I think Facebook would be A LOT better off if they gave people the option to turn off all political content. 

ISPs are infrastructure. Facebook is content. ISPs, as the infrastructure of the web, should remain neutral and not block access to content. Facebook tries to play the "we're just a platform" card but they're in the content business. They already make all sorts of judgements about what content you see. That's how the news feeds works. They determine what content is relevant to show you, how often to show you content created by different people, what order to arrange that content in your feed, etc. Really, their business model isn't too different from most news websites: give out content for free and display ads next to it to make money. Just because most of Facebook's content is contributed by users instead of by a paid editorial staff doesn't really change the equation all that much.

 

The suggestion that 'if you don't like current social media networks you could start your own' is tantamount to the suggestion that 'if you don't like your ISP you could start your own.'

 

I'm not suggesting that the people blocked by Facebook should start their own brand new social network. I'm suggesting they start their own website on Squarespace or Wix, which they can do even if they have virtually no knowledge of how websites work. Because ISPs are (for now) still neutral, anyone with an internet connection will be able to access that website.

 

With that being said, there are plenty of alternative social networks and forum sites started by people in fringe groups who felt oppressed by the censorship of more mainstream sites. It's also not that hard to install software like SMF (which the UrbanOhio forum uses) on your own server and start a forum that you can moderate however you want. You can also start your own Mastodon server and have your own Twitter clone up and running in probably an hour. So starting your own social network is several orders of magnitude easier than starting your own ISP.

Scale and accessibility don't change whether a private company has to publish your work. Small-town free advertising papers or Gannett have an equal right to refuse publishing your work.

 

The reason Zuck continues to allow the hillbilly stuff is that those people randomly click ads way more than hipsters, intellectuals etc. do. A lot of them don't know how to distinguish ads from content.

is there really any american under 50 that uses facebook? i mean like on a regular basis, not just to send a pic once in awhile to let granny and auntie know they are alive? it seems like all the action is on other social media platforms.

^ I use Twitter mainly.  Facebook is just to post some family pics occasionally and communicate with non local family. I like to post on Twitter because it gives me an audience of people outside of my real life friends, family, and acquaintances.

^ exactly!

You get creeped out if some rando (non-Uncle) friends you on FB but not if they follow you on something else.

Deactivate your account guys. It feels so good to avoid that toxic mess

Deactivate your account guys. It feels so good to avoid that toxic mess

 

I'd like to do that but Facebook is a main form of communication for some of my family members.  I have unfollowed and unfriended people that just post dumb political stuff.  My news feed is very pleasant whenever I look at it.

Deactivate your account guys. It feels so good to avoid that toxic mess

 

Can't, girls get cranky if you're not on there.

 

I'm still single

is there really any american under 50 that uses facebook? i mean like on a regular basis, not just to send a pic once in awhile to let granny and auntie know they are alive? it seems like all the action is on other social media platforms.

 

I'm 42 and use it semi-regularly.  I have friends who do so as well.  Not sure why people act like it's the next worst thing from cancer and that no one uses it.

Any girl who is upset you aren't online isn't worth your time or paranoid. Just have a killer LinkedIn profile.

I have turned off posts from the 25~ most irritating "friends" on Facebook.  Most people don't post anything, ever, it seems.  Until you think to look at their profile and they've been posting all along but the algorithm doesn't let you know. 

 

Recently I was the victim of a female flip-out, where some unknown girl told me I was "mansplaining".  I just didn't respond.  I don't have problems like that very often, though. 

Any girl who is upset you aren't online isn't worth your time or paranoid. Just have a killer LinkedIn profile.

 

 

"One must think, not, ‘There’s nothing good here’, but rather ‘The genuinely good things will – inevitably – come mixed up with really terrible things’"

 

-Unknown

is there really any american under 50 that uses facebook? i mean like on a regular basis, not just to send a pic once in awhile to let granny and auntie know they are alive? it seems like all the action is on other social media platforms.

 

I'm quite content to use just FB. It gets more action than Urbanohio.

The cable news financial "experts" are chatting up Facebook's historic 1-day 20% loss:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/how-facebooks-dollar151-billion-rout-could-rewrite-history/ar-BBL45Hx?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=LENDHP

 

It's merely back to where it was 3-4 months ago.  It's not as if it sunk back to its $60 IPO price. 

^There's plenty more Wal-Mart ads for them to sell for quite a while.

Watching those cable financial shows makes you way dumber.  I occasionally see someone who sits at their desk with those shows streaming on their work computer. 

Any girl who is upset you aren't online isn't worth your time or paranoid. Just have a killer LinkedIn profile.

 

LinkedIn is the ugliest platform I've ever seen lol. It's the online equivalent of fluorescent lights and a drop ceiling.

Shareholders plotting to oust Mark Zuckerberg:

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/facebook-shareholders-have-drawn-up-a-new-proposal-to-fire-mark-zuckerberg-as-chairman/ar-BBL4wRj?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=LENDHP

That would be pretty funny if Zuckerberg is "Zuckerberged".

Any girl who is upset you aren't online isn't worth your time or paranoid. Just have a killer LinkedIn profile.

 

LinkedIn is the ugliest platform I've ever seen lol. It's the online equivalent of fluorescent lights and a drop ceiling.

 

Hey, if you want to have fun, do it someplace other than work.

 

Speaking of LinkedIn, I know I am going to have to get a profile eventually since I want to go back to corporate office work. Currently I own a business that doesn't really need to reach out to anyone through the site. But if I sign up, holy crap will people want to talk to me to sell me anything from health insurance to web design to credit card processing to wholesale sports team blankets. I'd want to minimize that sort of activity while I make the transition.

LinkedIn has always been a source of spam but once you indicate that you may be looking for a new job, it ramps up 10x. I recently updated my LinkedIn profile to reflect the fact that I left my previous employer, but have not yet added any information about my new job. I now get probably 1-2 messages from recruiters per day. Extra aggressive recruiters pay for some sort of premium access where they get my email and phone number, so I get tons of emails and voicemails from them now too.

Many recruiters never even spend time looking at your job skills.  I get recruiters sending me information on jobs that I have no skills for.

 

I also had an annoying life insurance salesperson wanting to meet me for "lunch." I told him I already have life insurance and had no need.  He kept pestering me until I finally just blocked his messages.

I have a friend that has always been way better at getting a job than keeping one. Eventually an employer noticed this about him and made him an internal recruiter and everyone was happy after that.

That would be pretty funny if Zuckerberg is "Zuckerberged".

 

thats ok, he would have more time to plot how he can trick the winklevoss twins out of their bitcoins and crypto-currency business plans.

Why in the hell is Facebook allowing 9/11 conspiracy videos to circulate? 

Why in the hell is Facebook allowing 9/11 conspiracy videos to circulate?

 

Because if they block them then Ted Cruz gets his feelings hurt and cries about it.

I saw a fair amount of anti-semetic propaganda today from "people" commenting on simple #neverforget posts on Facebook and Twitter. I guess certain fake news is allowed to live on. Or is this propaganda now "free speech"?

I saw a fair amount of anti-semetic propaganda today from "people" commenting on simple #neverforget posts on Facebook and Twitter. I guess certain fake news is allowed to live on. Or is this propaganda now "free speech"?

 

Zuckerburg is okay with it.  He even testified that Holocaust Denial is totally fine on Facebook.  My theory is that people dumb enough to believe racist nonsense are the ones dumb enough to click on all of the advertising links.

^Exactly, they can't tell the difference between ads and content. It's like how millions of people didn't know that AOL content wasn't the WWW but rather a BBS.

I think the fundamental paradox of Facebook is that it started with college students but is completely dependent upon uneducated daytime TV people to click on the dumb ads.  Few intelligent people, other than those laid up in the hospital, sit around watching daytime TV. 

 

That said, there is plenty of dumb content to be had without allowing conspiracy theories to flourish.  No network or cable TV station would air something as preposterous as the "we're going to prove 9-11 was an inside job in 5 minutes" video I just watched. 

 

Like, everything in that video was easily disprovable, but the thing marched along so quickly that emotion builds up in the naïve viewer and within a minute he's convinced and by the second minute he can't wait to share on Facebook. 

 

 

 

 

 

Those are the type of wacky conspiracy theories that used to be shared in FWD:FWD:FWD:FWD: email chains, but now people are investing time and money making these highly-produced "explainer" videos to spread them.

I find repeatedly, in my experience with people who didn't go to college but who managed to move up in companies, that they are more easily fooled by this sort of thing.  But it begs the question was there something about college that "teaches" people to know the difference between a reputable news source and a harmless hoax or sophisticated propaganda, or do those people actually self-select before enrolling in higher education. 

 

Is the ability to differentiate real investigative journalism from propaganda a soft skill? 

I find repeatedly, in my experience with people who didn't go to college but who managed to move up in companies, that they are more easily fooled by this sort of thing.  But it begs the question was there something about college that "teaches" people to know the difference between a reputable news source and a harmless hoax or sophisticated propaganda, or do those people actually self-select before enrolling in higher education. 

 

Is the ability to differentiate real investigative journalism from propaganda a soft skill?

 

I honestly think having a college degree makes a difference.  Being in college teaches you how to research and interpret data.  I can't remember a lot of specifics about statistics but I can usually tell when an analysis is BS. 

Professors will call you out on your BS!

Just tweeted this (irony, I know), seems obvious to me:

 

The reality is if @Facebook wants to turn things around, they should not only accept that they have become the platform of choice for the 35 to three digits audience, but embrace it. Stop changing format for the sake of change and for God's sake stop censoring un-PC content.

I finally deleted my Facebook account a week or two ago. Despite the fact that I've had an account since college (before it was open to everybody) I never found it to be a compelling platform for communication. I understand that there are a lot of people who "can't" delete Facebook because it is their only way to communicate with certain distant family members or whatever. But I just don't want anything to do with that platform anymore.

41 minutes ago, taestell said:

I finally deleted my Facebook account a week or two ago. Despite the fact that I've had an account since college (before it was open to everybody) I never found it to be a compelling platform for communication. I understand that there are a lot of people who "can't" delete Facebook because it is their only way to communicate with certain distant family members or whatever. But I just don't want anything to do with that platform anymore.

Ah. I guess that's why I haven't seen you in my Top 8 with Tom!

1 hour ago, E Rocc said:

Just tweeted this (irony, I know), seems obvious to me:

 

The reality is if @Facebook wants to turn things around, they should not only accept that they have become the platform of choice for the 35 to three digits audience, but embrace it. Stop changing format for the sake of change and for God's sake stop censoring un-PC content.

 

They have a lot more money than the under 35 set and spend it too!

I bet that Tom from Myspace is a halfway cool dude, whereas we can all tell that Zuckerberg is a pretty dull piece of work.  I'd like to see all of these Boomers in the classic Myspace screen.  The whole setup was oriented much more around fun. 

 

Looking back to how Myspace was structured around music and personalized graphics...Facebook is the opposite.  It's much more text-based and TV-commercial-oriented now. 

I posted this in another thread already, but I just found out a couple days ago that this still is up:

 

https://myspace.com/urbanohiosite

 

So let's all get back on myspace and work together to make UO the best darned page there!

^We look 12

7 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

I bet that Tom from Myspace is a halfway cool dude, whereas we can all tell that Zuckerberg is a pretty dull piece of work.  I'd like to see all of these Boomers in the classic Myspace screen.  The whole setup was oriented much more around fun. 

 

Looking back to how Myspace was structured around music and personalized graphics...Facebook is the opposite.  It's much more text-based and TV-commercial-oriented now. 

 

The big difference was the real names.  No more guesswork and trying to determine from a profile and pseudonym if that was really so and so.

 

Now the main thing about FB for people in their 30s through 50s (at least) is it's where "everyone" is.  And we know how to delete or block.

 

We're mostly libertarian conservatives or labor Democrats though.  We don't accept late-millenial definitions of "offensive" and attempting to apply them is a strategic error. 

 

On 12/28/2018 at 4:17 PM, taestell said:

I finally deleted my Facebook account a week or two ago. Despite the fact that I've had an account since college (before it was open to everybody) I never found it to be a compelling platform for communication. I understand that there are a lot of people who "can't" delete Facebook because it is their only way to communicate with certain distant family members or whatever. But I just don't want anything to do with that platform anymore.

I would of deleted long ago but I don't want to lose contact with old friends and people from the past that I lost contact with due to geographic distance but still consider doing it. Not sure why FB bothers me so much but after reading posts in here I see I'm not alone. I did get a good meetup with an old friend I haven't seen in 20 years and another possible group meetup in proposal which I'm thankful for.

Edited February 10, 20196 yr by Mildtraumatic

Mama June selling all of her stuff for crack money on Facebook Marketplace:

https://www.tmz.com/2019/08/15/mama-june-facebook-marketplace-for-sale-house-mess-geno-doak/

 

Note the beginnings of this thread, which started when Facebook started. Does this sound like Zuckerberg's current version of his company's history? 

 

I've noticed that now people are much less willing to share their relationship status with Facebook. I imagine that was one of their key data points for both marketing and data collection reasons and now they aren't able to obtain it.