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Facebook's been ramping up their censorship of their users to an unbearable extent. Apart from losing control of the situation when it comes to peoples' data, t

Facebook's been ramping up their censorship of their users to an unbearable extent. Apart from losing control of the situation when it comes to peoples' data, they're also losing control of their attempts to purge their own platform of things Silicon Valley tech giants frown upon on their own platforms. "Getting Zucc'd" is an internet meme for a reason. I have friends who got suspended from the platform for 30-some days for posting pictures of their children to their own profile. Just children, doing children stuff. Not naked, not doing anything wrong or illegal by anyone's moral standards. I myself got suspended for 7 days by posting a completely apolitical, non-offensive joke to a private group that their system deemed evil. And then caught another 30 day suspension when I posted a screenshot of my suspension to my friends to laugh at how stupid the situation was. I've had enough of it. As personal as the experience is, before it used to be that people who were getting suspended had very easily understandable reasons behind it: when someone posted stupid, edgy stuff and got punished for it then at least you knew why it happened and acknowledged that it was fair enough. I understand that this is all anecdotal, but nowadays it's been very common to see my active friends be on timeouts. Why? Facebook does not offer one iota of support for their users, be it when they get banned or have issues on the platform that a human should see. You're not getting through, clicking the buttons does nothing. Just like Google. I have a friend who unfortunately attracted the attention of a mentally ill stalker, she was harassed and threatened for months by this stalker and his friends, she almost ended up committing suicide due to this. Our circle of friends reported this person to Facebook and they deemed it to be completely acceptable and allowed it to continue. Not even mentioning the whole psychological experimentation crap they were doing with the goal of keeping people glued to their platforms by any means necessary, even if it means driving them into depression. When people look at Facebook and the things that have been leaking out into the world, people don't care for any excuses anymore. And it might not be fair but they're giving Facebook the treatment they received. Even if the media sensationalises the whole anti-Facebook thing, a lot of people resent it for a reason. I simply contacted my friends, left them alternative ways of contacting me and requested that my account be deleted. Happy birthday to Facebook, Mr. Zuckerberg. This is the 15th year of hollow excuses and empty, soulless explanations.

fossuser 8y ago
I find the account suspensions for innocuous things pretty hard to believe - since I'd suspect any action like that came from your friends reporting your content, not automated culling of users.
- beezischillin 8y ago
  Honestly, I don't know. I would hope that it was not the case! But I will freely admit that it's possible that you're right. Looked very robotic and automated since stuff like that would happen in waves and if you're in bigger groups then you'd often see it happening to a lot of people at the same time. But I can't claim to know, that's for sure! Regardless, deleting most of my social media's been a really refreshing experience. It's great to feel boredom again, instead of just automatically reaching for the phone to scroll through timelines.
bertil 8y ago
The comment point at one of two key aspects of the trouble with the platform. The company created something that no one could imagine living without, even as early as five years after the platform was created: a credible social identity online. In spite of that, people overlooked the benefits and focus on a deep, personal resentment. The more widespread is context collapse, the idea that not everyone who knows you wants to know everything about you. See the comments below. That was something that Facebook was focused on in 2010-2012. Every attempt at personalising your audience failed. There was some ambitious effort to automate clustering of your friends by third-party but no one really cared enough to take over. Google Plus tried with their Circles. That excessive visibility led to less candid messages and less activity over the years, about two-thirds of the drop. Story was meant to compensate for that but didn’t try to identify problematic relations explicitly. It worked on Instagram but more as a quality level than anything targeted. Messages and Groups have that role, and because it’s not harder to create those elsewhere, it’s easier to move away on Facebook. The one that you mention is less widespread but indeed had a devastating effect. Facebook, like every company, has under-invested in “customer service” or in their case moderation. This had some seemingly isolated effects over random incidents but it didn’t stop at one person’s anger: their friends got increasingly disgruntled by the blatant unfairness. That expansion of isolated injustice explained the remaining third. Those effects were documented, measured in detail. The first effect was denied by Mark, on principles. It took a Digital World War to start caring about the second.

fossuser 8y ago

I find the account suspensions for innocuous things pretty hard to believe - since I'd suspect any action like that came from your friends reporting your content, not automated culling of users.

beezischillin 8y ago
Honestly, I don't know. I would hope that it was not the case! But I will freely admit that it's possible that you're right. Looked very robotic and automated since stuff like that would happen in waves and if you're in bigger groups then you'd often see it happening to a lot of people at the same time. But I can't claim to know, that's for sure! Regardless, deleting most of my social media's been a really refreshing experience. It's great to feel boredom again, instead of just automatically reaching for the phone to scroll through timelines.

bertil 8y ago

The comment point at one of two key aspects of the trouble with the platform. The company created something that no one could imagine living without, even as early as five years after the platform was created: a credible social identity online. In spite of that, people overlooked the benefits and focus on a deep, personal resentment. The more widespread is context collapse, the idea that not everyone who knows you wants to know everything about you. See the comments below. That was something that Facebook was focused on in 2010-2012. Every attempt at personalising your audience failed. There was some ambitious effort to automate clustering of your friends by third-party but no one really cared enough to take over. Google Plus tried with their Circles. That excessive visibility led to less candid messages and less activity over the years, about two-thirds of the drop. Story was meant to compensate for that but didn’t try to identify problematic relations explicitly. It worked on Instagram but more as a quality level than anything targeted. Messages and Groups have that role, and because it’s not harder to create those elsewhere, it’s easier to move away on Facebook. The one that you mention is less widespread but indeed had a devastating effect. Facebook, like every company, has under-invested in “customer service” or in their case moderation. This had some seemingly isolated effects over random incidents but it didn’t stop at one person’s anger: their friends got increasingly disgruntled by the blatant unfairness. That expansion of isolated injustice explained the remaining third. Those effects were documented, measured in detail. The first effect was denied by Mark, on principles. It took a Digital World War to start caring about the second.