Slashdot Mirror
Is It Time To Stop Using Social Media? (counterpunch.org)
Slashdot reader Nicola Hahn writes: Bulk data collection isn't the work of a couple of bad apples. Corporate social media is largely predicated on stockpiling and mining user information. As Zuckerberg explained to lawmakers, it's their business model...
While Zuckerberg has offered public apologias, spurring genuine regulation will probably be left to the public. Having said that, confronting an economic sector which makes up one of the country's largest political lobbying blocks might not be a tenable path in the short term.
The best immediate option for netizens may be to opt out of social media entirely.
The original submission links to this call-to-action from Counterpunch: Take personal responsibility for your own social life. Go back to engaging flesh and blood people without tech companies serving as an intermediary. Eschew the narcissistic impulse to broadcast the excruciating minutiae of your life to the world. Refuse to accept the mandate that you must participate in social media in order to participate in society. Reclaim your autonomy.
While Zuckerberg has offered public apologias, spurring genuine regulation will probably be left to the public. Having said that, confronting an economic sector which makes up one of the country's largest political lobbying blocks might not be a tenable path in the short term.
The best immediate option for netizens may be to opt out of social media entirely.
The original submission links to this call-to-action from Counterpunch: Take personal responsibility for your own social life. Go back to engaging flesh and blood people without tech companies serving as an intermediary. Eschew the narcissistic impulse to broadcast the excruciating minutiae of your life to the world. Refuse to accept the mandate that you must participate in social media in order to participate in society. Reclaim your autonomy.
We should not have more than 10% of the population on any given social media platform.
I haven't used facebook for almost a decade. I saw it was a bad actor from the beginning.
But Google is just as bad but not as obvious as is any other social media.
You are the product.
But part of their power depends on having most people on their platform. If they can't get more than a fraction of people on their platform, then they cannot build comprehensive profiles.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
One does not have to stop using social media, but one can use own owned platforms like Matrix (http://matrix.org).
Also one can stop sharing everything about your life.
For example I have Twitter which I mostly use only to read posts as new. I seldom post something myself.
Of course, it is never too late to realize your mistake in believing it was ever OK to give a soulless corporation access to your personal information, and thus also allow HR to look at all your party pics where you got drunk, and other things you really dont want your professional career life to know about-- but really, what ever made you guys think it was even a good idea to start with?
I remember when the very idea of using your real name online was a point and shame offense.
We need to get back to that kind of thing,
The best immediate option for netizens may be to opt out of social media entirely.
Posting that on /. Are you going to hit up Facebook and Twitter too, or should one of us do it?
[ RT to take back control. #OptOut ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
More of a news aggregator with comments.
Before dedicated social networks we used mailing lists, Usenet and forums. They were great because you could meet interesting, like-minded people, and they didn't harvest your personal data.
These days it's harder to avoid social networks. They offer a lot of features that people want, like easy photo sharing and real-time chat built in. Sure, you can replicate it all, but try getting random non-techies to install an IRC client, or spell Diaspora.
Modern life has become reliant on those services. People are too busy, they aren't going to post everything to five different networks and your personal email address.
The only solution is an open protocol. Make Facebook a protocol, let people choose the platform and client that suits them the best.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This is the problem. People think they need it now. The abuses possible are inherent in all present implementations. A federal injunction should be issued. If they want to save face. Perhaps they read slashdot? The sharing of all (or part) personal information online is a national security risk. period. fucking period.
But I beg to digress (facebook needs to die. shutdown.) We need to focus on the solution. Open source (free as in beer) software and hardware to the rescue.
Let's get to this, gentlemen. IRC or whatever. but connect and solve this problem. We need transparency. We need the people to be able to set up their own networks. Think mesh community nodes with a DMZ to talk to the other networks. We can do this better. I know we can.
For f**ks sake, *Facebook* sold access to your messenger private MESSAGES to a company that markets that data worldwide. Using some hidden psuedo opted in by default consent.
It isn't some sort of endemic that spans every social media company. It's just Facebook that's constantly pushing the boundaries of what it can get away with.
"A Facebook spokesperson confirmed that the app, which was designed by Cambridge University researcher Aleksandr Kogan to collect data on Americans on behalf of Cambridge Analytica’s British counterpart SCL, requested access to user inboxes through the read_mailbox permission."
So your private messages were sold to Putin. It wasn't by accident, they weren't hacked, Cambridge Analytics requested access to the messages in your mailbox and Facebook sold them that access via an implemented API. And CA were not at all secret about their intentions, they toured the world offering up your Facebook data for sale.
Here's Aleksandr Kogan of Cambridge Analytics touting the data grab and the ability to use it to influence foreign elections to Putin's St Petersberg group:
http://money.cnn.com/2018/03/20/technology/aleksandr-kogan-video-facebook-cambridge-analytica/index.html
Ditch Facebook, delete your account, never ever log in again. If you use a site and it has a Facebook button on it, its a tracking system, ask them to remove it.
While there is a place for electronic communication: emails, 'phone calls, on-line group messaging, what is far more satisfying is meeting people in the flesh to: chat, eat together, dance, go for walks, ... that is how true friendships are nurtured and grow. When you are with people you more easily learn their true nature. We are a social species -- this need has been exploited by social media, with the unfilled promise that using it will make us more socially successful: whereas the result is often the opposite.
We need to upgrade/replace email and Usenet.
I've said this time and time again: Facebook only exists because we're still using protocols and services from the steam age of computing. Usenet is super-dead and email is some awkward crutch.
Replace it with something from this day and age and Facebook will disappear all by itself because people will stop using it because it won't be the best solution around anymore.
It's that easy.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I remember when Bruce Perens freaked out that others made accounts spelled similar to his name, and they changed the page so UIDs became vgisible, so it beme a 'thing' to have a low UID.
Thanks, Bruce.
The question we hear many times a day. Yet we expect that almost all websites will not charge us. Even though they have costs: depreciation, electricity, staff, buildings - that someone has to pay for.
So would the public be willing to hand over a credit card to use a website? Experience shows that almost nobody does, when compared with the billions of accesses per day that come from subscribers to "free" sites. And what happens to "privacy" then? We would just trade fears of all the lies we tell when we subscribe to a website being replaced with the far more serious fears of having our card details stolen, bought and sold.
Personally, I don't give a damn about who knows when my date of birth was, what I last bought from Amazon or whether I "liked" a particular posting or not. It seems to me that the only people who do worry, do so about how other people might be losing their privacy - not about their own. If it bothers you, then stop. If it doesn't then ignore all the media frenzy. Though since almost all the online sites that are carrying scare stories about mass data collection are doing exactly the same thing they criticise FB and social media in general, of doing.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Says who? I've never used those services in the first place.
The question is, why are you posting everything? Stop broadcasting your life online!
Go back to regular forums, there's still millions of them all over the place, targeting specific topics. If I visit a DIY arcade cabinets forum, the worst thing that can happen is that I see ads related to arcade hardware, which I might be interested in because I visit that kind of website.
#DeleteFacebook
It's pretty much impossible NOT to reveal your social connections using social media, but it's the combination of insight into the nodes in that graph with the network that gives people with that data power over you.
So any kind of game, app or quiz where you reveal things about yourself or personal preferences is a bad thing. Forwarding and commenting on political news is probably a bad thing -- not in itself, but combined with the analytical power a social connection graph provides; it's one thing to exercise your free speech, it's another to contribute to a the greatest political surveillance network in history.
You might want to think twice about face tagging and geotagging your photographs too -- going by the Categorical Imperative. If enough people do that they've got a covert body tracking network.
People use social media because they serve a useful purpose, but they aren't aware of the unintended consequences; exploiting unintended consequences is those companies' entire business model.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I actually managed to convince most of my friends to move to WhatsApp as an alternative to Facebook. WA at least does end-to-end encryption and isn't a social network, so while not perfect it's a lot better.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
"I'm a narcissist that isn't getting rewarded on social media by people telling me how great I am, so now I'm telling people that I stopped using it. Aren't I unique, quirky, and a total edge Lord?
I'm so young and counter culture it hurts"
Yeah, great, you play in the sand box kid
Your comment reflects the total hostility that is exhibited on all sides of any topic on most forums these days.
Not knowing a single fact about the poster you fling poo like a caged monkey, while insinuating the worst motives about your target anonymously. YOU are what is wrong with trying to hold intelligent discussions on most comment forums today.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!