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The fundamental problem presented to us by Facebook is that they forbid more than one account. So a human person's Facebook profile needs to be a "kitchen sink"

The fundamental problem presented to us by Facebook is that they forbid more than one account. So a human person's Facebook profile needs to be a "kitchen sink" style presence that's acceptable to all our friends and acquaintances no matter how we know them. This is unprecedented and unnatural for eusocial human beings. We all have different personas and circles that we operate in, and so for me to put something on a Facebook profile where it can be discovered by anyone who knows me, that's disconcerting and it makes me feel naked. It is also not cool for people who don't really care about those aspects of me. I know a lot of Linux/IT nerds and I also know church people - the IT people don't care about the saints I'm praying to or the pro-life cause I'm celebrating. And vice versa. But Facebook insists that it's one profile for everyone, and then they create features like we can add friends to "lists" to restrict post access, and "The Algorithm" determines what goes on someone's feed rather than just having us organically share like with like. That's a huge inefficiency and it's a recipe for disaster in most cases. Pragmatically, people like me keep our FB footprint really small and we post nothing but totally uncontroversial, universal-appeal stories, such as what we ate for dinner and how we prepared it.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago
Underrated comment - I don't know why you're being voted down, but let me remedy this.
zokier 4y ago
Why is multiple accounts better solution than one account with multiple friend lists? Conceptually they are pretty much the same thing
- boltzmann-brain 4y ago
  In many situations, you don't want some of your followers knowing about followers from the other contexts, or accounts you follow from those other contexts. For example, your business followers might or might not appreciate the fact that you get replies from friends you made at a rave.
- harperlee 4y ago
  It was already covered: the platform can’t assume multiple accounts are owned by the same person for anything. Whereas multiple friend list for a unique account gives them the relation among them; now it is a question of when, not if, something like the automatic feed makes use of it.
notacoward 4y ago
> they forbid more than one account ...but they're working toward multiple profiles per account. https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/facebook-tests-add-up-to-five-profiles-single-account/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/facebook-tests-add-up-to-f... At first it might seem that multiple profiles directly address the OP's problem, but I'm not sure. Having a way to communicate with completely separate groups of friends is one thing, but having a way to communicate with overlapping groups of friends is quite another. AFAICT the multiple-profile feature doesn't solve the latter. Also, the way it's implemented wrt blocking is a bit of a disaster for members of marginalized groups. Blocking is per profile, not per account, so a stalker/harasser who has had one profile blocked can trivially create another to continue their mayhem. It's ironic, because a good implementation of multiple profiles would actually be useful to protect vulnerable people. As usual, though, Facebook found a way to make it actively harmful.

boltzmann-brain 4y ago

Underrated comment - I don't know why you're being voted down, but let me remedy this.

zokier 4y ago

Why is multiple accounts better solution than one account with multiple friend lists? Conceptually they are pretty much the same thing

boltzmann-brain 4y ago
In many situations, you don't want some of your followers knowing about followers from the other contexts, or accounts you follow from those other contexts. For example, your business followers might or might not appreciate the fact that you get replies from friends you made at a rave.
harperlee 4y ago
It was already covered: the platform can’t assume multiple accounts are owned by the same person for anything. Whereas multiple friend list for a unique account gives them the relation among them; now it is a question of when, not if, something like the automatic feed makes use of it.

notacoward 4y ago

> they forbid more than one account ...but they're working toward multiple profiles per account. https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/facebook-tests-add-up-to-five-profiles-single-account/ https://techcrunch.com/2022/07/14/facebook-tests-add-up-to-f... At first it might seem that multiple profiles directly address the OP's problem, but I'm not sure. Having a way to communicate with completely separate groups of friends is one thing, but having a way to communicate with overlapping groups of friends is quite another. AFAICT the multiple-profile feature doesn't solve the latter. Also, the way it's implemented wrt blocking is a bit of a disaster for members of marginalized groups. Blocking is per profile, not per account, so a stalker/harasser who has had one profile blocked can trivially create another to continue their mayhem. It's ironic, because a good implementation of multiple profiles would actually be useful to protect vulnerable people. As usual, though, Facebook found a way to make it actively harmful.