This came up in the Covid thread, and I agree we should have a thread for it.
If you haven’t already, it is long past time to delete facebook entirely.
I am currently at the stage where my facebook exists, but I use it approx. never. The last thing I did on Facebook was check out my buddy’s Disney picks before the pandemic.
Its a tool that had a purpose a decade ago and fulfilled its purpose. Now its nothing but propaganda. Post your terrible experiences with Facebook here, and post when you delete the scummy thing. Let us celebrate each other as we remove this scourge from our lives.
Then lets get our family and friends to do the same. This is not something we need in our lives. Now is the time to delete it.
I’m back on until after the election. I spam my Deplorable relatives and mock Trump. My cousin has a disabled son and I share that video of Trump making fun of the reporter on a daily basis. She can’t say anything because I’m hard of hearing LOL. She knows I’ll skewer her if she mouths off.
I’ve never had a FB account and yet miraculously I have never had any trouble maintaining contact with family and friends that I never see. If you can’t maintain a relationship with someone outside of FB, you don’t really care or it wasn’t worth keeping to begin with.
This. I left FB last November after my mom passed away, never intending to return. Then when the pandemic hit, it became one of the few viable ways I had to touch base with people I care about.
Now, I’m using it for political activism only. I am a campaign volunteer in Texas and I post on FB in support of that effort.
Finally, I post white hot political memes to encourage my fellow activist freinds. I’ve had several Trump folks take umbrage with various posts and I just explain that they are welcome to derp about any given meme, but it is not intended for them. When I tell them it’s deliberate propaganda to encourage my left leaning friends, the usually vacate immediately, lol
Oh I was definitely happier without it AINEC. But now, my rage compels me to use it for my own selfish purposes. It’s like the dark side of the force. The troll is strong in this one.
I only link with family on Facebook. We use it mainly for sharing family pictures. No one posts about politics. I don’t ever see news stories on there.
People acted like it was a measure of status to friend as many people on Facebook as possible. I never got caught up in that. (Is it because I don’t have friends?) I don’t use Facebook to log into things. I don’t like pages. I don’t like businesses. I don’t play games. I only follow human beings that I know and am related to.
I read the Class B sales group that I mentioned in my RV thread, but that’s a public thread that I don’t have to join to read.
I gather that Facebook groups have taken the place of e-mail lists. I would consider using Facebook for that purpose when I would have joined a listserv in the past, but I don’t currently have a need for it.
Why did people join Facebook in the past? Because you hoped it would help you get laid?
As posted previously I deleted my Facebook account 2+ years ago and it’s a top 5 decision in that time span. I stay in touch with the people I actually care about via phone, email, text, and Zoom. Personally I believe that the sense of connection with more random people that Facebook gave me was false. I don’t miss it even one little tiny bit.
The problem with Facebook is that a lot of people are on it and people suck. 2p2 is certainly no better.
Arguing politics with your family is dumb though. Much better to do that anonymously.
I’ve never used it (maybe 3 posts ever) because I thought the software sucks and I will just call, email, or text people I know irl. I pretty much never have something I want to discuss with a work friend that I want to simultaneously discuss with my brother or vice versa.
Also, monopolies suck and they’re close enough to a monopoly.
People seem to not like email, but I prefer email for just about any non-anonymous communication that doesn’t really need a phone call or to be in person. I have multiple long standing email threads with friends that stay on topic and exactly the people we want in that specific discussion are in it.
Have family farther away and the occasional call and Skype and chat message along with birthday and Christmas cards is plenty to keep me feeling updated and connected.
My BFF moved to Seoul (for what turned out to be only a couple of years) and I was wrecked thinking I’d never hear from him again. But between the incessant texting and some home games on Pokerstars, in many ways was like he never left.
FB is insidious in large part because it becomes a part of your identity. Putting yourself out there in the way that people do goes way beyond just staying in touch and opens your life up in ways we weren’t meant to be so public about.
[quote=“NotBruceZ, post:11, topic:2379, full:true”]
I only link with family on Facebook. We use it mainly for sharing family pictures. No one posts about politics. I don’t ever see news stories on there. [/quote]
If you are going to keep FB and want to truly divorce yourself from the nonsense, the pro move is to perma unfollow ALL news sources, even the legitimate mainstream ones. This is my fatal mistake. I say that I keep it for the multiple terabytes of free pic and video storage I’m getting + to keep up with family birth, wedding, and funeral dates, and that’s all true. But I also get sucked in daily by some idiot in the comments section below a legitimate news story I had no business clicking and I’m almost always worse off for it.
People acted like it was a measure of status to friend as many people on Facebook as possible. [/quote]
That mindset is 100% a relic leftover from the days of MySpace. Those guys really encouraged you to get as many “friends” and network as much as possible, and they were explicit about it (remember Tom the CEO being your first friend?). Even now other social networking sites like Twitter and Instagram equate status with friends/followers. But for FB’s average user nowadays I agree most people who aren’t there to make money couldn’t care less how many “friends” they have, and I think they even still limit standard users to 5000 “friends.”
I joined back in 07 when you still needed a .edu e-mail address to get on there. It was right before first semester of law school and was 100% for networking purposes/because basically everyone else in my class was on there. Still a good chunk of my friends list are former classmates I haven’t seen in over ten years and probably never will again.
Permanently “deleted” my account about 10 years ago. They sent me an email maybe a year or two ago claiming that someone was trying to login many times unsuccessfully. I mean, that’s weird, right? I don’t have an account. I checked the email provenance and it was legit, not some phishing attempt. I knew clicking the link would activate my account which I’m pretty sure is exactly what they wanted–a boost in “active” users, probably for a quarterly filing. I get into the account and I have no friends or anything, it’s all gone. So trying to find the place to re-cancel it and they demanded I send photo ID to which my response was suck it from the back. Hopefully it’s in a state of perpetual lock.
I became less enthusiastic about email when I stopped having a stand-alone email client.
I remember when it cost extra to text internationally.
I guess it’s good for me that being intensely private and compartmentalized about my life is part of my identity. When I go to live sporting events, I usually try to act in such a way as to not give away who I am rooting for.
I have gone to look at comment sections of news stories, but I am looking for specific information about the reactions.
