The article speaks about the mess that is the popular social media. Tildes.com seems to be on the right track, unlike Facebook and others. The big issue, to me becomes primarily one of membership...
The article speaks about the mess that is the popular social media. Tildes.com seems to be on the right track, unlike Facebook and others. The big issue, to me becomes primarily one of membership and authentication.
I think it's important to place this in the context of group dynamics, especially from a historical perspective.
Historically a small tribe of people would be limited in size by how many individuals could be known face to face. A new member, either born or added to the tribe, would usually meet all of the tribal members at once. If there was a tribal authority, that person or persons would make judgement on the new member. Some sort of initiation or other ceremony might be performed, even to the point of marking that individual as a member. But marking wouldn’t be necessary or even occur if the group was a very primitive tribe. Their face and appearance would be the marker.
At the other extreme of the spectrum is the current social media, where there are few if any credentials for being a member, and the new members are for all practical purposes, unknown to each other.
An initial thought is that a rational person would be mad to get involved in such a network. They would have no way of distinguishing what or who made the communications.
I need to take myself off of Facebook, no matter what my friends tell me.
I "downsized" FB in my life about a year ago and am happy with it as a half-measure. I deleted the app from my phone but kept messenger. I unfriended (almost) everyone who wasn't family. I removed...
I need to take myself off of Facebook, no matter what my friends tell me.
I "downsized" FB in my life about a year ago and am happy with it as a half-measure. I deleted the app from my phone but kept messenger. I unfriended (almost) everyone who wasn't family. I removed everything from my feed, unliked all pages i had liked before, etc.
This provides me with the isolation I crave while still allowing me to reach out to RL friends via messenger (unfriending someone on FB still allows you to talk to them in Messenger) and I can still interact in the handful of school-related groups that seem to prefer FB for communication.
More recently, I have subscribed to a lot of local government pages and local weather so FB has essentially become my local gov news aggregator, a purpose that I think it's uniquely well suited for.
messenger may be the more bloated of the two apps, and possibly also more concerning about their invasion of privacy. you can get an alternative like messenger lite that lets you access messenger...
messenger may be the more bloated of the two apps, and possibly also more concerning about their invasion of privacy. you can get an alternative like messenger lite that lets you access messenger through the web interface. though it's a bit clunky, and I found push notifications are very spotty, it was definitely worthwhile to me for the benefit of removing any and all Facebook apps from my phone. though I still use Whatsapp, so i'm a subsidiary hypocrite
If you have an Android, you can use Frost for Facebook from F-Droid (open source app store). It's an open source wrapper for Facebook that is more private and less bloated than the default app. I...
If you have an Android, you can use Frost for Facebook from F-Droid (open source app store). It's an open source wrapper for Facebook that is more private and less bloated than the default app. I believe it also lets you use Messenger. Disclaimer: I don't use Facebook or Frost, so this is based on what I've heard from other people.
When arguments use ancient social behavior to describe current social behavior it always strikes me as odd. To be sure there's some overlap between how human beings behaved long ago and the way...
When arguments use ancient social behavior to describe current social behavior it always strikes me as odd. To be sure there's some overlap between how human beings behaved long ago and the way they behave today, but only in their most basic of understandings with almost all context stripped. It seems more apropos to use more modern examples, rather than "tribal" examples (not singling you out, just using your terminology for ease of communication because it's very fitting).
I need to take myself off of Facebook
I'm so torn on this. I don't use facebook anymore for anything other than marketing purposes, but I was a heavy user until early this year. I left my personal profile open in case anyone wants to interact with me, but I don't go there hardly ever anymore. Same with reddit, though the reason I abandoned that was more the behavior of its users at large than any personal problems with it.
Anyway, to add my own anecdote: After I stopped using Facebook I found myself with an ABUNDANCE of time I didn't even realize I had before. Hence, all of this writing I've been doing. It's been really, really beneficial; hell even my home life is improved because I'm not constantly watching people be dickwads or spread obviously incorrect and/or manipulated information. Used to be I'd see that and think, "If I'm not going to correct them, then no one's going to," but now all I can think is, "Nah, I'm too lazy and also fuck that person."
Watching people use Facebook is the same as sitting among heavy smokers: it is so obvious it is harmful, and it really annoys you. I never regret giving it the FU as early as ~2010, a few months...
need to take myself off of Facebook, no matter what my friends tell me.
Watching people use Facebook is the same as sitting among heavy smokers: it is so obvious it is harmful, and it really annoys you. I never regret giving it the FU as early as ~2010, a few months after starting my account, and never touching it again. If I lost friends just because, all well, we were not really friends anyways. Won't trade my wellbeing for a few friends-ish.
All of the various platforms have got themselves into a state of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' and it's their own fault. They pursued endless growth and scale without thinking about...
All of the various platforms have got themselves into a state of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' and it's their own fault. They pursued endless growth and scale without thinking about scalability.
So now they get to deal with the consequences. If they don't deal with the racists and what not cluttering up their platform, they're going to face backlash from minorities and progressives tired of their bullshit. If they do decide to ban the racists then they have to deal with the alt-right and the technolibertarian 'all speech must be allowed' crowd which have been already violently emboldened by their general lassiez-faire attitude.
This is a really, really poor article, with seemingly next-to-no effort put into it whatsoever (which, admittedly, makes sense—it is, of course, The Atlantic, an outlet that's effectively the...
This is a really, really poor article, with seemingly next-to-no effort put into it whatsoever (which, admittedly, makes sense—it is, of course, The Atlantic, an outlet that's effectively the faux-"Serious Journalism"-equivalent of Buzzfeed (granted, Buzzfeed News generally leans harder on accuracy than The Atlantic, so say what you will about that).
Ignoring ideological concerns at first, let's point out a few things.
Crowder, contrary to the article's claims, was not demonetised by YouTube for being a bad person, and in fact, the reason he was had nothing whatsoever to do with him insulting Maza—it had to do with him monetising his awfulness, and they remonetised the channel as soon as he stopped selling a t-shirt (specifically one of Che Guevara doing a stereotypically homosexual "limp-wristed" gesture, captioned "SOCIALISM IS FOR F[emoji of a fig]GS").
Now, certainly, his initial actions violated the YouTube Terms of Service, but YouTube claimed they didn't, and didn't choose to ban him for that. Factual accuracy is somewhat necessary in so intensely ideological pieces, I think.
I'll be entirely honest—I'm intensely pro-platform; I think that they should be able to ban whoever they'd like. Regardless, this is an awful article.
The entire reason Section 230 exists is to allow and encourage platforms to advise discretion as to who and what it allows on its services. Though this click-bait self-masturbatory outlet would never tell you that, it's right in the text:
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
Redefining internet communication platforms as "publishers" accomplishes nothing in the short-term, and in the long-term will undoubtably lead to an ill-thought-out bill to apply First Amendment-restrictions to all internet platforms. In the best plausible scenario, congratulations, every web forum is now forced to host whatever sick, demented porn users have their mind set on posting. At worst, it'll become impossible for new non-temporal social media platforms to come about due to servers being flooded with things they can't lawfully delete.
Further, what right does The Atlantic have as to insult a web company for giving light to awful people? I seem to remember them publishing a Jesse Singal article that got a tonne of press for being reportedly transphobic fearmongering (hint: it was, and factually-misleading transphobic fearmongering, at that) just last year (for more on Singal's antics, I think this is a good article, despite how embarrassing it is to link a Jezebel article in a genuine fashion).
I've got more to say, but I feel like I've already ranted enough to make myself look a bit crazy, so I'll stop.
The article speaks about the mess that is the popular social media. Tildes.com seems to be on the right track, unlike Facebook and others. The big issue, to me becomes primarily one of membership and authentication.
I think it's important to place this in the context of group dynamics, especially from a historical perspective.
Historically a small tribe of people would be limited in size by how many individuals could be known face to face. A new member, either born or added to the tribe, would usually meet all of the tribal members at once. If there was a tribal authority, that person or persons would make judgement on the new member. Some sort of initiation or other ceremony might be performed, even to the point of marking that individual as a member. But marking wouldn’t be necessary or even occur if the group was a very primitive tribe. Their face and appearance would be the marker.
At the other extreme of the spectrum is the current social media, where there are few if any credentials for being a member, and the new members are for all practical purposes, unknown to each other.
An initial thought is that a rational person would be mad to get involved in such a network. They would have no way of distinguishing what or who made the communications.
I need to take myself off of Facebook, no matter what my friends tell me.
I "downsized" FB in my life about a year ago and am happy with it as a half-measure. I deleted the app from my phone but kept messenger. I unfriended (almost) everyone who wasn't family. I removed everything from my feed, unliked all pages i had liked before, etc.
This provides me with the isolation I crave while still allowing me to reach out to RL friends via messenger (unfriending someone on FB still allows you to talk to them in Messenger) and I can still interact in the handful of school-related groups that seem to prefer FB for communication.
More recently, I have subscribed to a lot of local government pages and local weather so FB has essentially become my local gov news aggregator, a purpose that I think it's uniquely well suited for.
So, just sharing my own personal journey there.
messenger may be the more bloated of the two apps, and possibly also more concerning about their invasion of privacy. you can get an alternative like messenger lite that lets you access messenger through the web interface. though it's a bit clunky, and I found push notifications are very spotty, it was definitely worthwhile to me for the benefit of removing any and all Facebook apps from my phone. though I still use Whatsapp, so i'm a subsidiary hypocrite
Good to know. My social circle is pretty knee-deep in messenger. Sigh.
If you have an Android, you can use Frost for Facebook from F-Droid (open source app store). It's an open source wrapper for Facebook that is more private and less bloated than the default app. I believe it also lets you use Messenger. Disclaimer: I don't use Facebook or Frost, so this is based on what I've heard from other people.
Thank you. I'll look into that once I get on an android OS.
When arguments use ancient social behavior to describe current social behavior it always strikes me as odd. To be sure there's some overlap between how human beings behaved long ago and the way they behave today, but only in their most basic of understandings with almost all context stripped. It seems more apropos to use more modern examples, rather than "tribal" examples (not singling you out, just using your terminology for ease of communication because it's very fitting).
I'm so torn on this. I don't use facebook anymore for anything other than marketing purposes, but I was a heavy user until early this year. I left my personal profile open in case anyone wants to interact with me, but I don't go there hardly ever anymore. Same with reddit, though the reason I abandoned that was more the behavior of its users at large than any personal problems with it.
Anyway, to add my own anecdote: After I stopped using Facebook I found myself with an ABUNDANCE of time I didn't even realize I had before. Hence, all of this writing I've been doing. It's been really, really beneficial; hell even my home life is improved because I'm not constantly watching people be dickwads or spread obviously incorrect and/or manipulated information. Used to be I'd see that and think, "If I'm not going to correct them, then no one's going to," but now all I can think is, "Nah, I'm too lazy and also fuck that person."
Watching people use Facebook is the same as sitting among heavy smokers: it is so obvious it is harmful, and it really annoys you. I never regret giving it the FU as early as ~2010, a few months after starting my account, and never touching it again. If I lost friends just because, all well, we were not really friends anyways. Won't trade my wellbeing for a few friends-ish.
All of the various platforms have got themselves into a state of 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' and it's their own fault. They pursued endless growth and scale without thinking about scalability.
So now they get to deal with the consequences. If they don't deal with the racists and what not cluttering up their platform, they're going to face backlash from minorities and progressives tired of their bullshit. If they do decide to ban the racists then they have to deal with the alt-right and the technolibertarian 'all speech must be allowed' crowd which have been already violently emboldened by their general lassiez-faire attitude.
This is a really, really poor article, with seemingly next-to-no effort put into it whatsoever (which, admittedly, makes sense—it is, of course, The Atlantic, an outlet that's effectively the faux-"Serious Journalism"-equivalent of Buzzfeed (granted, Buzzfeed News generally leans harder on accuracy than The Atlantic, so say what you will about that).
Ignoring ideological concerns at first, let's point out a few things.
Crowder, contrary to the article's claims, was not demonetised by YouTube for being a bad person, and in fact, the reason he was had nothing whatsoever to do with him insulting Maza—it had to do with him monetising his awfulness, and they remonetised the channel as soon as he stopped selling a t-shirt (specifically one of Che Guevara doing a stereotypically homosexual "limp-wristed" gesture, captioned "SOCIALISM IS FOR F[emoji of a fig]GS").
Now, certainly, his initial actions violated the YouTube Terms of Service, but YouTube claimed they didn't, and didn't choose to ban him for that. Factual accuracy is somewhat necessary in so intensely ideological pieces, I think.
I'll be entirely honest—I'm intensely pro-platform; I think that they should be able to ban whoever they'd like. Regardless, this is an awful article.
The entire reason Section 230 exists is to allow and encourage platforms to advise discretion as to who and what it allows on its services. Though this click-bait self-masturbatory outlet would never tell you that, it's right in the text:
Redefining internet communication platforms as "publishers" accomplishes nothing in the short-term, and in the long-term will undoubtably lead to an ill-thought-out bill to apply First Amendment-restrictions to all internet platforms. In the best plausible scenario, congratulations, every web forum is now forced to host whatever sick, demented porn users have their mind set on posting. At worst, it'll become impossible for new non-temporal social media platforms to come about due to servers being flooded with things they can't lawfully delete.
Further, what right does The Atlantic have as to insult a web company for giving light to awful people? I seem to remember them publishing a Jesse Singal article that got a tonne of press for being reportedly transphobic fearmongering (hint: it was, and factually-misleading transphobic fearmongering, at that) just last year (for more on Singal's antics, I think this is a good article, despite how embarrassing it is to link a Jezebel article in a genuine fashion).
I've got more to say, but I feel like I've already ranted enough to make myself look a bit crazy, so I'll stop.