Once again, Leo returns to Facebook. How many times has he talked about how evil Facebook is, how people should quit, and how he was leading the way by quitting? These cycles of quitting and returning go back years.
It seems that he found out the power that Facebook has over people. The only way to keep up for friends and family happenings. The power comes from the vast membership No alternatives exist.
Twitter is the same. Leo can rail about how bad it is, yet he continues to use it. Again no alternatives that have and traction in the way on member numbers.
Time to stop bashing both unless one is ready to walk the talk.
True. But it looks like there is no alternative. I’ve never used Facebook and as a result have missed out on a lot of friends and family news and functions. I also have never used Twitter. I don’t think that I’ve missed much there.
Seeing Leo go back again is like seeing a revolution leader eliminated or a clean addiction user fall off the wagon.
If Facebook was your only connection to that person, are they truly a friend?
I think you’re being a bit dramatic about Leo using this or that platform. He’s just a guy (sorry Leo) with a microphone. His choices shouldn’t affect yours. Educate yourself and make your own decision about what platforms you want to use and how you wish to use them.
FWIW, he’s said a few times on air that he’s using it mostly to track disinformation amongst the mainstream during the US election cycle. Gotta get a little wet to study fish.
I’m not the biggest fan of Facebook or its policies but the one thing it does well for me is is connect me with multiple groups of people. It’s the only network aside from the old fashion phone (even then not everyone I know shares that with me) that I can get everyone on.
I’m a burn survivor, I’m part of an alumni group, and active group of staff and family for one summer camp. In addition a moderate a group of fellow burn survivors who have all attended conference called World Burn Congress which is open to any burn survivor.
I’m also a Christian my church has a public page on Facebook where anyone member of the church or not can see what the church is up to. Trunk or treat, special speaker, or a note from Pastor saying due to the inclement weather and slick roads here in the Midwest we’ve decided morning service is virtual. My church also has a private group of church members where we can go and ask each other to be in prayer over something or see who’s signed up to bring that to the potluck.
All this is to say as much as I think Facebook and its policies are dumb it connects me to two groups I’m close with better than anything else does. Neither group exist on Discord, Twitter, mastodon, or any other social, and group sms thread instead of a Facebook group would be a nightmare for all this.
Indeed I’m sure it does, but it ALSO connects you most directly with groups of advertisers wherein Facebroke is turning you into a bunch of tags that it thinks are appropriate. Advertisers can then try and target you accordingly. So when some advertiser is looking for “(middle aged male) (Christian) (into technology) and a (burn survivor)” you’re gonna be on the top of their list. It’s fine to be found when the offer is compelling, and Facebook wants to keep its data to itself, so probably doesn’t give it directly to the advertisers… but once you involve yourself with a compelling ad, you probably end up giving that advertiser info they can keep and use forever.
If an advertiser has something I’m interested in them having my demographic isn’t that big of a deal to me. Just from where I live I could be targeted as a middle aged white male republican Christian. I live in the rural Midwest. What honestly creeps me out more and has happened on Facebook is when something I bought for a friend comes up as an ad. But that happens on and off Facebook on different socials.
I’ve been influenced by the conversations on TWIT regarding Facebook, privacy, my info sold for advertising purposes, etc. It has caused me to leave Facebook a few times. Yet I find that I miss out on social happenings, and there are many businesses that use FB as a home base, such as handymen, painters, small businesses, etc. Many businesses ask that you give their good service a nod on FB (and Google) to help their businesses. So I weigh my info being sold for advertisement vs being socially disadvantaged.
Oddly, with all the talk about privacy on TWIT and by other computer experts, I’ve noticed that does not stop most of those folks from using Google products, like photos, maps, drive, docs, etc. Google may not be as “evil” as Facebook, but they certainly profit from our info too.
It’s pretty much given that if you get on the internet, your expectation of privacy should be slim to none.
I really don’t find either bad at all, I use Facebook way more then X, I find X kind of boring quite honestly (I do use X to get access to customer service of companies like airlines at times, works very well for that). I have heard so many people complain about Facebook, that I have determined it must be who your friends are, that is all I can figure out. I don’t get very stressed or upset at all when I am on it, I find it relaxing.
