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Just stop using it then. I’ve never used it as they are amoral, and don’t feel I missed much. Facebook will fade away in time, like MySpace,yahoo,aol,etc. Vari

Just stop using it then. I’ve never used it as they are amoral, and don’t feel I missed much. Facebook will fade away in time, like MySpace,yahoo,aol,etc. Various companies from AOL to Apple tried this in the 90’s (e.g. eWorld) - it’s the natural tendency for large corporations to corral their users. Arguably the windows attenpt to kill the web, and later mobile app stores are a continuation of this trend. They all failed in the end, as the open web is more attractive, but there will always be gatekeepers, because most people don’t want to build their own platforms, they just want to read and share their stuff.

GarrisonPrime 8y ago
I wish I could, but my elderly parents live on Facebook. They’ll never send me a text, never call my phone, never send me an email. It’s always a Facebook message or call, and they’re upset and confused if I don’t answer.
- d369c353a12301 8y ago
  >and they’re upset and confused if I don’t answer. Then just let them be upset. Try to explain it to them, but if they don't accept it, then let them be upset. If you back down they will never ever learn it. Never. Not a chance.
  - sbzodnsbd 8y ago
    Parents are hard to cut off. My parents are as paranoid as I am (grew up in a US enabled dictatorship) so it was easy to get them to use Signal. If they weren’t so cool, I’d use FB or WhatsApp But my aunts and uncles and cousins (who, ironically also grew up in this dictatorship) laugh and use Facebook. That’s cool. I don’t talk to them often. They know I love them. And they know I won’t use FB.
    - JohnFen 8y ago
      > Parents are hard to cut off. You wouldn't be cutting them off. They'd be cutting you off by refusing to use any of the myriad other communications methods.
- inflatableDodo 8y ago
  If you got rid of your facebook account, they will find another way to contact you. And then they are also more likely to leave facebook, or at least use it less. I had people complain when I dropped whatsapp and say that they wouldn't be able to get hold of me if I stopped using it. I just told them it crashed my phone too often and then they found other ways to contact me.
  - gooseus 8y ago
    Exactly. This line of reasoning is just an excuse that people use to justify maintaining the status quo rather than doing some hard work to change it. These grandpeople had to have been using something else 10 years ago to communicate with their grandkids... and then over these 10 years then simultaneously learned how to use FB, forgot how to use that other technology they'd used their whole life, and also lost the ability to learn how to use any other communication technology? Not impossible with cognitive deterioration, but probably a lot more rare than this excuse. If my grandparents were still alive today I'd just tell them that Facebook was controlled by the Democrats and we should use X,Y, or Z instead of effectively donating to Obama's campaign. They'd have deleted the app and gone back to text messages and phone calls by the end of dinner.
    - inflatableDodo 8y ago
      Interesting tactic. I have started telling people that I have joined the technological wing of the Amish and that Facebook was built by the devil. It gets very little push-back compared to listing more concrete reasons, complete with examples, of Facebook's actual documented behaviour. Doing that gets me nowhere fast, but if I use exaggerated nonsense people seem to just go along with it while nodding sagely.
  - 0x445442 8y ago
    > complain when I dropped whatsapp and say that they wouldn't be able to get hold of me This blows my mind. I mean having Whatsapp implies one has a phone which implies one can receive SMS messages or God forbid, a phone call.
- grey-area 8y ago
  You could. Try it and see. Being on Facebook is probably incredibly damaging for them in terms of what news they are exposed to anyway, you’d be doing them a favour.
chobeat 8y ago
For some people, because of their jobs or their need for social validation, this is just not an option. You cannot impose this decision on personal willpower or morality because it's more complicated than that.
- gooseus 8y ago
  > because of their jobs or their need for social validation, this is just not an option. I don't understand this... are jobs and the source of peoples social validation not options? I used to derive social validation from drinking and kicking ass in video games, but then I found out you could get it from other places that were more productive, and less physically deteriorating. If there are really people out there who are wholly dependent on Facebook for their social validation then that is a tragedy akin to finding out that there is an entire population of people who can't metabolize food without a special compound found only in White Castle burgers.
  - seandougall 8y ago
    How about anybody who belongs to a marginalized minority group in their own (physical) community? For example, there are plenty of parts of the US where LGBTQ folks have to reach out beyond their physical location to find a community that will truly accept them (not to mention countries where their existence is criminalized). Facebook is a highly imperfect solution for them — but it exists, and there aren’t always better options. Just like how some parts of the country are food deserts where people actually don’t have access to anything much more nutritious than White Castle.
    - firethief 8y ago
      I don't think the scarcity of options is due to any shortage of potential communities on the internet--there's a perpetual scarcity of extant communities due to naturally-monopolizing network effects. If Facebook weren't the place, it would be somewhere else. Any old forum would do if it were where the people are.
    - gooseus 8y ago
GreeniFi 8y ago
The analogy to this is saying, “if you don’t like climate change, just stop using fossil fuels”. Great as far as it goes, but the problem still exists beyond the bubble of my own consumer preference. We’re moving towards big FB regulation in Europe - I hope - which would set a precedent for it globally. Although my choice would be the Chinese solution...
- 0x445442 8y ago
  Choosing not to use Facebook is in no way analogous to choosing not to use gasoline or electricity.
  - GreeniFi 8y ago
    It’s analogous in that the problems associated with its use don’t disappear if only you stop using it.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      That is what advocacy is for. I stopped using it based on advocacy by others. You can too.
      - itronitron 8y ago
        you can stop using Facebook, but Facebook is still using you by way of its trackers on company websites.
        ddingus 8y ago
        So? Let them. In fact, let them continue to escalate all that means. It is all on a path to greater regulation. And, once it gets there, I will very gladly point out they got what they deserve.
        tsukikage 8y ago
sys_64738 8y ago
I think AOL had a classic tagline 'So easy to use no wonder we're number one' which resonated with non-techies coming online in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Suddenly you had all these people wanting the internet and AOL made it easy with flooding the mailboxes of people with CDs. It was a sequence of events for which they just happened upon the massive uptake due to their marketing. I don't think this was particularly planned by AOL since if they truly understood what they were doing then they'd have known dialup was limited due to the uptake of broadband. It's analogous to Apple realizing the iPod was limited and music players would merge into cell phones as people only want to carry one device. Apple launched the iPhone at exactly the right time. AOL didn't have any answer to broadband.

GarrisonPrime 8y ago

I wish I could, but my elderly parents live on Facebook. They’ll never send me a text, never call my phone, never send me an email. It’s always a Facebook message or call, and they’re upset and confused if I don’t answer.

d369c353a12301 8y ago
>and they’re upset and confused if I don’t answer. Then just let them be upset. Try to explain it to them, but if they don't accept it, then let them be upset. If you back down they will never ever learn it. Never. Not a chance.
- sbzodnsbd 8y ago
  Parents are hard to cut off. My parents are as paranoid as I am (grew up in a US enabled dictatorship) so it was easy to get them to use Signal. If they weren’t so cool, I’d use FB or WhatsApp But my aunts and uncles and cousins (who, ironically also grew up in this dictatorship) laugh and use Facebook. That’s cool. I don’t talk to them often. They know I love them. And they know I won’t use FB.
  - JohnFen 8y ago
    > Parents are hard to cut off. You wouldn't be cutting them off. They'd be cutting you off by refusing to use any of the myriad other communications methods.
inflatableDodo 8y ago
If you got rid of your facebook account, they will find another way to contact you. And then they are also more likely to leave facebook, or at least use it less. I had people complain when I dropped whatsapp and say that they wouldn't be able to get hold of me if I stopped using it. I just told them it crashed my phone too often and then they found other ways to contact me.
- gooseus 8y ago
  Exactly. This line of reasoning is just an excuse that people use to justify maintaining the status quo rather than doing some hard work to change it. These grandpeople had to have been using something else 10 years ago to communicate with their grandkids... and then over these 10 years then simultaneously learned how to use FB, forgot how to use that other technology they'd used their whole life, and also lost the ability to learn how to use any other communication technology? Not impossible with cognitive deterioration, but probably a lot more rare than this excuse. If my grandparents were still alive today I'd just tell them that Facebook was controlled by the Democrats and we should use X,Y, or Z instead of effectively donating to Obama's campaign. They'd have deleted the app and gone back to text messages and phone calls by the end of dinner.
  - inflatableDodo 8y ago
    Interesting tactic. I have started telling people that I have joined the technological wing of the Amish and that Facebook was built by the devil. It gets very little push-back compared to listing more concrete reasons, complete with examples, of Facebook's actual documented behaviour. Doing that gets me nowhere fast, but if I use exaggerated nonsense people seem to just go along with it while nodding sagely.
- 0x445442 8y ago
  > complain when I dropped whatsapp and say that they wouldn't be able to get hold of me This blows my mind. I mean having Whatsapp implies one has a phone which implies one can receive SMS messages or God forbid, a phone call.
grey-area 8y ago
You could. Try it and see. Being on Facebook is probably incredibly damaging for them in terms of what news they are exposed to anyway, you’d be doing them a favour.

chobeat 8y ago

For some people, because of their jobs or their need for social validation, this is just not an option. You cannot impose this decision on personal willpower or morality because it's more complicated than that.

gooseus 8y ago
> because of their jobs or their need for social validation, this is just not an option. I don't understand this... are jobs and the source of peoples social validation not options? I used to derive social validation from drinking and kicking ass in video games, but then I found out you could get it from other places that were more productive, and less physically deteriorating. If there are really people out there who are wholly dependent on Facebook for their social validation then that is a tragedy akin to finding out that there is an entire population of people who can't metabolize food without a special compound found only in White Castle burgers.
- seandougall 8y ago
  How about anybody who belongs to a marginalized minority group in their own (physical) community? For example, there are plenty of parts of the US where LGBTQ folks have to reach out beyond their physical location to find a community that will truly accept them (not to mention countries where their existence is criminalized). Facebook is a highly imperfect solution for them — but it exists, and there aren’t always better options. Just like how some parts of the country are food deserts where people actually don’t have access to anything much more nutritious than White Castle.
  - firethief 8y ago
    I don't think the scarcity of options is due to any shortage of potential communities on the internet--there's a perpetual scarcity of extant communities due to naturally-monopolizing network effects. If Facebook weren't the place, it would be somewhere else. Any old forum would do if it were where the people are.
  - gooseus 8y ago

GreeniFi 8y ago

The analogy to this is saying, “if you don’t like climate change, just stop using fossil fuels”. Great as far as it goes, but the problem still exists beyond the bubble of my own consumer preference. We’re moving towards big FB regulation in Europe - I hope - which would set a precedent for it globally. Although my choice would be the Chinese solution...

0x445442 8y ago
Choosing not to use Facebook is in no way analogous to choosing not to use gasoline or electricity.
- GreeniFi 8y ago
  It’s analogous in that the problems associated with its use don’t disappear if only you stop using it.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    That is what advocacy is for. I stopped using it based on advocacy by others. You can too.
    - itronitron 8y ago
      you can stop using Facebook, but Facebook is still using you by way of its trackers on company websites.
      - ddingus 8y ago
        So? Let them. In fact, let them continue to escalate all that means. It is all on a path to greater regulation. And, once it gets there, I will very gladly point out they got what they deserve.
        tsukikage 8y ago

sys_64738 8y ago

I think AOL had a classic tagline 'So easy to use no wonder we're number one' which resonated with non-techies coming online in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Suddenly you had all these people wanting the internet and AOL made it easy with flooding the mailboxes of people with CDs. It was a sequence of events for which they just happened upon the massive uptake due to their marketing. I don't think this was particularly planned by AOL since if they truly understood what they were doing then they'd have known dialup was limited due to the uptake of broadband. It's analogous to Apple realizing the iPod was limited and music players would merge into cell phones as people only want to carry one device. Apple launched the iPhone at exactly the right time. AOL didn't have any answer to broadband.