5 ms·

Maybe it's because Facebook has become more than a business and has wormed its way into places where it has no business being? A ton of small city governments

Maybe it's because Facebook has become more than a business and has wormed its way into places where it has no business being? A ton of small city governments in the US do announcements and such on Facebook these days. One columnist is advocating giving the a seats at the United Nations, and does not get immediately laughed out of the room by the editor [1]. It's really hard to practically escape their reach, all the "How I left Facebook and it was really great" posts notwithstanding. Being digital Henry David Thoreaus is not a scalable strategy. So I tend to take the low effort comments as a visceral articulation of the relief felt at knowing that the platform and the conspiracy theories and such spreading on it are...gone, albeit only temporarily. I must confess that I myself felt this kind of relief. I secretly hoped that it would stay down; and that we'd get to rebuild a kinder, more honest, and open social media platform or platforms. -------------------- [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-03/give-amazon-and-facebook-a-seat-at-the-united-nations https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-10-03/give-a...

runawaybottle 5y ago
And how simple it actually was, just turn off the sites. Like a giant global, societal parental control setting. Here I thought that this snake had wrapped itself entirely around all of us, but it really didn’t. All we have to do is ‘flick’, turn it off. Body image issues on Insta? Not today kids. How simple some of our biggest problems are to solve. It does make one hopeful.
drstewart 5y ago
>So I tend to take the low effort comments as a visceral articulation of the relief felt at knowing that the platform and the conspiracy theories and such spreading on it are...gone, albeit only temporarily. That's funny, because most of what I read while Facebook was down was conspiracy theories about Facebook being down.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
systemvoltage 5y ago
Sure, this might be true but you're diverting from the point OP is making. May be it's that HN has lost it's ability to have a civil discourse without people downvoting you for the slightest challenging opinion, let alone contrarian viewpoints (which would be flagged). It used to be not like that just two years ago. It is very much reflecting a low effort echo-chamber.
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  > Sure, this might be true but you're diverting from the point OP is making. I don't see how? OP is saying that the low-effort comments are more frequent on this post than on other HN posts ("...an unusual amount of reddit style small comments on this outage"). I'm agreeing with that assertion, and positing a possible explanation for it ("people felt a fundamental sort of relief, and expressed it through offhand comments"). Your assertion, on the other hand, seems to be that these low-effort comments are present on all posts – which seems to me to be, if anything, more of a diversion from OP's point of view.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    > Your assertion, on the other hand, seems to be that these low-effort comments are present on all posts – which seems to me to be, if anything, more of a diversion from OP's point of view. Don't put words in my mouth and this is not what I said. I just see this as an ad hominem attack, ironically diverting the criticism of HN (a factual observation in my view) towards my persons and my ulterior motives.
ngold 5y ago
How private companies like Twitter and Facebook took over official government communication is rather lazy, and destructive to an open society.
throwaway468236 5y ago
In the UK the COVID vaccine was offered nationally through a government site but you could get it sooner and closer through local GPs. They could stop once they had covered the old and vulnerable though. In my area, they carried on for a while but only if you requested an appointment in the comments of a private Facebook group. I wasn't thrilled by the delay, but also thought the assumption of vaccine hesitancy from others in the meantime and hard to navigate process could put some off entirely. But for everyone else, what a sign-up incentive!
- quadrifoliate 5y ago
  Yes, I saw Facebook being a gateway (and a potential roadblock) to requesting vaccines from some US pharmacies last year as well. You had to post in the comments to reserve one or make an appointment.

runawaybottle 5y ago

And how simple it actually was, just turn off the sites. Like a giant global, societal parental control setting. Here I thought that this snake had wrapped itself entirely around all of us, but it really didn’t. All we have to do is ‘flick’, turn it off. Body image issues on Insta? Not today kids. How simple some of our biggest problems are to solve. It does make one hopeful.

drstewart 5y ago

>So I tend to take the low effort comments as a visceral articulation of the relief felt at knowing that the platform and the conspiracy theories and such spreading on it are...gone, albeit only temporarily. That's funny, because most of what I read while Facebook was down was conspiracy theories about Facebook being down.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

systemvoltage 5y ago

Sure, this might be true but you're diverting from the point OP is making. May be it's that HN has lost it's ability to have a civil discourse without people downvoting you for the slightest challenging opinion, let alone contrarian viewpoints (which would be flagged). It used to be not like that just two years ago. It is very much reflecting a low effort echo-chamber.

quadrifoliate 5y ago
> Sure, this might be true but you're diverting from the point OP is making. I don't see how? OP is saying that the low-effort comments are more frequent on this post than on other HN posts ("...an unusual amount of reddit style small comments on this outage"). I'm agreeing with that assertion, and positing a possible explanation for it ("people felt a fundamental sort of relief, and expressed it through offhand comments"). Your assertion, on the other hand, seems to be that these low-effort comments are present on all posts – which seems to me to be, if anything, more of a diversion from OP's point of view.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  > Your assertion, on the other hand, seems to be that these low-effort comments are present on all posts – which seems to me to be, if anything, more of a diversion from OP's point of view. Don't put words in my mouth and this is not what I said. I just see this as an ad hominem attack, ironically diverting the criticism of HN (a factual observation in my view) towards my persons and my ulterior motives.

ngold 5y ago

How private companies like Twitter and Facebook took over official government communication is rather lazy, and destructive to an open society.

throwaway468236 5y ago

In the UK the COVID vaccine was offered nationally through a government site but you could get it sooner and closer through local GPs. They could stop once they had covered the old and vulnerable though. In my area, they carried on for a while but only if you requested an appointment in the comments of a private Facebook group. I wasn't thrilled by the delay, but also thought the assumption of vaccine hesitancy from others in the meantime and hard to navigate process could put some off entirely. But for everyone else, what a sign-up incentive!

quadrifoliate 5y ago
Yes, I saw Facebook being a gateway (and a potential roadblock) to requesting vaccines from some US pharmacies last year as well. You had to post in the comments to reserve one or make an appointment.