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I'm in favor of Facebook taking down absolutely any page, whether it agrees with my political views or not. Why? Because Facebook's power comes from network e

I'm in favor of Facebook taking down absolutely any page, whether it agrees with my political views or not. Why? Because Facebook's power comes from network effects. The more people, across the political spectrum, find their interests to be blocked on Facebook, the less people will find value in Facebook in general. Over time, this means Facebook is committing suicide. This is the best possible outcome for humanity. Die Facebook, die.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
I'm not sure this is a realistic worldview though. This supposes there will be a facebook competitor. As the decades march on, perhaps there will be, but it might not be till we're long gone. There still isn't a competitor to Google, for example. Parler was a competitor to Twitter, and you saw how that played out. The next competitor is going to have to deal with that quandary.
- ginko 6y ago
  > This supposes there will be a facebook competitor Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Those on social media are more powerful than those off it. The most obvious example is that large Twitter audiences can be monetized, whether by selling a book or asking for Patreon subscribers. That seems to imply social media is here to stay, in one form or another. It's a bit of a "rules for rulers" paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGrey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the sense that power structures exist independently of whether we like them or not.
    - grumple 6y ago
      More powerful in some ways. When I deleted my Facebook account, I certainly lost a platform for communication with a few thousand friends. But I gained so much time. I regained mental energy and focus. I basically immediately gained time to study and doubled my income (which is a more useful form of power in my opinion). From another perspective, I also think the benefits of Facebook are ephemeral. Yes, many people use these platforms right now for turning themselves into commodities; but other platforms and methods certainly exist, are longer lasting, and you don’t have to worry about a sudden ban.
    - tester756 6y ago
      I completely disagree. People who manage to monetize $platform are probably tiny, tiny %. Also there are negative consequences of using social medias.
      - hshshs2 6y ago
        I’ve seen nearly equivalent hires decided on “they have a large social media following” - not a critical factor, but a bonus that makes a difference. I almost lost my job protesting it.
- sep_field 6y ago
  Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex and Bing, two other competitors to Google. Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race. Same with Twitter. We don't need them, and we don't need competition for them. They should go away with no replacement. Source: was Facebook engineer. Listened to Fuckerberg make one too many all-hands speeches about engagement. Resigned several years ago.
  - quietbritishjim 6y ago
    The practical reality is that sharing photos of some group event with the other people at that event is easy in Facebook, and hard to imagine how to do that without some analogous service. I'm aware that many people use Facebook for other odd things but this was Facebook's original use case, and the literal source of its name, and it is still useful for that. Even if you could come up with some alternative or even decentralised way of doing that, this doesn't change the fact that you're addressing the purpose of Facebook, rather than proving your claim that "it serves no purpose". At university (pre-Facebook) I had a friend who ran a Facebook-like server for sharing photos amongst our group of friends. That need was already there and strong enough he wrote code for it.
    - sep_field 6y ago
      Facebook runs a huge amount of different services. Some of them have value, but they are ones that people had and have other alternatives for. This doesn't mean that Facebook as a whole has value, as the whole is more evil than the sum of its parts. Anything of value will not be lost as we de-Facebook the planet. Also, the original use case of Facebook was for Mark and his buddies to rate the attractiveness of their female classmates and share inside information on them. Despicable.
      - reimertz 6y ago
        Would yoy be interested in doing an AMA? Seems like you have a lot to say and I'd be down to listen.
- otabdeveloper4 6y ago
  The Facebook competitor is "not using Facebook". I haven't used it for ten years, can't say I miss it.
  - wand3r 6y ago
    The thing that brought me back is marketplace. Its super difficult to sell on craigslist you get so much spam and super long feedback loops. As a side hobby I buy, trade and sell Danish and Mid Century Modern furniture and finding a market is hard. So begrudgingly I use facebook and chat. It actually is a terrible product but there is nowhere else to tap into such a big market without paying a premium in purchase percentage.
    - Hydraulix989 6y ago
      What is particularly bad about it? Did you try Let Go?
- nipponese 6y ago
  You can still create an account and use Parler.
  - sep_field 6y ago
    ...and be on an FBI watch list.
- playingchanges 6y ago
  What if, just hear me out, we collectively decide we don’t really like the fb style social media and there actually isn’t a replacement. What if we just moved on?
hntcz 6y ago
I get what you are saying but don't you think that Facebook selectively taking down some pages based on political considerations actually increases their power and not decreases it?
- eternalban 6y ago
  Only if they are permitted to maintain a pseudo-monopolistic position in their market. So their own self destructive behavior, coupled with legal and societal push for options in the social network market. The legal aspect may include legislation to forbid governmental organs and/or employees (of note) to use platforms such as FB and Twitter to disseminate and or engage the "public". If they engage the "public" then the platform must be open to "public" without restriction.
- Larrikin 6y ago
  Like when Infowars, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the Parler community as a whole, became more popular and enjoyed popularity for years on end after they got banned? Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about a month. Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets presented. People wise up and peel off.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Andrex 6y ago
Something's going to change, soon. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-global-menace https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...
- geitir 6y ago
  Censoring an entire continent* As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the article imo is now trash
  - sep_field 6y ago
    It's the kind of typo a spellcheker would overlook. Maybe the article could have used more proofreading but so what? Somtimes content is more important than presentation.
    - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
      With text, the presentation is the content though..
    - geitir 6y ago
      If the person who wrote it didn't proofread it, then the content likely hasn't been thought through.
      - sep_field 6y ago
        every writer knows its notoriously hard to proofread your own writing. you know how it is supposed to read and your brain just kind of goes on autopilot.
hg35h4 6y ago
Doesn't work since big tech all works together to crush dissent and anything that goes against their business model. Look at how attacked any right wing site is - they go after their ISPs, their CDNs, their DNS registrars, their hosting companies. The Internet has got to the point that you cannot even operate a business if it goes against the "values" of big tech, or they chop all your arms off.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

I'm not sure this is a realistic worldview though. This supposes there will be a facebook competitor. As the decades march on, perhaps there will be, but it might not be till we're long gone. There still isn't a competitor to Google, for example. Parler was a competitor to Twitter, and you saw how that played out. The next competitor is going to have to deal with that quandary.

ginko 6y ago
> This supposes there will be a facebook competitor Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Those on social media are more powerful than those off it. The most obvious example is that large Twitter audiences can be monetized, whether by selling a book or asking for Patreon subscribers. That seems to imply social media is here to stay, in one form or another. It's a bit of a "rules for rulers" paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGrey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the sense that power structures exist independently of whether we like them or not.
  - grumple 6y ago
    More powerful in some ways. When I deleted my Facebook account, I certainly lost a platform for communication with a few thousand friends. But I gained so much time. I regained mental energy and focus. I basically immediately gained time to study and doubled my income (which is a more useful form of power in my opinion). From another perspective, I also think the benefits of Facebook are ephemeral. Yes, many people use these platforms right now for turning themselves into commodities; but other platforms and methods certainly exist, are longer lasting, and you don’t have to worry about a sudden ban.
  - tester756 6y ago
    I completely disagree. People who manage to monetize $platform are probably tiny, tiny %. Also there are negative consequences of using social medias.
    - hshshs2 6y ago
      I’ve seen nearly equivalent hires decided on “they have a large social media following” - not a critical factor, but a bonus that makes a difference. I almost lost my job protesting it.
sep_field 6y ago
Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex and Bing, two other competitors to Google. Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race. Same with Twitter. We don't need them, and we don't need competition for them. They should go away with no replacement. Source: was Facebook engineer. Listened to Fuckerberg make one too many all-hands speeches about engagement. Resigned several years ago.
- quietbritishjim 6y ago
  The practical reality is that sharing photos of some group event with the other people at that event is easy in Facebook, and hard to imagine how to do that without some analogous service. I'm aware that many people use Facebook for other odd things but this was Facebook's original use case, and the literal source of its name, and it is still useful for that. Even if you could come up with some alternative or even decentralised way of doing that, this doesn't change the fact that you're addressing the purpose of Facebook, rather than proving your claim that "it serves no purpose". At university (pre-Facebook) I had a friend who ran a Facebook-like server for sharing photos amongst our group of friends. That need was already there and strong enough he wrote code for it.
  - sep_field 6y ago
    Facebook runs a huge amount of different services. Some of them have value, but they are ones that people had and have other alternatives for. This doesn't mean that Facebook as a whole has value, as the whole is more evil than the sum of its parts. Anything of value will not be lost as we de-Facebook the planet. Also, the original use case of Facebook was for Mark and his buddies to rate the attractiveness of their female classmates and share inside information on them. Despicable.
    - reimertz 6y ago
      Would yoy be interested in doing an AMA? Seems like you have a lot to say and I'd be down to listen.
otabdeveloper4 6y ago
The Facebook competitor is "not using Facebook". I haven't used it for ten years, can't say I miss it.
- wand3r 6y ago
  The thing that brought me back is marketplace. Its super difficult to sell on craigslist you get so much spam and super long feedback loops. As a side hobby I buy, trade and sell Danish and Mid Century Modern furniture and finding a market is hard. So begrudgingly I use facebook and chat. It actually is a terrible product but there is nowhere else to tap into such a big market without paying a premium in purchase percentage.
  - Hydraulix989 6y ago
    What is particularly bad about it? Did you try Let Go?
nipponese 6y ago
You can still create an account and use Parler.
- sep_field 6y ago
  ...and be on an FBI watch list.
playingchanges 6y ago
What if, just hear me out, we collectively decide we don’t really like the fb style social media and there actually isn’t a replacement. What if we just moved on?

hntcz 6y ago

I get what you are saying but don't you think that Facebook selectively taking down some pages based on political considerations actually increases their power and not decreases it?

eternalban 6y ago
Only if they are permitted to maintain a pseudo-monopolistic position in their market. So their own self destructive behavior, coupled with legal and societal push for options in the social network market. The legal aspect may include legislation to forbid governmental organs and/or employees (of note) to use platforms such as FB and Twitter to disseminate and or engage the "public". If they engage the "public" then the platform must be open to "public" without restriction.
Larrikin 6y ago
Like when Infowars, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the Parler community as a whole, became more popular and enjoyed popularity for years on end after they got banned? Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about a month. Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets presented. People wise up and peel off.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Andrex 6y ago

Something's going to change, soon. https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-global-menace https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...

geitir 6y ago
Censoring an entire continent* As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the article imo is now trash
- sep_field 6y ago
  It's the kind of typo a spellcheker would overlook. Maybe the article could have used more proofreading but so what? Somtimes content is more important than presentation.
  - mrmonkeyman 6y ago
    With text, the presentation is the content though..
  - geitir 6y ago
    If the person who wrote it didn't proofread it, then the content likely hasn't been thought through.
    - sep_field 6y ago
      every writer knows its notoriously hard to proofread your own writing. you know how it is supposed to read and your brain just kind of goes on autopilot.

hg35h4 6y ago

Doesn't work since big tech all works together to crush dissent and anything that goes against their business model. Look at how attacked any right wing site is - they go after their ISPs, their CDNs, their DNS registrars, their hosting companies. The Internet has got to the point that you cannot even operate a business if it goes against the "values" of big tech, or they chop all your arms off.