2 ms·

I agree with you and I have no plans to sign up for threads, but I have to admit that there's some part of my monkey brain that has softened on meta throughout

I agree with you and I have no plans to sign up for threads, but I have to admit that there's some part of my monkey brain that has softened on meta throughout all this. I am not saying that feeling is justified; only admitting it's there. I think the last decade has given us events and people who went out of their way to make "normal" levels of malevolence seem quaint or even charming.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago
I have a hard time giving up FB because so much family and old friends are on it, but intellectually I know it's awful. Probably worse than Musk's Twitter, TBH. Zuckerberg has personally done a better job of not being public-crazy than Musk (just cringey), but his platform has arguably net-effects worse on society. They crossed the line last fall when they put me in FB jail for posting a picture of my son at the beach in his bathing suit as "violating community standards", and then extended my jail-time further when I appealed and complained. The implication being that I was posting .. CSAM... because their image detection algorithm & moderation sucks... that's awful. Meanwhile they continually try to show me far right or climate change denial material presumably to try to get me to "engage"; yesterday was a meme encouraging people to run over cyclists, complete with a picture of a cyclist being hit by a car, and when I reported it as encouraging violence they rejected my report. Meta depends on outrage-engagement to make $$. Zuck talks a big talk about creating online community, but he's actually kind of created the opposite. Even the active FB groups I've been in around niche topics have become kind of awful in tone recently, like they're doing the same outrage engagement algos in them, too. Or people are just bigger assholes after COVID, I dunno. They really are the worst, in actuality, and getting worse. I think I will delete my account ... but it means losing contact with a lot of friends and family.
- nick-of-time 3y ago
  Facebook is even worse in other countries, where they promote outrage algorithmically then don't hire any moderators to even try and keep it in check. This way they're implicated in the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/facebooks-role-in-myanmar-and-ethiopia-under-new-scrutiny https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/facebooks...
subroutine 3y ago
Perhaps the softening is related to the open sourcing of LLaMa? I softened a bit on Microsoft after it started embracing the open source approach in the 2010s... even if the motivate was being late to the party.
- brucethemoose2 3y ago
  The LLaMA weights still have a restrictive license.
joker_minmax 3y ago
I've seen it too, I personally think it's a bit of the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of thing kicking in. But once you realize how far cyberdespotism can go... normal levels of exploitative do seen a little more chill in perspective.

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

I have a hard time giving up FB because so much family and old friends are on it, but intellectually I know it's awful. Probably worse than Musk's Twitter, TBH. Zuckerberg has personally done a better job of not being public-crazy than Musk (just cringey), but his platform has arguably net-effects worse on society. They crossed the line last fall when they put me in FB jail for posting a picture of my son at the beach in his bathing suit as "violating community standards", and then extended my jail-time further when I appealed and complained. The implication being that I was posting .. CSAM... because their image detection algorithm & moderation sucks... that's awful. Meanwhile they continually try to show me far right or climate change denial material presumably to try to get me to "engage"; yesterday was a meme encouraging people to run over cyclists, complete with a picture of a cyclist being hit by a car, and when I reported it as encouraging violence they rejected my report. Meta depends on outrage-engagement to make $$. Zuck talks a big talk about creating online community, but he's actually kind of created the opposite. Even the active FB groups I've been in around niche topics have become kind of awful in tone recently, like they're doing the same outrage engagement algos in them, too. Or people are just bigger assholes after COVID, I dunno. They really are the worst, in actuality, and getting worse. I think I will delete my account ... but it means losing contact with a lot of friends and family.

nick-of-time 3y ago
Facebook is even worse in other countries, where they promote outrage algorithmically then don't hire any moderators to even try and keep it in check. This way they're implicated in the genocide of the Rohingya people in Myanmar: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/facebooks-role-in-myanmar-and-ethiopia-under-new-scrutiny https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/oct/07/facebooks...

subroutine 3y ago

Perhaps the softening is related to the open sourcing of LLaMa? I softened a bit on Microsoft after it started embracing the open source approach in the 2010s... even if the motivate was being late to the party.

brucethemoose2 3y ago
The LLaMA weights still have a restrictive license.

joker_minmax 3y ago

I've seen it too, I personally think it's a bit of the old "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of thing kicking in. But once you realize how far cyberdespotism can go... normal levels of exploitative do seen a little more chill in perspective.