Social Media is Evil

[KevinM1]

I have to say, I'm kind of perplexed by Facebook.  I tried it, and the result was: 1) I had peer pressure to pretend to give a shit about people's cat pictures, or that their demonspawn offspring were adorable; 2) people I hadn't seen in a long time, and didn't want to, had an easy way to contact me.  Changed address?  New phone number?  No problem-- Facebook will let your crazy bitch ex-gf figure out where you live!

No.  Just, no.

Eh?

1. Succumbing to peer pressure is a human flaw, not a platform flaw. Moreover, unless the other person is a loser, no one cares about whether or not you like or comment on something. Most people, even those with their face glued to their phones, understand that other people work and have IRL responsibilities.

2. Learn to use privacy features. Don't give Facebook your phone number. Don't provide it your address. Set privacy to friends-only (or friends of friends). Disallow your profile to be found in search results. Don't use your real picture as your profile picture.

There's 0 reason to give any social media account anything aside from an email address (preferably a burner address) and a password.

I only have contact with the people I want to have contact with. And setting it up that way is trivial. 5 minutes, tops.

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I don't begrudge the common moron to have a forum which meets their needs. I begrudge the rest of us being sucked into it.

I wish discriminating people would recognize that forums like Facebook are not remotely a replacement for dedicated message forums like this one. They are two different formats. Let them have theirs but let's keep ours!

Yeah, message boards cost money to maintain but we're managing here, right?

How are you being sucked in? All I've seen is whinging about something you're not even partaking in.

Regardless, AF is managing because of donations and Tibs being willing to make up the monetary difference between costs and donations.

Do you have $500/year to dedicate to running a forum? Do you think most people do? Or the time, to not just do the technical work, but the initial moderation, while also vetting other members to be the initial staff? Do you think that just setting up a forum will result in a large enough and loyal user base to donate and cover some of the costs? Online forums are not set it and forget it software.

Again, it's not that people who use social media in lieu of traditional forums are idiots. It's that traditional forums are disappearing because of the resources required to run them. I mean, shit, TTA just disappeared because of this (I guess someone else may be taking over the forums, at a different domain name, at some point in the future, but I have my doubts re: if it'll actually happen and how long that will last).

Keep in mind, I'm not saying that Facebook or Twitter are great and awesome and wonderful. It's just that, even in this thread filled with intelligent people, 99% of the criticism leveled at them is idiotic.

Want to complain about how Facebook mishandles people's personal information, like selling phone numbers used for 2FA to advertisers, or the just announced breach of 50M accounts? Go for it. Want to blame Facebook for social unrest both in America and elsewhere (Myanmar)? I'd need to hear some more details (proliferation of bots and other false accounts? sure, that's a valid complaint. blaming Facebook for a lack of media education with the populace? nope, sorry). Want to blame Facebook for letting people find you, or other things re: the information you shared? No, that's on you for being an idiot and over-sharing on the internet.