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Former Facebook Employee Questions the Social Media Life
stevegee58 writes "The Washington Post published an interesting article about Facebook's employee #51, Katherine Losse. As an English major from Johns Hopkins, Losse wasn't the typical Facebook employee. But after starting in customer service, she later became Mark Zuckerberg's personal ghostwriter, penning blog posts in his name. The article traces Losse's growing disillusionment with social networking in general and Facebook in particular. After cashing out some FB stock, Losse resigned and moved to a rural West Texas town to get away from technology and focus on writing."
I knew that FB had fake accounts, but apparently it also has fake Zuckerberg and more importantly a fake market valuation and probably a fake business model.
You can't handle the truth.
What a horror. She saw the light, as did I.
After 17 years of building, learning and promoting I now realise just how awful it has now become. I have left the industry entirely.
Facebook is not a product of Zuckerberg, but a reflection of the inevitability that horrendous and highly penetrative technological processes will have on our lives.
People haven't asked for Big Brother, they demanded him.
Just bought a new quantum computer, but I'm uncertain how it works.
It sounds like she thought this was something of meaning but, imo, it's not. It's not even really social. From what I can see, it doesn't matter how many "friends" people have. They often don't chat to each other. They talk about themselves and hopefully get a lot of people telling them how awesome they are. That's probably because most people don't have real friends on facebook. It's a list of people that decided to friend them for no good reason or because they met once or twice. It's impossible to have 500 actual friends.
So most interactions on facebook aren't really socialising. That patting each other on the back (or blowing each other depending on how far you take it) and to be honest I think the days of geocities were more social. People made websites with interesting content that would spark conversation even if were just between you and the author via email. I'd genuoinely say the vast majority of content I see people posting on FB is no interesting, it's not remotely deep or thoughtful. it's shit like announcements that someone likes amazon. Well good for you, you're like 99% of the population.
I don't really like having an account which is reflected in the fact I don't use my own name or talk about myself. It's there basically to keep in touch with some people which unfortuantely think there is no other way to keep in contact on the internet and since they're family it's a bit more awkward to tell them to suck it up and use email like a normal person. Though I feel that day coming up pretty soon.
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Kids, if you're wondering what this "irony" thing is that we oldsters like to talk about...?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
And that's the end of the story because the Washington Post won't let me read the rest.
So, if I understand this correctly, she got rich and decided working wasn't for her and she wanted to chase every writer's dream to lock themselves away in some far off locale to write their lifetime novel?
How is this news? Because it deals with the side of Facebook everyone knows about but ignores so they can post photos of their kids and let other people tell them how cute they are or is there something I missed in the last two pages?
You get the full article, rather than 4 pages that eventually require you to "sign in" or "register", if you access the PRINT option.
Link HERE
I like microcars
Well, and it's easy to look down your nose at the masses when you've already made a boatload of cash and can afford a nice, remote place somewhere to just go unplug, ruminate, and write. :p
I'd like to move to a tropical island and do heady things. But as it turns out, I'm here in my condo, bs'ing about the mars lander on facebook, waiting for monday morning.
The more connected I'm forced to be, the more disconnected I wish I was. My job at a technology company forces me to be connected 24/7 for various reason. Sooner or later I'm going to retire very early and move to some small town in the Sierra Nevadas. I've come to learn that I hate the privacy walls that are being torn down by both business and government on the internet, and as it evolves past the Old West in to East Berlin, I hate the whole thing more and more.
It's a lot worse than you think! FTFA:
"Celebrities had found Marfa too. The town's beloved food truck, the Food Shark, has nearly 1,700 'Likes' on its Facebook page -- including ones from luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Tammy Wynette, and Willie Nelson."
According to Wikipedia Tammy Wynette died in 1998. Facebook was launched in February 2004.
A difference of opinion. I agree with you, but most people I know do not. They want to be connected.
They complain when their phone doesn't allow multiple people on a text message, and they have to copy/paste to send the same thing to different people.
They get together and start talking about that trip they took or that thing they did. When I ask, they ask back, "It was on my facebook, didn't you see the pictures?"
We evolved as social creatures, which allowed us to come together to form an agrarian society, as I have been told. From the users' perspectives, they are not telling the whole world, they are telling whomever they have friended. That Facebook employees can see the data, let alone analyze and make money off it, isn't even in their sphere of consideration. And when you point it out, there are two responses.
People either don't get technology, and therefore don't care who sees the mundane details of their lives, or they see it as a free service that provides what they want, in exchange for personal details. The latter group are no different from the people who have loyalty memberships or agree to the new car insurance monitoring devices.
There are relatively few people in the world who would agree with your statement, despite the disproportionate representation on this particular website. The fact that you have zero replies (not counting the post of someone else's lyrics) and +5 moderation suggests this site's audience is lacking in general sociology education, or has forgotten it.
A normal human would embrace the opportunity to keep in touch with family and friends who do not live in their subdivision. A modern normal human would appreciate keeping up with someone without having to endure the sometimes stifling social conventions involved in making arrangements to meet to talk in person, or IMO the more stifling conventions of a personal phone call.
Facebook is the ultimate social outlet, where you can post what's on your mind, and let people respond or ignore as they wish. No wondering if you are boring someone on the other end of the conversation - they can scroll past. No wondering what everyone else is doing, and if you are fitting in - it is almost telepathy, knowing what your friends are into besides what they talk about when you are together. And then seeing a stranger's comment on your friend's post - and realizing you have something in common.
Again, I agree with you. But I also understand why the 1 billion active users, 1/7 of the world, disagree.