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Every thread about Meta/Facebook always has the save advice to "Just stop using Facebook. Problem solved!" The HN demographic can follow that but many normies

by jasode 2y ago

Every thread about Meta/Facebook always has the save advice to "Just stop using Facebook. Problem solved!" The HN demographic can follow that but many normies can't because Facebook provides functionality for sharing that can't be replicated by email mailing lists / RSS readers / Mastodon / vBulletin, phpBB boards, etc. E.g. my friend sees a Youtuber doing some interesting sewing projects to make clothes. To facilitate discussion and collaboration with viewers (sharing photos, videos of projects), the Youtuber created a Facebook group. That's what non-techies do to empower themselves. Similar situation with normal people using Facebook to share calendars for kids baseball games etc where multiple families can see the same canonical list of upcoming scheduled events. So the article's recommendations for minimizing data collection can help those people who use Facebook in ways that enhances their lives. For the folks that only use Facebook to doomscroll an algorithmic newsfeed (a glorified "RSS reader"), that's the type of user that can "just stop using Facebook". I keep a dummy Facebook account with no followers and nofriends just to access stuff that's exclusively on Facebook. E.g. when I was looking for a tree service to remove some storm damaged trees, it so happened that every tree company I was interested in only used Facebook for up-to-date info. The ones that had their own websites were not maintained and had out of date information. On the other hand, their Facebook pages had the most recent photos of their equipment and their correct phone number. My guess is updating their "real website" requires calling and paying for a web design service to edit things whereas their Facebook page can be updated from the business owner's smartphone for $0. Because of non-activity on my dummy Facebook account, I worry that Meta will someday flag it as a bot and revoke access.

whiplash451 2y ago
> I worry that Meta will someday flag as a bot and revoke access. You shouldn’t. Meta will always find a way to count users like you in the MAU. If they didn’t, they would destroy their statistics. There are just too many accounts like yours on FB now.
spiffytech 2y ago
Several of my friend groups coordinate big events through Facebook events and Messenger. It would be harder to participate if I didn't have an account. Also, in my area, Facebook Marketplace has totally displaced Craigslist for used goods. These are the only things I use Facebook for, but they're hard to get away from.
nunodonato 2y ago
I do exactly the same, no follows, no friends. But its still useful to access the marketplace, and some cool groups which I can't find anywhere. I think we really miss some sort of "community" software (discussion boards won't make it these days), where people can gather around and talk and share stuff. I think Meetup was nice, but the fact that it's way too centered around actual meet-ups, plays against it. I've thought many times about starting to build something, but the thought of having to market it and make it grow to have an impact demotivates me instantly.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  In its high-growth period, Facebook devoured Usenet and forums precisely to defeat that. Low technical barriers meant moderation became important, thus CraigsList is risky.
jckahn 2y ago
Or we could just live without so much sharing and communication. We did it before social media and we were arguably better off. Why is it necessary to be so “closely” connected to so many people? Aren’t the people in our more immediate orbit enough? Yes yes, I understand marginalized people need to find each other. Alternative options like Mastodon already solve that problem better than Facebook because they aren’t owned by Big Tech/the US government.
- sdflhasjd 2y ago
  The thing is that shunning WhatsApp and Facebook doesn't put you back to a time before they existed, it cuts you off completely because they've dispaced what used to exist. Before Facebook there was email and SMS, before that there were phone calls, letters, etc. None of those really exist any more. If something happens, it goes into the family WhatsApp group, if you're not in the group then you don't find out. My parents and their generation still answer the phone at least, and I convinced some fairly close people to use Signal, but generally I'm more disconnected from my family than I would have been in another time.
  - mcherm 2y ago
    I truly do not use WhatsApp or Facebook, and I do not find myself cut off from the world in the way you describe. For instance, family groups communicate via text messages and/or email threads. Maybe my family DOES also communicate via Facebook and I am just missing out on it... I genuinely wouldn't know. But I don't feel disconnected.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    > it cuts you off completely because they've dispaced what used to exist It really doesn't though. You remove trivial inputs from distant acquaintances, old co-workers, 5th cousins, and all manner of other individuals you'd traditionally have no input from. Meaningful relationships survive bailing on social media.
    - jckahn 2y ago
flanked-evergl 2y ago
> The HN demographic can follow that but many normies can't because Facebook provides functionality for sharing that can't be replicated by email mailing lists / RSS readers / Mastodon / vBulletin, phpBB boards, etc. Then normies should not actively be trying to make the service that is indispensable to them non-viable. Either you need to use it, in which case you should not try to sabotage it, or you don't, in which case you should not need to sabotage it. So what is the point of attempting to sabotage it?
- jasode 2y ago
  >to sabotage it? I don't understand your choice of the word "sabotage". The thread's article is telling users about the official Facebook approved ways to turn off some ad preferences. This isn't UBlock, or Pi-Hole, AdNauseum, etc. Similar to official Google method to turn off some ads settings in Chrome: https://www.techlicious.com/images/computers/chrome-enhanced-ad-privacy-settings-670px.jpg https://www.techlicious.com/images/computers/chrome-enhanced... If users have those 3 advertising settings in Chrome turned off, is that also "sabotage"?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
wizardforhire 2y ago
For the life of me Idk why the social graph has not been scraped from facbook yet. Back in the friendster days I distinctly remember being able to import my friends over to myspace and then later from myspace to facebook years later. We used to have a mass exodus every few years and then we we’re locked into facebook. Facebook should have died many times over. That no competing service has been built that has made migration easy is in my opinion the reason facebook has been allowed to fester for so long. That such a tactic may be a violation of tos or questionable legally never stopped anyone before… and on the legal front I would argue it’s the users who own their social graph. Before facebook your address book was a thing of immense value. I have multiple friends irl that would sell their contacts for $10k+. That everyone just decided to give that info to facebook still boggles my mind and especially after all the bs they pulled over the years, yet here we are.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  Graph API sat at v1.0 until Cambridge Analytica. The answer to your question is related to the amount they paid Facebook.
rglullis 2y ago
> I keep a dummy Facebook account with no followers and no friends just to access stuff that's exclusively on Facebook. Facebook still provides an API. Wouldn't it be possible to leverage that API to build a proxy service, and then at least mitigate one side of their monopoly?
JohnFen 2y ago
If the only way I can interact with a business is through Facebook, that's a business telling me they don't want me as a customer and I'm more than happy to oblige them. I've very rarely encountered that, though. Most businesses at least have a phone number I can use to talk to them.
- lostlogin 2y ago
  A harder problem is group activities. I keep bees and ride a bike. The local groups that have support, experience, supplies and all the people are on Facebook (the beekeepers) and WhatsApp (the cyclists). I miss various announcements with the beekeepers but caved last month on WhatsApp with the cyclists, I joined WhatsApp. Being 50km from home with equipment issues, you need to be able to talk to the others and they are on WhatsApp. Cancelled rides or proposed new ones are all on WhatsApp.
  - ttyprintk 2y ago
    I’m in that same social situation. The technological situation is that SMS and Facebook are pre-installed on their phones. In one case, Signal was acceptable. Specifically, Signal only rings when someone is among your contacts. The “do not disturb” feature on their smartphone was not blocking endless scam calls. In another, because Signal needs to be installed, the amount of time performing as IT eroded the social time.
- voisin 2y ago
  > If the only way I can interact with a business is through Facebook, that's a business telling me they don't want me as a customer and I'm more than happy to oblige them. I don’t think this is a reasonable position given what OP correctly said: Facebook makes having a web presence easy for 99.9999% of the population. Not everyone is as technologically literate as those on this forum. By having only a FB presence, they are not telling you they don’t want you as a customer - they just don’t know any better.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > Not everyone is as technologically literate as those on this forum I don't understand how technological literacy factors into this at all. It takes very little of that to have a phone number.
regularjack 2y ago
The right answer is still the right answer even if it would cause inconvenience to "normies".
dfxm12 2y ago
It's not about normies/techies. It's about recognizing that a Facebook group for a sewing Youtuber provides relatively little value compared to a million other things we can be doing to fill up our entertainment time. You don't need to be tech savvy to recognize this. Yes. Just stop using facebook. Call your kids' teammates' parents on the phone if you're unsure when the next game is. Call your local businesses on the phone to get info. Join an in person sewing group. Start an in person sewing group if one doesn't exist. These are things "normies" have always done and still do.
- phito 2y ago
  Indeed, and in the end, these groups are just a marketing platform for the youtuber. In my experience, they bring very little value other than a fake sense of community.
  - _DeadFred_ 2y ago
    This. These type of things used to be good faith helpful things. They are now silo's to attach you to their creator, hord discussions/suck them away from truely collaborative spaces, and generate value for the creator.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  The quantity of scam calls means very small businesses can barely operate a phone. Facebook is their only asynchronous messaging. I’ve met these people: they don’t have email addresses and some don’t know what email is. Promoting “in-person” means becoming IT for them and you have my admiration for that.
- iteria 2y ago
  Okay, but the group for my small regional area that assists people in navigating the system for getting your special needs kid help is valuable and only on Facebook. Normies have historical knowledge that I'm not going to find anywhere about an area that has 100K people tops and involves a dozen or so cities. That's why I'm stuck on Facebook. It's for hyperlocal information and resources.
jaredklewis 2y ago
Stop using Facebook is good advice for most people. For that to be true, it isn't necesssary that there is nothing of any use or value on Facebook. It simply has be true that those benefits are outweighed by the costs. For most people, there is a very real danger that if they use Facebook, they will end up wasting lots of time scrolling through their feed. Given how precious time is, this is an extremely a high cost. I didn't find your examples super compelling. I have kids and they're in groups with shared calendars, and so far no of these have used facebook. If everyone seemed super attached to it, I would go along, but I can't see other parents digging their heels in against "why don't we write it in this shared google doc, which anyone can view or even edit without an account" I have hobbies and interests. There might be some good content or communities on Facebook. There's lots of good content and communities outside of Facebook. It's not a limiting constraint. I also didn't get your techie vs normie distinction. Maybe I am not a techie but I don't use email mailing lists, RSS readers, Mastodon, vBulletin, or phpBB boards. At work I use slack and email. In my personal life, I use email, iMessage, SMS, and Signal.
sierra1011 2y ago
I live in a fairly small town in Wales, and pretty much everything is coordinated via Facebook. Makes it very hard to completely escape it, but as you say a "burner" account is the only way to permit access with minimal engagement.
nrvn 2y ago
Have never been using facebook. Gave instagram a short stint few years ago to remove it eventually because of too high ads/friends ratio in the feed. No problem in organizing social life. FWIW, whatsapp provides excellent capabilities (well, for 2025 where only old timers remember phpBB and can compare to it) for local community discussions and meetups, interest groups, parent groups, whatever group discussions and coordination.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

by jasode 2y ago

whiplash451 2y ago

> I worry that Meta will someday flag as a bot and revoke access. You shouldn’t. Meta will always find a way to count users like you in the MAU. If they didn’t, they would destroy their statistics. There are just too many accounts like yours on FB now.

spiffytech 2y ago

Several of my friend groups coordinate big events through Facebook events and Messenger. It would be harder to participate if I didn't have an account. Also, in my area, Facebook Marketplace has totally displaced Craigslist for used goods. These are the only things I use Facebook for, but they're hard to get away from.

nunodonato 2y ago

I do exactly the same, no follows, no friends. But its still useful to access the marketplace, and some cool groups which I can't find anywhere. I think we really miss some sort of "community" software (discussion boards won't make it these days), where people can gather around and talk and share stuff. I think Meetup was nice, but the fact that it's way too centered around actual meet-ups, plays against it. I've thought many times about starting to build something, but the thought of having to market it and make it grow to have an impact demotivates me instantly.

ttyprintk 2y ago
In its high-growth period, Facebook devoured Usenet and forums precisely to defeat that. Low technical barriers meant moderation became important, thus CraigsList is risky.

jckahn 2y ago

Or we could just live without so much sharing and communication. We did it before social media and we were arguably better off. Why is it necessary to be so “closely” connected to so many people? Aren’t the people in our more immediate orbit enough? Yes yes, I understand marginalized people need to find each other. Alternative options like Mastodon already solve that problem better than Facebook because they aren’t owned by Big Tech/the US government.

sdflhasjd 2y ago
The thing is that shunning WhatsApp and Facebook doesn't put you back to a time before they existed, it cuts you off completely because they've dispaced what used to exist. Before Facebook there was email and SMS, before that there were phone calls, letters, etc. None of those really exist any more. If something happens, it goes into the family WhatsApp group, if you're not in the group then you don't find out. My parents and their generation still answer the phone at least, and I convinced some fairly close people to use Signal, but generally I'm more disconnected from my family than I would have been in another time.
- mcherm 2y ago
  I truly do not use WhatsApp or Facebook, and I do not find myself cut off from the world in the way you describe. For instance, family groups communicate via text messages and/or email threads. Maybe my family DOES also communicate via Facebook and I am just missing out on it... I genuinely wouldn't know. But I don't feel disconnected.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  > it cuts you off completely because they've dispaced what used to exist It really doesn't though. You remove trivial inputs from distant acquaintances, old co-workers, 5th cousins, and all manner of other individuals you'd traditionally have no input from. Meaningful relationships survive bailing on social media.
  - jckahn 2y ago

flanked-evergl 2y ago

> The HN demographic can follow that but many normies can't because Facebook provides functionality for sharing that can't be replicated by email mailing lists / RSS readers / Mastodon / vBulletin, phpBB boards, etc. Then normies should not actively be trying to make the service that is indispensable to them non-viable. Either you need to use it, in which case you should not try to sabotage it, or you don't, in which case you should not need to sabotage it. So what is the point of attempting to sabotage it?

jasode 2y ago
>to sabotage it? I don't understand your choice of the word "sabotage". The thread's article is telling users about the official Facebook approved ways to turn off some ad preferences. This isn't UBlock, or Pi-Hole, AdNauseum, etc. Similar to official Google method to turn off some ads settings in Chrome: https://www.techlicious.com/images/computers/chrome-enhanced-ad-privacy-settings-670px.jpg https://www.techlicious.com/images/computers/chrome-enhanced... If users have those 3 advertising settings in Chrome turned off, is that also "sabotage"?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

wizardforhire 2y ago

For the life of me Idk why the social graph has not been scraped from facbook yet. Back in the friendster days I distinctly remember being able to import my friends over to myspace and then later from myspace to facebook years later. We used to have a mass exodus every few years and then we we’re locked into facebook. Facebook should have died many times over. That no competing service has been built that has made migration easy is in my opinion the reason facebook has been allowed to fester for so long. That such a tactic may be a violation of tos or questionable legally never stopped anyone before… and on the legal front I would argue it’s the users who own their social graph. Before facebook your address book was a thing of immense value. I have multiple friends irl that would sell their contacts for $10k+. That everyone just decided to give that info to facebook still boggles my mind and especially after all the bs they pulled over the years, yet here we are.

ttyprintk 2y ago
Graph API sat at v1.0 until Cambridge Analytica. The answer to your question is related to the amount they paid Facebook.

rglullis 2y ago

> I keep a dummy Facebook account with no followers and no friends just to access stuff that's exclusively on Facebook. Facebook still provides an API. Wouldn't it be possible to leverage that API to build a proxy service, and then at least mitigate one side of their monopoly?

JohnFen 2y ago

If the only way I can interact with a business is through Facebook, that's a business telling me they don't want me as a customer and I'm more than happy to oblige them. I've very rarely encountered that, though. Most businesses at least have a phone number I can use to talk to them.

lostlogin 2y ago
A harder problem is group activities. I keep bees and ride a bike. The local groups that have support, experience, supplies and all the people are on Facebook (the beekeepers) and WhatsApp (the cyclists). I miss various announcements with the beekeepers but caved last month on WhatsApp with the cyclists, I joined WhatsApp. Being 50km from home with equipment issues, you need to be able to talk to the others and they are on WhatsApp. Cancelled rides or proposed new ones are all on WhatsApp.
- ttyprintk 2y ago
  I’m in that same social situation. The technological situation is that SMS and Facebook are pre-installed on their phones. In one case, Signal was acceptable. Specifically, Signal only rings when someone is among your contacts. The “do not disturb” feature on their smartphone was not blocking endless scam calls. In another, because Signal needs to be installed, the amount of time performing as IT eroded the social time.
voisin 2y ago
> If the only way I can interact with a business is through Facebook, that's a business telling me they don't want me as a customer and I'm more than happy to oblige them. I don’t think this is a reasonable position given what OP correctly said: Facebook makes having a web presence easy for 99.9999% of the population. Not everyone is as technologically literate as those on this forum. By having only a FB presence, they are not telling you they don’t want you as a customer - they just don’t know any better.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > Not everyone is as technologically literate as those on this forum I don't understand how technological literacy factors into this at all. It takes very little of that to have a phone number.

regularjack 2y ago

The right answer is still the right answer even if it would cause inconvenience to "normies".

dfxm12 2y ago

It's not about normies/techies. It's about recognizing that a Facebook group for a sewing Youtuber provides relatively little value compared to a million other things we can be doing to fill up our entertainment time. You don't need to be tech savvy to recognize this. Yes. Just stop using facebook. Call your kids' teammates' parents on the phone if you're unsure when the next game is. Call your local businesses on the phone to get info. Join an in person sewing group. Start an in person sewing group if one doesn't exist. These are things "normies" have always done and still do.

phito 2y ago
Indeed, and in the end, these groups are just a marketing platform for the youtuber. In my experience, they bring very little value other than a fake sense of community.
- _DeadFred_ 2y ago
  This. These type of things used to be good faith helpful things. They are now silo's to attach you to their creator, hord discussions/suck them away from truely collaborative spaces, and generate value for the creator.
ttyprintk 2y ago
The quantity of scam calls means very small businesses can barely operate a phone. Facebook is their only asynchronous messaging. I’ve met these people: they don’t have email addresses and some don’t know what email is. Promoting “in-person” means becoming IT for them and you have my admiration for that.
iteria 2y ago
Okay, but the group for my small regional area that assists people in navigating the system for getting your special needs kid help is valuable and only on Facebook. Normies have historical knowledge that I'm not going to find anywhere about an area that has 100K people tops and involves a dozen or so cities. That's why I'm stuck on Facebook. It's for hyperlocal information and resources.

jaredklewis 2y ago

Stop using Facebook is good advice for most people. For that to be true, it isn't necesssary that there is nothing of any use or value on Facebook. It simply has be true that those benefits are outweighed by the costs. For most people, there is a very real danger that if they use Facebook, they will end up wasting lots of time scrolling through their feed. Given how precious time is, this is an extremely a high cost. I didn't find your examples super compelling. I have kids and they're in groups with shared calendars, and so far no of these have used facebook. If everyone seemed super attached to it, I would go along, but I can't see other parents digging their heels in against "why don't we write it in this shared google doc, which anyone can view or even edit without an account" I have hobbies and interests. There might be some good content or communities on Facebook. There's lots of good content and communities outside of Facebook. It's not a limiting constraint. I also didn't get your techie vs normie distinction. Maybe I am not a techie but I don't use email mailing lists, RSS readers, Mastodon, vBulletin, or phpBB boards. At work I use slack and email. In my personal life, I use email, iMessage, SMS, and Signal.

sierra1011 2y ago

I live in a fairly small town in Wales, and pretty much everything is coordinated via Facebook. Makes it very hard to completely escape it, but as you say a "burner" account is the only way to permit access with minimal engagement.

nrvn 2y ago

Have never been using facebook. Gave instagram a short stint few years ago to remove it eventually because of too high ads/friends ratio in the feed. No problem in organizing social life. FWIW, whatsapp provides excellent capabilities (well, for 2025 where only old timers remember phpBB and can compare to it) for local community discussions and meetups, interest groups, parent groups, whatever group discussions and coordination.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]