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Hey folks, John Biggs here. I wrote this as a reaction to reason news and it comes at the end of a slow boil. I think we can make better tools than this one and

• edibleEnergy 9y ago
  Hi John, just an FYI: if you have Facebook Messenger installed on your phone, you are probably giving Facebook a lot more data than you think.
  • rybosome 9y ago
    Can you provide any additional detail about that? I can’t tell if you’re referring to FB mining the contents of the messages, or the app doing unscrupulous things in the background.
    • netsharc 9y ago
      The NSA says they only monitor communication metadata. But that's already a lot of information. Let's imagine a scenario where FB can't read your messages, so it doesn't know what you talk about. But if you talk to people who are mostly Trump critics according to their Facebook activity, Facebook can probably categorize you as a liberal. If you added a new friend of the appropriate gender for dating, and your communication intensifies, Facebook can probably guess what's going on. If it intensified and goes quiet some evenings (predominantly weekend evenings), well, guess who's seeing each other (each guess come with probability percentages).
    • wongmjane 9y ago
      Facebook Messenger on Android can read call log
    • edibleEnergy 9y ago
      The latter. I don't have specific examples in mind, just that if you do not trust a company's data collection policies, the collection capabilities of an installed program are much greater than when viewed through a web browser. See [1] for an example from a few of years ago. [1]: https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-messenger-app-logs-way-more-data-than-you-rea-1633441673 https://gizmodo.com/facebooks-messenger-app-logs-way-more-da...
  • drngdds 9y ago
    Can't you avoid this (on recent Android versions at least) by disabling all permissions? That's what I did. (I'm sure they're still analyzing the messages I send and how I interact with the app, of course.)
  • ggregoire 9y ago
    Hello, Do you know if it's the same for WhatsApp? When you think about it, it's kind of alarming that FB, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram are all owned by the same company. I can't even imagine the amount of data they have about us.
  • eyeball 9y ago
    Does the same hold true for WhatsApp?
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• adventured 9y ago
  I'm curious, what are you primarily using LinkedIn for, that you find it difficult to have already gotten rid of it (in the process of stripping out the other social products)? I've stalked LinkedIn for years looking for a way to undercut them with a superior competing product. I've never really found what I consider to be a very high value angle of attack that looked like it could cause a big enough wound to bring down the beast.
  • Bartweiss 9y ago
    This is fascinating to me - I know LinkedIn is valuable, and lots of people describe it as an essential account they can't get rid of. Meanwhile, I can't work out what LinkedIn is even for. I update my profile there occasionally, but only to not have out-of-date info being spread. It occasionally produces a low-quality contact or recruiter spam. That's about it. My peers don't keep theirs up to date, my employers don't use it as a major hiring source, I don't trust endorsements there as meaningful or predictive. The interface is enormously frustrating, and it's not even a particularly good job board. Is there just a parallel ecosystem of people who engage with LinkedIn so deeply and consistently that it forms a real network? Is software just a low-LinkedIn-use field? What on earth are people doing on that site?
    • rhombocombus 9y ago
      I feel the same way. None of the people with whom I work directly make use of linkedin at all, yet whenever I attend a business event or networking something or other, people look at me as though I just sprouted a tail when I tell them I have derived zero use from linkedin. It has only annoyed me with its spammy emails and pernicious alerts to invite people I might know, I can't fathom how it is an enjoyable experience to use for anybody.
    • MrMetlHed 9y ago
      For a journalist the answer is simple: Finding sources. Many of us have accounts solely to find an expert in a field or a person within a company to talk to. Why anyone else uses it I have no idea.
    • 9y ago
• cmpb 9y ago
  I killed my account somewhere around 4 years ago. Overall, I am probably a better person (interpersonally / socially) because I have to actually talk to people in order to "catch up". However, there are some difficult downsides. For instance, given that basically everyone else that I know still uses it, all of my friends now have to single me out with a text when they create an event and want me there or post about something they wanted to get the news out about. Basically, being the one (or one of the few) non-facebook user(s) in my friend group effectively shifts the burden of communicating with me to the person communicating, from the app that was specifically designed for mass communication. So expect to be left out of the loop a lot. Expect to lose some friends (because you won't communicate with all of them anymore). Expect to have to put more effort into maintaining your friendships (since you won't have that constantly opened communication transport that you can easily use). That being said, I'll never go back to using Facebook. It changed my behavior patterns too much and I was just not happy.
  • pepelepuanteur 9y ago
    I've experienced the same things and believe that the requirement to put more effort into maintaining friendships has been a large positive for me. Particularly given that I have been a poor communicator my entire life. The phone calls that I have been forced to have with friends since I stopped using social media have drawn us much closer -- at least in part because a phone call is far more intimate than a series of text messages. Nevertheless, I do think some people are perfectly capable of using both social media and more traditional forms of communication. I don't think I'll ever attempt to achieve that balance given the other ills of social media that I've found myself susceptible to, but to each their own.
• rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
  What are your opinions on less personal social media sites like Hacker News and Reddit? My enjoyment with Facebook ceased the moment Edward Snowden became a household name. I realized then how naked my information was in a world of bad actors. I only use Facebook as a simple contacts list these days. But it’s harder to wean myself off HN/Reddit, as I get more value of useful information from the former and entertainment from the latter, than I have ever received from Facebook, even though both sites can lend themselves to mindless consumption and propaganda/manipulation, like FB. Is there a “right” way for social media to be? Or are we resigned to a muddy middle ground forever?
  • mancerayder 9y ago
    Did you say Reddit? I'm really curious how to tolerate it, since the comments seem oriented more around feelings and me too or kneejerk anger than anything substantive. Also the comments are one-liners. Are there particular subreddits with intelligent people you'd recommend?
    • rm_-rf_slash 9y ago
      Honestly I just use Reddit for entertainment. I know there are substantive subreddits out there, somewhere, but most of the subjects I care about understanding and discussing come through HN anyway.
    • MrJagil 9y ago
      /r/Neutralpolitics is great.
      • Diederich 9y ago
        Yes. /r/politicaldiscussion isn't quite as good, and certainly has a certain 'lean' to it, but it tolerates differing opinions pretty well.
    • crankylinuxuser 9y ago
      It really depends on what subs you choose. The defaults are cesspools. Just plan on nasty things being said back and forth to each other. In reality, the defaults are worse than 4chan, which is saying something. However, the moment you start getting into tech subs and narrow hobby subs, the SN ratio cleans right up. Yeah, there might be a single spam, or some rude person, but they are the exception. Reddit's like Usenet. The more people in a general group, the worse behaved they are. Go look up "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" -- so true..
• bwag 9y ago
  Dude. Just delete it already. Once it's gone you'll quickly realize how much it doesn't even matter.
  • harryf 9y ago
    This. Killed mine 7 years ago. Nobody died. Still fully employed. Still getting invited to more-than-enough social events. And my family appreciate getting hand-written Christmas cards once a year.
  • bluetwo 9y ago
    I took the less drastic step of limiting to one day a week. I visit on Tuesdays only, usually just once or twice.
• scotchmi_st 9y ago
  I really appreciate the fact you call yourself out as a hypocrite. A hypocrite can still be completely correct (we are all sinners, after all) and I think society would be more well right now if people understood that fact. I too have been slowly weaning myself off Facebook. Step 1 for those who want to but can't bring themselves to is to just be logged in on your phone or tablet. Has done wonders for me.
  • jjuel 9y ago
    Do you mean you only are logged in on your phone or tablet? This seems like the antithesis of what you want. I have removed it from my phone so now I can only log in on a computer. It has made me so much more happy to not have that temptation there with me all the time.
    • lgregg 9y ago
      It's much harder to use the browser app on Facebook than desktop. There is much more UX friction, which is a benefit in this case.
  • Lorenzo45 9y ago
    My approach was to simply delete the Facebook app. I can still use facebook.com in my mobile browser once a week if I want and I don't get any push notifications.
• rconti 9y ago
  Why "except twitter?" I find Twitter to be 100x more toxic, 1% as useful, and infinitely worse design.
  • Diederich 9y ago
    I'm not going to necessarily disagree. My wife and I don't use twitter. Except when 'something is going on'. When there is a local event or situation, Twitter is pretty valuable. For example, when there is a Caltrain strike, it's almost always more efficient getting details on Twitter. Can anyone suggest alternatives for such use cases?
    • dmix 9y ago
      > When there is a local event or situation, Twitter is pretty valuable That seems like a perfectly fine use of Twitter. Not sure why you'd need an alternative? You don't have to maintain a list of people to follow and watch your feed to get utility out of it. I mostly interact with Twitter on a case-by-case basis. Either via events, looking at a specific users profile, or coming across tweets via the media or on Reddit.
    • rconti 9y ago
      Yup, this is absolutely my only use of twitter -- realtime events, following hashtags (which of course the native client still (probably) doesn't support, conferences, etc.
    • coatmatter 9y ago
      I believe the main alternative is to drastically cut down on the amount of news that's consumed - which may or may not be something you need to do. Otherwise, how about listening to local radio for a short while when you're getting ready for the day or doing chores? I'd say for most people, there's really not much true value that comes from news (compared to books). Sure, it makes us feel more informed and provides topics of conversation for friends and strangers but really, it produces so little nearly all of the time. Unless your job or hobby is closely linked with news or activism, so much of it is simply consumed as entertainment to idle time away. However, if your usage of it is so infrequent and only for finding out about transport disruptions; maybe it's not such a problem that needs an alternative? Or perhaps not knowing wouldn't really inconvenience you that severely anyway - that's entirely up to you.
• zombieprocesses 9y ago
  > I wrote this as a reaction to reason news reason news? > I think we can make better tools than this one and I believe Facebook - and other social media - were originally quite useful and have now devolved due to market pressure. That also applies to media and you as well. > except for Twitter and Why? Why did you keep twitter? > and am ready to tear it all out of my life step by step. Good for you. But who cares? What makes you so special that we should waste our time with your nonsense? > It's a poison. No offense, but so is techcrunch and the media. I've never used facebook. But what "market pressures" are causing the sudden media hysteria over facebook? I wonder. Also, what you are doing isn't journalism. It's advocacy. It's propaganda. I do agree that the world would be better without facebook. But it also applies to techcrunch and your article. Facebook, social media, traditional media, your article are ultimately just waste of people's time.
  • pohl 9y ago
    reason news? I'm guessing he meant "recent news." Perhaps it was auto-incorrected or faulty speech-to-text.
• JoshMnem 9y ago
  > It's a poison. That's the truth. I quit Facebook and most similar sites, and my social life improved quickly. I also get a lot more done without those distractions. I block all of their companies in my hosts file and avoid their software libraries (React, etc.) whenever possible too. The company is having a terrible effect on the world and should not be supported. It was fundamentally broken from the start. A platform that connects all the world's people already exists -- it's called the WWW. I know people who are desperately trying to quit, but they can't, because the site has locked their social connections within the platform, and they are addicted.
• ciupicri 9y ago
  You're deleting old posts, yet you're keeping all the messages from Messenger. And even if you would delete them, your friends would still have a copy, which means Facebook has one too.
• rkrym839 9y ago
  I hope you realize that facebook keeps all information you are deleting in the back end. You are completely wasting your time.