiracy-theories.html

 

Quote

Though the subreddit has flourished for years, Reddit officials removed the page on Friday after many of its members glorified and incited the violence that occurred in the Capitol on Wednesday, despite a number of official warnings from the company.

 

“Reddit’s site-wide policies prohibit content that promotes hate, or encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence against groups of people or individuals,” a Reddit spokeswoman said. “In accordance with this, we have been proactively reaching out to moderators to remind them of our policies and to offer support or resources as needed. We have also taken action to ban the community r/donaldtrump given repeated policy violations in recent days regarding the violence at the U.S. Capitol.”

 

In June, Reddit banned “The Donald” subreddit, another forum dedicated to supporting the president, for repeated violations of harassment and hate speech. The company also banned more than 2,000 subreddits at the time for similar violations.

 

41 minutes ago, DarkandStormy said:

 

I mean....not really.

 

https://www.npr.org/2020/06/29/884819923/reddit-bans-the_donald-forum-of-nearly-800-000-trump-fans-over-abusive-posts

 

 

You're oversimplifying, but maybe I didn't finish the chain of logic.

 

/r/TheDonald existed because of the dynamics of the downvote.  The downvote is the most balkanizing influence on any site that employs it.  It creates a powerful tool of mob censorship, amplifying the ability of crowds to both create and enforce their own information bubbles.

 

Facebook's longtime policy of not creating such a dynamic remains one of the best features of the site and a primary reason why it is my primary online social forum (or maybe tied with UO).  The notion that Facebook nurtures such bubbles more than other social media is, counterintuitively, largely an illusion created by the fact that it doesn't.  That content exists on reddit, too, but because reddit is more balkanized, "normal" people are less likely to see it.

 

I'd really like to see hard evidence that Facebook creates more such people as opposed to just linking them and giving them an audience that would prefer to pretend they don't exist, like they used to when such people were more conveniently ghettoized in one-way communications media like AM radio, Fox News, and non-social Web sites like Drudge Report and the others that dominated the early-2000s media landscape, or in dedicated subreddits.

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

 

You're oversimplifying, but maybe I didn't finish the chain of logic.

 

/r/TheDonald existed because of the dynamics of the downvote.  The downvote is the most balkanizing influence on any site that employs it.  It creates a powerful tool of mob censorship, amplifying the ability of crowds to both create and enforce their own information bubbles.

 

Facebook's longtime policy of not creating such a dynamic remains one of the best features of the site and a primary reason why it is my primary online social forum (or maybe tied with UO).  The notion that Facebook nurtures such bubbles more than other social media is, counterintuitively, largely an illusion created by the fact that it doesn't.  That content exists on reddit, too, but because reddit is more balkanized, "normal" people are less likely to see it.

 

I'd really like to see hard evidence that Facebook creates more such people as opposed to just linking them and giving them an audience that would prefer to pretend they don't exist, like they used to when such people were more conveniently ghettoized in one-way communications media like AM radio, Fox News, and non-social Web sites like Drudge Report and the others that dominated the early-2000s media landscape, or in dedicated subreddits.

 

The main difference is now misinformation can be countered.   When the mainstream media controlled access to real time information, it could not.  

 

Drudge is a good example because he broke a story the mainstream intended to ignore.   He was a precursor to social media’s influence on the news cycle.

 

The real benchmark where it became clear that the mainstream media was quite capable of misinformation that could be countered by an early form of social media happened in 2004.  MSM icons 60 Minutes and Dan Rather were flat busted presenting fabricated fake news, in real time on Free Republic.  

On 10/6/2021 at 9:43 AM, ryanlammi said:

Do you deny the evidence that was brought forward? Or do you just think the timing is suspect? Should we not be concerned if Facebook is steering people into conspiracy theories and ultimately lead to violence?

 

Or should we not be concerned about the impact Facebook is having on countries like Myanmar?

 

I suspect that the "whistleblower" is really more of a stooge, wittingly or not. Facebook wants to censor a lot of the content that is on their network, but they don't want to be responsible for it and lose their mostly conservative base to a competitor. If they can get the government to force them to do what they want to do anyway, they can point the finger back at the feds and avoid taking the blunt of the blame. They can also ensure their competitors have to delete the same sort of content.

 

 

On 10/6/2021 at 10:46 AM, YABO713 said:

Here's where I've veered off of my 1A purist position though: I actually believe that social media has the potential to end democracy and perhaps even organized government if unchecked in the long term.

 

 

I agree with you to an extent here. But isn't this a very big concern? That unfettered free speech might just be the end of democracy? Has the American experiment failed?

 

Quote

The extent to which misinformation is perpetuated is awful for our culture and, moreover, Facebook has proven itself wildly incapable of choosing when censorship is appropriate - this applies to issues from both the right and the left. 

 

Beyond that - the societal woes such as suicidal ideations, body dysmorphia, social anxiety and the negative effects on cognitive development are also going to result in long term issues. 

 

I'd honestly support a version of facebook where all comments/likes are disabled - same goes for Instagram. Since it would likely have to be universally applied - then twitter would lose replies and arguably retweets as well. 

 

The glaring problem here is that inevitably, the folks making the decision of what is/isn't misinformation or a valid societal woe will abuse the power to drive towards their version of society. We're already seeing it happen, but placing the power in the hands of the feds - likely in a bureaucratic body buried so deep so as to not be beholden to the executive, legislature, nor the People - seems like a mistake.

 

One thing we could do is simply make websites responsible for any public facing content they have. If we revoke Section 230, I'd wager a lot of this would sort itself out pretty quickly.

 

4 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

Reddit has this, and it's one of the worst features of reddit, almost assuring groupthink on any political subreddit or any subreddit about any potentially controversial topic.   /r/politics is, for all practical purposes, a no-go zone for any content that does not validate the beliefs and agenda of the Sanders-Warren wing of the Democratic Party, because people of that bent will downvote anything that challenges those beliefs or that agenda en masse and bury it in the algorithm, whether posts or comments.  The notion that people will actually use a downvote button as anything other than registering disapproval is a naive fantasy; look at the history of reactions and reputation on this site, for that matter.  Downvotes are always overwhelmingly used for the sole purpose that you suggest that they should not be used for.

 

The fact that FB reactions do not include a downvote is one of the most positive and inclusive features of the site.

 

Reddit had to take direct, corporate-level action against /r/TheDonald precisely because of the dynamics of the downvote.  The effect of mass downvoting is to rapidly drive away any who challenge the orthodoxy of the ruling gang--"ruling gang" in this case being whichever faction in any subreddit is large enough and trigger-happy enough with downvotes to control content prioritization and cancel anyone defending any opposing viewpoint.  I unsubscribed from /r/politics years ago because of this.  I'd spend 20-30 minutes drafting a principled, multi-paragraph defense of a conservative position and it would be buried in downvotes minutes after posting and generate almost no other engagement.  The posts that get mountains of upvotes are nuanced thoughts like "yeah, f*** Trump and everyone who voted for him!"

 

I think that's a fair point, but I think it's more likely than my other idea- open sourcing the algorithm, so the public can see, debate, and give input to FB on the functioning of that algorithm.

6 hours ago, Ram23 said:

 

I suspect that the "whistleblower" is really more of a stooge, wittingly or not. Facebook wants to censor a lot of the content that is on their network, but they don't want to be responsible for it and lose their mostly conservative base to a competitor. If they can get the government to force them to do what they want to do anyway, they can point the finger back at the feds and avoid taking the blunt of the blame. They can also ensure their competitors have to delete the same sort of content.

 

 

 

I agree with you to an extent here. But isn't this a very big concern? That unfettered free speech might just be the end of democracy? Has the American experiment failed?

 

 

The glaring problem here is that inevitably, the folks making the decision of what is/isn't misinformation or a valid societal woe will abuse the power to drive towards their version of society. We're already seeing it happen, but placing the power in the hands of the feds - likely in a bureaucratic body buried so deep so as to not be beholden to the executive, legislature, nor the People - seems like a mistake.

 

One thing we could do is simply make websites responsible for any public facing content they have. If we revoke Section 230, I'd wager a lot of this would sort itself out pretty quickly.

 

 

Any kind of government control over what is and is not "acceptable" speech is not only grossly unconstitutional, but is more dangerous than any form of social media at its worst.

And I am referring to it being done effectively, not the likely backlash to a serious attempt.  Which would start peacefully (sort of) at the hands of certain tech types, but might not stay that way.

7 hours ago, Gramarye said:

 

 

Facebook's longtime policy of not creating such a dynamic remains one of the best features of the site and a primary reason why it is my primary online social forum (or maybe tied with UO).  The notion that Facebook nurtures such bubbles more than other social media is, counterintuitively, largely an illusion created by the fact that it doesn't.  That content exists on reddit, too, but because reddit is more balkanized, "normal" people are less likely to see it.

 

 

Same, though I dabble on Twitter and a little bit on MeWe.   Facebook is where people are and are more easily identifiable, allowing connections to be remade as well as made.   MeWe, for example, makes it hard to identify people by name unless they tell you where to look.

One damaging thing on Facebook that may be intentionally self inflicted is recently changing the rules to  allow anyone and everyone to post in public groups with the authorization of the admins.   Including spammers and scammers.   This has driven a lot of groups private.

19 hours ago, Ram23 said:

 

I agree with you to an extent here. But isn't this a very big concern? That unfettered free speech might just be the end of democracy? Has the American experiment failed?

 

 

I don't think so. I know this isn't politically correct of me to say, and it will come off as elitist, but unrestricted access to misinformation to people that aren't educated enough to process it critically is a problem. 

 

The only comparison I can really even make to it is the union strikes of the late 1800s, which often saw people peddling misinformation about corporations to bait union members to be the first to initiate violence, thus providing a rationale for quashing strikes/riots with brutal force. The schism this caused saw about 70-80% of union members towards the end of the 19th century endorsing Marxism, and state authoritarianism. If Facebook was around for the Pittsburgh strikes, we might not have a free market democracy today. 

39 minutes ago, YABO713 said:

 

I don't think so. I know this isn't politically correct of me to say, and it will come off as elitist, but unrestricted access to misinformation to people that aren't educated enough to process it critically is a problem. 

 

The only comparison I can really even make to it is the union strikes of the late 1800s, which often saw people peddling misinformation about corporations to bait union members to be the first to initiate violence, thus providing a rationale for quashing strikes/riots with brutal force. The schism this caused saw about 70-80% of union members towards the end of the 19th century endorsing Marxism, and state authoritarianism. If Facebook was around for the Pittsburgh strikes, we might not have a free market democracy today. 

I dont necessarily see it that way and would disagree with you there. Facebook (and other social media) certainly amplifies the misinformation, but it also amplifies and helps spread the truth much quicker too. 

 

I do get what you say about many who are not critical thinkers being succeptible to misinformation and often letting their feelings control them. I think that is a problem that has always existed and will continue to exist though, it is more of an element of human nature. 

 

Throughout history, whether it be during the times of McCarthyism, the Red Scare, the immigration scares of the late 1800s early 1900s, the rise of Marxist unions as you cited above, there will always be agitators and manipulators stirring up populist sentiment. There will even be times where populists gain some semblance of power in order to exact an agenda that may not be in the best interests of everyone. I do not believe the problem is controlling misinformation and limiting the access to free speech and free thought, but rather the solution is to let the free marketplace of information flow and it will eventually cleanse itself from the poison that is currently infecting the body. IN addition, we also need to have strong mechanisms that protect the system from radical change to prevent populist uprisers and usurpers from whittling down the control mechanisms to create that rapid populist changes. 

I think the mechanisms like the Bi-Camereal legislature with House and Senate, Electoral College, the Filibuster, the difficult process to amend the constitution, 3 separate branches or govt. etc. are designed to provide brakes to runaway populist sentiment. It certainly limited Trump's worst impulses in power and it has certainly frustrated some of the worst of Bernie Sanders others on the far lefts agenda as well. These are all good things.

 

I believe mob uprisings are ineveitble in time, but as long as there are mechanisms in place to allow things to cool down before doing major radical changes, we will be fine.  In my opinion. 

The Facebook corporation plans to change its name next week, allegedly "to reflect its focus on building the metaverse." In reality, I think it's more like Phillip Morris changing its corporate name to Altria.

It's going to be one of three things:

 

Either a fun, playful name like Google's parent company "Alphabet"; an accurate, dystopian name like "Omnipotech"; or something that pays homage to Zuckerberg's weird obsession with Julius Caesar. Either way, people will still colloquially refer to the parent company as Facebook.

Google's renaming to Alphabet was very weird and half-hearted. They didn't even bother to change their stock ticker symbols, which remain GOOG and GOOGL.

I thinking this thread could be merged with the Threat to US Democracy Thread.  

 

Just kidding.... but not really 

Freedombook

Fakebook

They might just go with "Meta" which would be super lame, IMO. But Zuckerberg has always seemed to me like a pretty lame dude with no taste, so I wouldn't be shocked if it's a watered down, cringey name like that.

Fraudbook.

They should go back to their roots....The Facebook

 

17 hours ago, KJP said:

 

 

I think this sort of behavior is nonsensical and immature - people use cell phones and texting to do bad stuff all the time, do Verizon employees work themselves into a tizzy over it? Do Ford employees fume when someone uses a Ford as a getaway car?

Verizon doesn't have any influence on who I call or who calls me over their network. Ford doesn't have any influence on what roads I take or what I haul using my vehicle. Facebook, however, exerts massive control over what content people see on their platform, what gets boosted/amplified and what gets buried.