Facebook is bad

[Queequeg]

If it wasn't such a necessity these days for university, I wouldn't even be using it. I used to actively use Twitter and Instagram before, but I now almost always just use Facebook for Messenger and class groups.

There's also Discord, but I would say it's a tad better than Facebook in the sense that I get to choose the servers I'm in and people I interact with.

I'm interested to see how your cohort evolves with all this stuff. You've been immersed in this world since birth and clearly have a very different relationship with it than older people - certainly boomers and x gen who remember rotary phones and 8 tracks. I get the sense that there are in your age groups people who stay away from all this stuff, or use it in moderation.

[Kurp]

But where I see the difference between good social media and bad is that the good ones' prime function is to provide a service and the bad ones' prime function is to channel advertising to their users. As soon as they start selling eyeballs to big business, they alter the medium to make it more addictive, to be able to sell more eyeballs.

Things changed when the internet started getting monetized in the dot com boom.

Now, information is just a deluge, and I feel so much better when I just shut the spigot off.

I think it’s important to realize that the internet is a wonderful tool to have, however it’s become a method of technological Darwinism.

Those who are ignorant to the internet’s (mainly social media) ill effects will fall victim to its manipulations. Those who use it with awareness will be able to navigate through the pitfalls better and survive the indoctrination.

We can’t turn back the hands of time and become Amish. Promoting education and encouraging parents to teach their children how to safely navigate the internet is the only answer to any of this.

…or just wait for a solar storm to knock out the internet for us.

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-storm ... ea-cables/

[narhwal90]

According to my 15yr old daughter Facebook is for old people and parents, though she does follow a few people on Instagram. Most of her online face-to-face is on discord.

[Queequeg]

But where I see the difference between good social media and bad is that the good ones' prime function is to provide a service and the bad ones' prime function is to channel advertising to their users. As soon as they start selling eyeballs to big business, they alter the medium to make it more addictive, to be able to sell more eyeballs.

Things changed when the internet started getting monetized in the dot com boom.

Now, information is just a deluge, and I feel so much better when I just shut the spigot off.

I think it’s important to realize that the internet is a wonderful tool to have, however it’s become a method of technological Darwinism.

Those who are ignorant to the internet’s (mainly social media) ill effects will fall victim to its manipulations. Those who use it with awareness will be able to navigate through the pitfalls better and survive the indoctrination.

We can’t turn back the hands of time and become Amish. Promoting education and encouraging parents to teach their children how to safely navigate the internet is the only answer to any of this.

…or just wait for a solar storm to knock out the internet for us.

https://www.wired.com/story/solar-storm ... ea-cables/

Its not Darwinism because the point with natural selection is that those who can't adapt die off and don't reproduce. Being a social media addict doesn't kill (fast enough) to actually cull the herd. And these people with hopped up thought patterns, gassed up on Qanon and all manner of intellectual brain damage freely roam about in the world the rest of us have to live in.

And we don't want social media to be deadly anyway. That's the whole point of why some of us are criticizing it and calling for some sort of intervention to limit its bad effects.

We outlaw all kinds of detrimental behavior like drunk driving, having minimum ages to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes, etc.

This is a public health issue. Its an anti-trust issue. This kind of libertarian know-nothingism is a non-starter.

[Kurp]

Its not Darwinism because the point with natural selection is that those who can't adapt die off and don't reproduce.

So suicides from online bullying don’t count then? Nor does the dumbing down of a population to the point of becoming so socially inept that they cannot sustain realistic, healthy relationships? Sure, individuals may not die off immediately from their stupidity, but the effects of social media are mentally culling societies as a whole, that is for certain. We are one step closer to the film IDIOCRACY with each newly released social media app. Actually, come to think of it, immediate death of individuals would be preferred compared to the slow mental decay of humanity.

And we don't want social media to be deadly anyway. That's the whole point of why some of us are criticizing it and calling for some sort of intervention to limit its bad effects.

Which is why I wrote:

We can’t turn back the hands of time and become Amish. Promoting education and encouraging parents to teach their children how to safely navigate the internet is the only answer to any of this.

Now onto this point:

This is a public health issue. Its an anti-trust issue.

Agreed.

Making laws that ban addictive (and sometimes clandestinely toxic) forms of social media like Facebook is a great idea. But it ain’t gonna happen. People will find a way to have what they want, ie the dark web. We’re already screwed. That’s why education is key. People need to know how and why, and not just be told, “No, you can’t have this” like some sort of internet prohibition.

[Kim O'Hara]

and good discussion.

A friend of mine with a yoga teaching background is running a tech-detox programme for young people, mainly teens. She's teaching them to take time out, teaching mindfulness of what it's doing to them (manipulation, addiction). It's a good idea, IMO, but it only reaches the local people who hear of it, and we need far more than that.


Kim

[KristenM]

According to my 15yr old daughter Facebook is for old people and parents, though she does follow a few people on Instagram. Most of her online face-to-face is on discord.

I’ve heard that from youngsters, too. They are so over facebook. But I think Tiktok is a lot worse.

[Kim O'Hara]

According to my 15yr old daughter Facebook is for old people and parents, though she does follow a few people on Instagram. Most of her online face-to-face is on discord.

I’ve heard that from youngsters, too. They are so over facebook. But I think Tiktok is a lot worse.

Discord was new to me so I looked it up - and realised it shouldn't have been new to me because it has been in the news over the last year or so -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_( ... troversies

The owners say they are trying to clean it up. Let's hope they have better intentions than Facebook.


Kim

[KristenM]

According to my 15yr old daughter Facebook is for old people and parents, though she does follow a few people on Instagram. Most of her online face-to-face is on discord.

I’ve heard that from youngsters, too. They are so over facebook. But I think Tiktok is a lot worse.

Discord was new to me so I looked it up - and realised it shouldn't have been new to me because it has been in the news over the last year or so -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_( ... troversies

The owners say they are trying to clean it up. Let's hope they have better intentions than Facebook.


Kim

The name “Discord” says it all, though, doesn’t it?

[narhwal90]

According to my 15yr old daughter Facebook is for old people and parents, though she does follow a few people on Instagram. Most of her online face-to-face is on discord.

I’ve heard that from youngsters, too. They are so over facebook. But I think Tiktok is a lot worse.

I asked her about Tiktok, she is quite aware of the self-selecting aspect of the channels but ultimately she is more interested in watching the compilation videos- much like a 2021 version of vine.

[Ayu]

I’ve heard that from youngsters, too. They are so over facebook. But I think Tiktok is a lot worse.

Discord was new to me so I looked it up - and realised it shouldn't have been new to me because it has been in the news over the last year or so -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discord_( ... troversies

The owners say they are trying to clean it up. Let's hope they have better intentions than Facebook.


Kim

The name “Discord” says it all, though, doesn’t it?

Discord's logo looks like a bug with spotlight eyes. The companies do not even try to hide their purpose.
I think, the kids regard it as normal to be spied out.

[Bristollad]

Discord's logo looks like a bug with spotlight eyes. The companies do not even try to hide their purpose.
I think, the kids regard it as normal to be spied out.

Uhm, actually it's the outline of a game controller with two thumbsticks...

[dharmafootsteps]

The name “Discord” says it all, though, doesn’t it?

I’m a member of several Discord servers, and ironically there’s significantly less discord in them than any other platform I’m part of, including here.

[Kim O'Hara]

Discord's logo looks like a bug with spotlight eyes. The companies do not even try to hide their purpose.
I think, the kids regard it as normal to be spied out.

Uhm, actually it's the outline of a game controller with two thumbsticks...

Next thing you're going to tell us that the name comes from "dis-cord", as in "switch to wireless connections".


Kim

[Tlalok]

The name “Discord” says it all, though, doesn’t it?

I’m a member of several Discord servers, and ironically there’s significantly less discord in them than any other platform I’m part of, including here.

Discord has way better moderation tools than FB. It's a great app for gathering niche communities together, I could see a lot of sangha's getting a lot of use out of it. Of course its online so just assume everything that you post, and everything you do on a computer its installed on is being monitored.

[Kurp]

Hackers can use Discord to spread malware. I never downloaded it / use it and never plan to. Not safe at all IMHO, especially if you’re going into it believing that it’s relatively safe-ish like FaceBook.

[Virgo]

Hackers can use Discord to spread malware. I never downloaded it / use it and never plan to. Not safe at all IMHO, especially if you’re going into it believing that it’s relatively safe-ish like FaceBook.

[dharmafootsteps]

Hackers can use Discord to spread malware. I never downloaded it / use it and never plan to. Not safe at all IMHO, especially if you’re going into it believing that it’s relatively safe-ish like FaceBook.

This is true, but forum software, email, virtually any website can be also used to spread malware. Discord isn’t inherently unsafe, but like anything on the internet, a bit of general web savvy will help to keep you safer.

[Chenda]

Hackers can use Discord to spread malware. I never downloaded it / use it and never plan to. Not safe at all IMHO, especially if you’re going into it believing that it’s relatively safe-ish like FaceBook.

Definitely not "safe" in the sense that it's free from spying but since communities can be very much exclusive (you can close off servers by deleting all the invite codes, for example), it's a great platform for communities and orgs. People can't "hack" into your server if they don't have an invite in the first place, but admittedly there have been instances of hackers being able to access administrator privileges in some servers which could be quite chaotic.

[Tlalok]

Hackers can use Discord to spread malware. I never downloaded it / use it and never plan to. Not safe at all IMHO, especially if you’re going into it believing that it’s relatively safe-ish like FaceBook.

This is why your group's security strategy should merely be tied to the application. You gotta police it to stop bad actors like that getting in. Fortunately Discord can help you with that. It's understandable, its original use case was for gamers to congregate. A lot of gaming communities deal with a TON of harassment so it has comparably more robust tools to deal with it.