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Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where
by k_bx 5y ago
Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It's basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has been an invaluable tool during the Maidan revolution in 2014 combining its social and video-streaming capabilities. It works in times where media is breaking down, being bought by oligarchs, and isn't to be relied upon.
I don't see any alternative that would replace it, in terms of being social, everyone being present on it, and allowing long text+image+video content to be posted and spread easily.
- theshrike79 5y agoThe rest of the world seems to use Twitter for this. Despite all its faults it seems to be better for this kind of stuff. Facebook's algorithms limit the way posts can be found way too much.
- yunohn 5y ago> The rest of the world seems to use Twitter I truly don’t think so. The vast majority of people I know in Europe and Asia use Facebook, not Twitter. Only my USA acquaintances use Twitter all the time.
- lentil_soup 5y agoI think they meant the following of journalists during troubled times
- shmel 5y agoTwitter literally limits the length of your tweets. What can you say in a couple of phrases in the context of activism and politics? Just link another platform? Don't get me started on twitter threads, this is abomination. My patience usually runs out after the third tweet in a thread. Another day Twitter CEO resigned and he posted a screenshot of his mail. Why couldn't he post it in a proper text format so people can reflow text and read it on different screens? Because Twitter sucks.
- konart 5y ago>My patience Well, that's you. People are different. For some people it is easier to read a thread than a blog post that might be poorly formatted too.
- jtbayly 5y agoGreat point about his resignation email!
- 2-718-281-828 5y ago> Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets That's what you have screenshots for ... duh
- asddubs 5y agoan accessibility nightmare of their own making
- 2-718-281-828 5y agoI'm not joking, though
- theshrike79 5y ago> Twitter literally limits the length of your tweets. This is why we get those god-awful "this tweet thread should've been a link to a blogpost" monstrosities =)
- leshenka 5y agoI despise each and every "@threadreaderapp unroll" tweet. People want to use Twitter as a blogging platform and Twitter itself doesn't want to be a blogging platform.
- jakub_g 5y agoI prefer Twitter personally, but in Poland it's also FB where everyone is, + Messenger and FB groups. Twitter is only really used by journalists and politicians in Poland.
- pawelk 5y agoAgreed. From my observations of Polish Twitter and FB, tweet screenshots shared on Facebook generate more engagement than the original tweets.
- Hnrobert42 5y agoI am curious about how you substantiate your claim about the rest of the world. In Vietnam, Twitter is blocked and Facebook is super popular.
- emptyfile 5y agoTwitter is not really used outside of North America.
- astrange 5y agoJapan uses it.
- grishka 5y agoFacebook has only become as popular in Ukraine as it is to fill the void created by the government blocking VKontakte. And some Ukrainians I know do still use VKontakte despite that.
- k_bx 5y agoYeah, a wise decision by our government indeed. However, one of the major reasons Vkontakte is popular is due to it being filled with illegal music and video content without bothering to remove it, at least most people I know amongst its still-users keep using it exactly for that.
- grishka 5y agoOh, no, it's now kinda useless for that too unless you somewhat go out of your way. They've signed contracts with recording companies and "legalized" most of the music several years ago, killing off the public API (audio.* methods), adding ads (which I've never heard thanks to my ad blocker, but still) and imposing ever more nonsensical client-side restrictions in mobile apps (which I use an old version of) that are removed by buying a subscription. But — despite Mail.Ru Group doing its best to ruin it, it's still way better than Facebook. There's a chronological feed even! And they aren't brave enough to ruin that. Full disclosure: I worked at VK on the official Android app for 5 years, most of that as the only Android developer in the entire company. I quit in 2016 because of growing disagreement with the management about our goals. VK still has a lot of sentimental value for me because it literally changed my life, multiple times over. Anyway, if you do want the experience of the OG VK but without FSB and all the other perils that come with centralization, you can follow the development of my ActivityPub project: https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen