Leaving Twitter, Facebook

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#2870122 17-Feb-2022 10:15

Good on you. I did the same after ChCh. I was genuinely shocked by some of what I saw posted by people I respected. No to mention the live streaming of mass murder.

IME social media (the current models of it anyway) are fundamentally broken. They work on a free to user model and can't afford to properly check and moderate.

Mike

freitasm

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#2870124 17-Feb-2022 10:24

MikeAqua:

Good on you. I did the same after ChCh. I was genuinely shocked by some of what I saw posted by people I respected. No to mention the live streaming of mass murder.

I am hanging on LinkedIn mainly because it's a necessary evil to manage company pages. But seriously, the politicisation of the covid response (discussed here, warning Politics sub-forum) is present there too.

The number of people spreading misinformation about vaccines, giving opinions on why the government is taking us on a journey to total communism and how we are currently being oppressed is growing. What's worst, their names associated with the companies they work for. Mostly small business owners are the loudest voices - although you see some people and shake your head thinking "What would <insert large company name here> say of your world view if they were monitoring this channel?"

This is not counting the "LinkedIn Lunatics", those peddlers of scams, pyramid schemes, that sound/read like Instagram influencers trying to get you to join their latest schemes. You will recognise them because they use Facebook-like posts, with "polls" that ask you to use the reaction icons (hint: they do it because using those icons means "more engagement" so LinkedIn spread the post wider, playing the algorithm not differently than people do on Facebook) and posts that have multiple single-sentence paragraphs.

"LinkedIn Lunatics" is the name of a sub-Reddit that shares crazy LinkedIn posts like that guy who posted (paraphrasing) "My mother died last night. It made me think of how good is Company ABC for let me take time off. The lesson is the importance of life balance.". JFC, your mother just died and you are trying to push your company?

Tinkerisk

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#2870130 17-Feb-2022 10:36

martyyn:

I assume you know people who have no problem with FB and Messenger.

Sure, but they aren‘t my friends ;-)

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1101

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#2870137 17-Feb-2022 11:02

no need to quit .
Just use it as a TOOL . You dont have to go looking, uploading & browsing content on social media.

I do find selling stuff on FB is very problematic. Most of the time, when I have someone definitely wanting to buy I never hear from them again .
At least selling on trademe , there is more of a commitment for seller to follow through .

Dingbatt

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#2870147 17-Feb-2022 11:20

Geekzone is about as close as I get to a social network, but even it isn’t immune to the same ‘problems’ once you stray too far from tech topics. It used to be that tribalism was confined to the likes of Apple vs Android ‘discussions’ but it has leaked into other arenas. The very best decision was to hide the politics forum from ‘trending topics’. I have started to self censor topics within GZ that are not healthy (imo), and sadly, also have started ignoring posts from fellow GZers based on their (imo) biases. All that does is handicap true discourse but it lowers my blood pressure.

I’d quite like to see viewing the documentary The Social Dilemma (Netflix) made compulsory in secondary school (and for a whole bunch of ‘adults’ as well for that matter). To me it is telling that executives from within the SM companies won’t let their children on the sites.
I have pretty successfully retrained the YouTube algorithm but even it still throws out a tentacle from a direction I don’t want to venture towards.

“We’ve arranged a society based on science and technology, in which nobody understands anything about science technology. Carl Sagan 1996

alasta

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#2870150 17-Feb-2022 11:28

martyyn:

But I also have friends who don't care about any consequences to the platform they use. I assume you know people who have no problem with FB and Messenger.

Most of my friends have no idea how much data is being gathered about them by Facebook, or the implications of it. Yes, it's naive, but they are still good people and I don't want to lose them as friends over a software platform turf war.

MikeAqua

7773 posts

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#2870334 17-Feb-2022 13:34

freitasm:

I am hanging on LinkedIn mainly because it's a necessary evil to manage company pages. But seriously, the politicisation of the covid response (discussed here, warning Politics sub-forum) is present there too.

Several things are pushing me away from LinkedIn

- People I don't know me asking to connect with me in an effort to sell me something I don't want

- Recruiters using it contact me, when my profile clearly says I'm no seeking opportunities. I've been thinking about making a silly job title just to discourage that - maybe snake juggler in the circus (actually quite close to the truth).

- Increasing politicisation

- Increasing use of it for self aggrandisement

Mike

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#2870360 17-Feb-2022 14:12

MikeAqua:

freitasm:

I am hanging on LinkedIn mainly because it's a necessary evil to manage company pages. But seriously, the politicisation of the covid response (discussed here, warning Politics sub-forum) is present there too.

Several things are pushing me away from LinkedIn

- People I don't know me asking to connect with me in an effort to sell me something I don't want

- Recruiters using it contact me, when my profile clearly says I'm no seeking opportunities. I've been thinking about making a silly job title just to discourage that - maybe snake juggler in the circus (actually quite close to the truth).

- Increasing politicisation

- Increasing use of it for self aggrandisement

The first two don't worry me but the last two are getting out of hand.

DS248

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#2870426 17-Feb-2022 15:49

I don't understand the concerns re WhatsApp. I use it (phone only) fairly infrequently but find it very useful at times for calls and messaging with some work colleagues overseas and some family (incl. video) & and a few friends. Similar to Skype though usually less video focussed (generally don't use Skype for business contacts). I have never had any unsolicited message or call from a stranger, nor any push advertising / dubious material (I have never seen any advertising on it - one of the very few free apps I use that can claim that distinction). It has been a purely passive experience. I use it when convenient to me. Yes, I was not thrilled when it was taken over by FB but so far I have not seen any change as a result of that. That said I have never had a FB account (nor Instagram / LinkedIn / ...) so perhaps that accounts for my purely passive experience with WhatsApp?

Pre-covid WhatsApp was particularly useful at times while overseas on work trips, especially pre-'cheap' roaming days (or to keep roaming calls down). Another example - my primary client contact overseas receives multiple hundreds of work emails a day, plus a good portion time on the phone. We use WhatsApp at times for calls and messages to avoid getting caught up in his Inbox clutter (seems to use it as a priority queue)

Tinkerisk

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#2870434 17-Feb-2022 16:00

alasta:

Most of my friends have no idea how much data is being gathered about them by Facebook, or the implications of it. Yes, it's naive, but they are still good people and I don't want to lose them as friends over a software platform turf war.

For me there is no platform war. I just never started but still refuse to use it - that‘s all. So either THEY accept this or not. If not, they aren‘t my friends. It‘s simple like that. I will not explain here, what a privacy nightmare those things are and how MY data makes it‘s way to the wrong people due to the ‚carelessness‘ (to say it positive) of ‚my friends‘. Who ever decides to use it - feel free.

BTW there is a funny tool from a dutch university: https://clickclickclick.click have fun!

Handle9

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#2870442 17-Feb-2022 16:22

MikeAqua:
Good on you. I did the same after ChCh. I was genuinely shocked by some of what I saw posted by people I respected. No to mention the live streaming of mass murder.

IME social media (the current models of it anyway) are fundamentally broken. They work on a free to user model and can't afford to properly check and moderate.

They can afford to moderate but they are heavily incentivised not to. More outrage = more engagement = more revenue.

Kookoo

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#2870454 17-Feb-2022 16:41

Good for you.

Facebook - my profile has a single line saying "I am not on Facebook. You can contact me by email."
No Messenger
No twitter
No instagram
No snapchat
LinkedIn - for work
WhatsApp - maybe 2 or 3 friends left who use it
Reddit - would you even call it social media?

Hello, Ground!

surfisup1000

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#2870497 17-Feb-2022 17:53

My partner operates our facebook presence. Which we use primarily to read, rather than to post (we do operate the information page for my sons sports club though).

Nothing toxic though. You choose who posts on your facebook page, so all good.

Twitter is the opposite though, so much garbage...seems to be some kind of random feed from people I don't know.

SepticSceptic

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#2870652 17-Feb-2022 23:21

I confess I have a Twitter account.
Only for following the Voyager probes.

Honest ....

Dratsab

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#2870698 18-Feb-2022 08:53

I deleted my Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn content and accounts a few years back. Never had Reddit or Snapchat or any other accounts.

I started using Facebook back in 2008 when I was working overseas as it was a good way to keep in touch with family back home and with some of the people from different countries I was working with. Both my wife and I have relatives overseas that we keep in touch with via FB as well so, although I'd like to ditch it, it would mean losing contact with a lot of people. That said I have become a fairly infrequent poster, with the majority of my posts now being something I've been tagged in.

Messenger has been good for 'chat' purposes but again I find myself using it less and less. I use WhatsApp to coordinate band stuff but may look at getting them to use Signal instead, which is an app I've started using relatively recently.

As far as YouTube goes, I don't really consider that as social media so much (although it probably is) as it comes as part of my Google account and I don't engage with anyone via comments. In fact it's extremely rare for me to even look at the comments on a video. I have a bunch of subscriptions which are based almost exclusively around music and related fields, and that's all I watch.

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