9 ms·

How it is virtue signalling? Is advising people not to smoke "virtue signalling" or just good advice?

hurril 4y ago
You have a problem with autodiallers calling you to talk about auto insurances? Just throw away your phones, problem solved.
- darkwater 4y ago
  If the autodialers were part of the phone company AND the makers of your phone, yeah throw away your phone would be sound advice. Yes, Facebook is that.
  - hurril 4y ago
    Are you telling me that it would be impossible for the phone companies to do away with this problem? That they're not making any money from it? The keyword here is network effect.
    - darkwater 4y ago
      I don't live in the USA, I live in Europe and we don't have anymore a robo-call issue (if we ever had it at all), heck I would say we don't almost even have a cold-call from call-centers issue anymore (it was totally an issue a few years ago).Probably because it was... regulated?
      - hurril 4y ago
        Oh, the Europe Country. I live in a country in Europe too and we do have a problem with cold calls. There was an attempt at regulating it, there's also a service you can subscribe to that supposedly hinders this. Doesn't work though because there are lists of phone numbers and addresses that can be bought that still give you access. And if you're considered a customer, which is extremely loosely defined, they can call you. Sure, it's far from as bad as it seems to be in the US but my personal threshold is 0.
mrkramer 4y ago
It is called disincentive. In this particular case spamming would be akin to the negative externality in the Economics because spammers are hurting the whole system and the whole userbase by their toxic behaviour(activity).
zinekeller 4y ago
"Delete Facebook" If you could delete your Facebook profile, congratulations! However, you should realize that not all people can do this. If your society is not reliant to Facebook, then good for you, I also hate Facebook and Gualdrapo seems to hate it too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576061). However, giving incomplete replacements (especially the infamous "migrate them to another messaging app!") would just result in backfiring and further entrenchment of Meta products. Worse, if that other service really improved a lot they will no longer try it due to past experience. Short of a) Facebook being no longer tolerable to a majority of your friends and b) there's a viable replacement for Facebook's features (especially it's group features - a phpBB-like forum is not good for this), it'll be hard to fully remove Facebook.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
proto-n 4y ago
Very interesting question. I think that's a nuanced distinction that very much comes down to exactly how the other person suggests getting off facebook. If I get the impression that the commenter cares about the well-being of somebody and suggests it as a solution, I tent to categorize it as "good advice". Example: "I had the same problem / know of people who had the same problem, getting off facebook seems to help". On the other hand, when it's a barely related topic (nothing about mental health, only related to the company) + there's no actual person to care about + the comment is very standoff-ish, I jump to virtue signaling. Unsolicited advice, especially when given in a tone like this, is often much more about the giver of the advice than anyone else imo.
smoldesu 4y ago
It's about as helpful as telling someone to delete their Google account or their Apple account. If someone is actually invested in either of these services, they're not going to want to walk away even if they're harmful to their security/privacy/personal wellbeing. The average person really doesn't care, so begging HN users to leave Facebook is almost comedically useless advice. All it serves to do is farm karma and make you feel better for posting it, really. Personally I despise Facebook as a company and a service, but the amount of flak HN gives them is straight-up ridiculous. Facebook is indeed bad, but is this site really going to forget the military contract work Microsoft does, or the religious manhunt Apple aids China in? And yet, when people here about these war crimes they don't suggest throwing away their computer or finding a new replacement service. They just... keep using it. Same as Facebook users. Same as Macbook users. Same as Windows users. And all of this is fine! The overall goal shouldn't be to dictate how other people use the internet. Facebook has a right to exist, and we have a right to hold it in check with relevent litigation. If people think that Facebook violates the law, then let's hold them accountable! Otherwise, your complaints are genuinely useless in the context of discussing healthy browsing habits on HN.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  No one is dictating anything, you have a choice to not buy an Apple (which I admit isn't easy because you just need some apps), you more easily can just get rid of Facebook. That's all.
baby 4y ago
What I hear: “I don’t have friends, so do it like me delete your facebook!” But I have friends
- tartakovsky 4y ago
  Facebook for actual one on one friendships sounds like overkill. Facebook for a small business to have a website sounds fine. And keeping in touch with large swaths of people who live far from you can be tricky, I guess you can use Facebook for that. I’d rather just not deal with anything beyond a few people on a group chat, and text messages seem fine for that.
  - baby 4y ago
    > text messages seem fine for that You’re proving my point. If you travel you can’t use txt message to keep in touch with anyone
codegeek 4y ago
Because believe it or not, there are millions of people who do see some value in using facebook to stay in touch with family/friends etc. Yes, we can argue it is not needed and all but making a blanket statement like "Delete Facebook" doesn't help anything.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  I did it and it helped me. I have a "fake" account to talk to one or two people who refuse to use anything else, so I have to use messenger to get their attention. I never actually "use facebook".
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I just stopped talking to the people who refused to communicate with me any other way. Problem solved.
    - bamboozled 4y ago
      One of them is my pretty technologically illiterate business partner, so that leaves me in a bit of a bind, slowly getting them onto other things.
numpad0 4y ago
I once made a person startled by just saying "oh because I don't have a Facebook" after being asked why they can't seem to find me by name there, so I guess it is a signal to its users.

You have a problem with autodiallers calling you to talk about auto insurances? Just throw away your phones, problem solved.

darkwater 4y ago
If the autodialers were part of the phone company AND the makers of your phone, yeah throw away your phone would be sound advice. Yes, Facebook is that.
- hurril 4y ago
  Are you telling me that it would be impossible for the phone companies to do away with this problem? That they're not making any money from it? The keyword here is network effect.
  - darkwater 4y ago
    I don't live in the USA, I live in Europe and we don't have anymore a robo-call issue (if we ever had it at all), heck I would say we don't almost even have a cold-call from call-centers issue anymore (it was totally an issue a few years ago).Probably because it was... regulated?
    - hurril 4y ago
      Oh, the Europe Country. I live in a country in Europe too and we do have a problem with cold calls. There was an attempt at regulating it, there's also a service you can subscribe to that supposedly hinders this. Doesn't work though because there are lists of phone numbers and addresses that can be bought that still give you access. And if you're considered a customer, which is extremely loosely defined, they can call you. Sure, it's far from as bad as it seems to be in the US but my personal threshold is 0.

mrkramer 4y ago

It is called disincentive. In this particular case spamming would be akin to the negative externality in the Economics because spammers are hurting the whole system and the whole userbase by their toxic behaviour(activity).

zinekeller 4y ago

"Delete Facebook" If you could delete your Facebook profile, congratulations! However, you should realize that not all people can do this. If your society is not reliant to Facebook, then good for you, I also hate Facebook and Gualdrapo seems to hate it too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32576061). However, giving incomplete replacements (especially the infamous "migrate them to another messaging app!") would just result in backfiring and further entrenchment of Meta products. Worse, if that other service really improved a lot they will no longer try it due to past experience. Short of a) Facebook being no longer tolerable to a majority of your friends and b) there's a viable replacement for Facebook's features (especially it's group features - a phpBB-like forum is not good for this), it'll be hard to fully remove Facebook.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

proto-n 4y ago

Very interesting question. I think that's a nuanced distinction that very much comes down to exactly how the other person suggests getting off facebook. If I get the impression that the commenter cares about the well-being of somebody and suggests it as a solution, I tent to categorize it as "good advice". Example: "I had the same problem / know of people who had the same problem, getting off facebook seems to help". On the other hand, when it's a barely related topic (nothing about mental health, only related to the company) + there's no actual person to care about + the comment is very standoff-ish, I jump to virtue signaling. Unsolicited advice, especially when given in a tone like this, is often much more about the giver of the advice than anyone else imo.

smoldesu 4y ago

It's about as helpful as telling someone to delete their Google account or their Apple account. If someone is actually invested in either of these services, they're not going to want to walk away even if they're harmful to their security/privacy/personal wellbeing. The average person really doesn't care, so begging HN users to leave Facebook is almost comedically useless advice. All it serves to do is farm karma and make you feel better for posting it, really. Personally I despise Facebook as a company and a service, but the amount of flak HN gives them is straight-up ridiculous. Facebook is indeed bad, but is this site really going to forget the military contract work Microsoft does, or the religious manhunt Apple aids China in? And yet, when people here about these war crimes they don't suggest throwing away their computer or finding a new replacement service. They just... keep using it. Same as Facebook users. Same as Macbook users. Same as Windows users. And all of this is fine! The overall goal shouldn't be to dictate how other people use the internet. Facebook has a right to exist, and we have a right to hold it in check with relevent litigation. If people think that Facebook violates the law, then let's hold them accountable! Otherwise, your complaints are genuinely useless in the context of discussing healthy browsing habits on HN.

bamboozled 4y ago
No one is dictating anything, you have a choice to not buy an Apple (which I admit isn't easy because you just need some apps), you more easily can just get rid of Facebook. That's all.

baby 4y ago

What I hear: “I don’t have friends, so do it like me delete your facebook!” But I have friends

tartakovsky 4y ago
Facebook for actual one on one friendships sounds like overkill. Facebook for a small business to have a website sounds fine. And keeping in touch with large swaths of people who live far from you can be tricky, I guess you can use Facebook for that. I’d rather just not deal with anything beyond a few people on a group chat, and text messages seem fine for that.
- baby 4y ago
  > text messages seem fine for that You’re proving my point. If you travel you can’t use txt message to keep in touch with anyone

codegeek 4y ago

Because believe it or not, there are millions of people who do see some value in using facebook to stay in touch with family/friends etc. Yes, we can argue it is not needed and all but making a blanket statement like "Delete Facebook" doesn't help anything.

bamboozled 4y ago
I did it and it helped me. I have a "fake" account to talk to one or two people who refuse to use anything else, so I have to use messenger to get their attention. I never actually "use facebook".
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I just stopped talking to the people who refused to communicate with me any other way. Problem solved.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    One of them is my pretty technologically illiterate business partner, so that leaves me in a bit of a bind, slowly getting them onto other things.

numpad0 4y ago

I once made a person startled by just saying "oh because I don't have a Facebook" after being asked why they can't seem to find me by name there, so I guess it is a signal to its users.