iyo did facebook ruin the internet?

Message Bookmarked
Bookmark Removed
Not all messages are displayed: show all messages (1797 of them)

These weird clickbait sites wouldn't go that full distance were it not for Facebook providing them the coverage.

Without FB, they'd have to settle for the page footers of news sites, where the "People With Drivers Licenses From [Your State] Eligible For Cash Settlement" links live.

But they get clicks on FB, which get clicks for FB. Why slaughter that cow if it annoys only a small group of people?

pplains, Monday, 1 May 2023 17:18 (one year ago) link

What if... *huge bongrip* the tagged person died in the metaverse and that's what the link was rightfully showing?

-meta product team

citation needed (Steve Shasta), Monday, 1 May 2023 17:44 (one year ago) link

Relatedly, my IG feed rarely has content from people I follow

there's a filter for that.. tap on the Instagram logo and select 'following'

Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 1 May 2023 20:31 (one year ago) link

Shame you have to do that every single time though.

pplains, Tuesday, 2 May 2023 13:34 (one year ago) link

Just watched two couples that I'm close friends with, who previously had no beef and were very close themselves, end their friendship very publicly in an argument in a FB thread. One where one couple was pretty deliberately misunderstanding the other, even when the other was trying to point this out politely to them.

Kinda blows my mind. The only friendships I've ever insta-ended on social media were people who I didn't know well who turned out to be racist/sexist/transphobic. I could see if someone was being abusive or if there was long-standing friction that bubbled over. Or abusive

This was just one couple's insistence on hearing something the other didn't say or imply

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 01:18 (one year ago) link

- the extra "abusive", lol

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 01:19 (one year ago) link

Facebook is very accessible when you have some kind of problem. Contact them, and they will work to bring your friends back together.

clemenza, Monday, 15 May 2023 01:20 (one year ago) link

I am most definitely not getting involved. I have enough to deal w in my own house lol.

Just find it interesting how many times I see this happen but it does kinda suggest the friendship wasn't as healthy as they thought it was when it does happen

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 01:24 (one year ago) link

The argument was over Guardians of the Galaxy

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 02:07 (one year ago) link

I can't even comprehend what you're saying here, please set more.

Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Monday, 15 May 2023 02:18 (one year ago) link

I was just kidding--see my own troubles with Facebook earlier in the thread. Your account could be taken over by blood-sucking Nazis from Jupiter, and you're not getting any help from them.

clemenza, Monday, 15 May 2023 02:34 (one year ago) link

ok I have to know what about GotG did it

Couple A made a comment about how they thought the public criticism about Gunn's depiction of violence against Rocket's friends was overblown, because it was just fake CGI shit, and people were being too sensitive*. Wife in Couple B lightly pushed back to say that she enjoyed the movie, but that those scenes upset her and that she probably couldn't see it again.

Couple A apparently heard "if you liked this movie you're literally Heinrich Himmler" and reacted needlessly aggressively for the next few hours until they both blocked each other.

*which was weirdly out of character for them, as they are usually progressive and empathetic, so I'm guessing there's more at play here

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 02:54 (one year ago) link

lol clemenza. that was a helluva dry post.

pplains, Monday, 15 May 2023 02:58 (one year ago) link

Defriend anyone with strong opinions about GOTG IMO. not in real life but on social media.

papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 15 May 2023 03:27 (one year ago) link

I have FB Purity to block the words "guardians" and "galaxy" but forgot to get the acronym

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 03:48 (one year ago) link

Lol thank you for elaborating (I no longer look at Facebook nor have I seen the movie so I appreciate the glimpse into the Metaverse).

Random Restaurateur (Jordan), Monday, 15 May 2023 15:22 (one year ago) link

then again, I guess this type of thing plays out in the flesh too.

still remember freshman year of college, scurrying away angrily from the common area as two groups of six people got into a shouting match about the other's supposed misunderstanding of the Star Wars timeline (this was right after Phantom Menace came out!)

Qeq-hauau-ent-pehui (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 15:49 (one year ago) link

The disputes are fiercest when the stakes are small

Twas ever thus

gelatinous cubist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 May 2023 16:04 (one year ago) link

the only relationships i ended via facebook were all very early in the trump era. i made one of those "if you have ever even thought about supporting trump for a millisecond i fucking hate you and you're terrible" posts, and some family and a handful of high school acquaintances made it very clear that they were proud of being terrible

z_tbd, Monday, 15 May 2023 16:11 (one year ago) link

A great way to sort out who you do and do not need in yr life imo

I realize it's fashionable to hate on Facebook but for me it has been a pleasure. I get exactly the right amount of contact with people I only like a little bit.

The people I really love? I have multiple ways to reach those people and I am happy with how much we interact, and If I need a break from them I can just not interact with them; it's fine.

For some reason I have exactly no contact with Trumpy / Republican / conservative people. Like, at all. I literally do not see them or their stupid shit.

I don't think it's because I'm better at curating my feed than other people, nor is it because I live in a rarified coastal cultural bubble (hi I am from fucking Missouri).

For whatever constellation of reasons, the site has somehow done a good job of showing me what I want to see and not showing me what I don't. Sorry for those who it doesn't work for.

gelatinous cubist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 May 2023 17:08 (one year ago) link

I witnessed a friendship collapse over FB recently because one person was posting about travel and referred to his long sightseeing walks as "death marches," and then someone else posted that she has family in Ukraine and is very worried about them so can we not make jokes about death marches, and Person A blew up and wrote a bunch of angry posts to Facebook at large about how he's a member of several minority groups and how could someone have the audacity to accuse him of insensitivity.

Lily Dale, Monday, 15 May 2023 17:18 (one year ago) link

(xpost) All my Facebook issues are with the company itself, and all the weirdness they've forced on me; like you, my friends (real-life friends and FB-only friends) cause me little grief.

clemenza, Monday, 15 May 2023 17:35 (one year ago) link

i have p much no far-right wing friends on FB or outside only because in my 20s and 30s I was pretty hostile to all of those people to suggest I didn't want anything to do w/ them.

the manwich horror (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 17:38 (one year ago) link

The fact that some people can't quite grasp metaphor - or that other people can't modulate their language to suit the audience they are addressing - is not really the fault of the platform imo.

Even here (on comparatively civil ilx) I know I have said stuff that wasn't appropriate. Several times! I try to take those corrections to heart, apologize, and strive to do better next time.

And I have also observed some conversations where I did, kinda, think someone was intentionally looking to be offended and might have been taking something a trifle too literally, and restricting perfectly reasonable figures of speech like hyperbole and metaphor. In those instances there are (inevitable) judgment calls to be made.

To me "death march" seems like forgivable hyperbolic figurative language. But I wouldn't refer to a dinner made on a barbecue grill as a Holocaust. It's a subjective matter of taste and judgment and timing.

Working out those balances takes grace and empathy and thoughtfulness.

Whether it's real life or ilx or FB or Twitter or Reddit or whatever, it's still a matter of grace and empathy and thoughtfulness.

Pretty sure these concepts predate social media and, indeed, the Internet.

gelatinous cubist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 May 2023 17:40 (one year ago) link

I don't think the medium is the fault, but when you're angry and on the telephone or in-person, when tensions get hot, if it truly is a misunderstanding, it's something that usually gets successfully sorted out after a few minutes.

when you're angry and online, and lack impulse control, and don't want to look like the bad guy publicly to hundreds of people, you might wind up going on the offensive and keep typing hurtful things, extending your fight-or-flight reaction to where regret has no chance to set in.

I think most people don't fall into this trap because their predilection is "ok, this has a potential to go bad, let me call so-and-so and prevent things from going south", but there are some who just seem to enjoy having their little battles out in public. idgi really.

the manwich horror (Neanderthal), Monday, 15 May 2023 17:49 (one year ago) link

she has family in Ukraine and is very worried about them so can we not make jokes about death marches

We recently had a pretty big tornado tear through our city, coming way too close to my mother's house.

Talking on the phone about all the damage last night with her, and she proclaimed that the whole neighborhood looked like Ukraine now!

I winced a little, but then had the warm thought of a Ukranian looking at a bombed-out office building, thinking, "Goddamm, we must look like Arkansas now!"

pplains, Monday, 15 May 2023 18:03 (one year ago) link

Watching the essential oils Christians I grew up with devolve from Paleo and CrossFit to COVID denial/anti-vax to Blue Lives Matter to Q-adjacent shit was fascinating, like a nature documentary on the lives and mating habits of white evangelicals.

Then I blocked them all.

papal hotwife (milo z), Monday, 15 May 2023 18:04 (one year ago) link

Tornado has unfollowed you on facebook

z_tbd, Monday, 15 May 2023 18:05 (one year ago) link

like a nature documentary on the lives and mating habits of white evangelicals

(David Attenborough voice)

"Behold the alpha male displaying his Ford pickup truck. He hopes to attect the attention of a female, whilst also discouraging other, less dominant males whose trucks are less resplendent and not as accessorized."

gelatinous cubist (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 15 May 2023 18:12 (one year ago) link

Neanderthal otm. The fact that there's always an implied audience in particular raises the stakes imo.

Daniel_Rf, Monday, 15 May 2023 18:20 (one year ago) link

Neanderthal OTM, yeah (as well as many others).

Not just FB per se, but … I just don’t think this many minds are really meant to be squeezed together on a social media platform. It isn’t necessarily healthy for humanity.

I’ve been on FB since 2011 and it’s been instructive to watch people grow up through trial and error (and also to grow up *myself*) in terms of interacting with people and kind of checking myself as to whether or not my comments or thoughts are really always necessary. Sometimes you just keep scrolling, or mute someone for a month, or unfriend, or whatever. And a firestorm is avoided, mental energy and emotion conserved.

The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 15 May 2023 19:54 (one year ago) link

A lot of people have just left social media - the combative and the mild alike. And as I’ve gotten older, my impulse has been to communicate more frequently with people in real life (remember that?) or singly or in small groups via text or DM, when I have an opinion that’s barbed or need some specific feedback about something. The whole world doesn’t always need to know why I had a bad day or a bad week (or even if I’ve had a good day or a good week).

The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings), Monday, 15 May 2023 19:57 (one year ago) link

one month passes...

Saw this last night, a new low?

https://i.imgur.com/xGO5U2E.png

citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 27 June 2023 15:24 (one year ago) link

(narrator: I saw plenty of posts from friends, and I never see ads on FB nor anywhere else)

citation needed (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 27 June 2023 15:25 (one year ago) link

three months pass...

what the hell is this

Sign up for Meta Verified on the web and get all the same benefits at a discount, including a verified badge.

out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve), Wednesday, 18 October 2023 15:27 (one year ago) link

two months pass...

I enjoy the byproduct of FB that is two strangers ripping into each other on a post about a local event and a friend who somehow knows both people intervening so the other two don't kill each other IRL

Disco Biollante (Neanderthal), Friday, 12 January 2024 05:45 (nine months ago) link

two weeks pass...

Most of my posts in this thread are about how much I hate Facebook and hate that I've let it become part of my life, so I'm really loathe to defend it in any context. But god it's nauseating to watch Josh Hawley and Lindsey Graham get all self-righteous for the cameras in that hearing today. "You have blood on your hands" says Trump/Jan. 6 apologist Lindsay Graham to the approval of the room.

clemenza, Thursday, 1 February 2024 04:28 (eight months ago) link

you don't have to watch that! you and i and everyone except the new york times knows that it's just playacting. don't do it!

that said, the part with tom cotton doggedly asking the singaporean guy if he was a commie spy who approved of tiananemen square was . . . really something

mookieproof, Thursday, 1 February 2024 04:53 (eight months ago) link

I wasn't watching, I just caught it on the news. (If I had been watching, though, I'd say so--I hate the supercilious "Why are you watching this?" posting on ILX.)

clemenza, Thursday, 1 February 2024 05:24 (eight months ago) link

what hearing

bae (sic), Thursday, 1 February 2024 05:35 (eight months ago) link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCB-SQJLr9E

clemenza, Thursday, 1 February 2024 05:44 (eight months ago) link

what does he apologise for

bae (sic), Thursday, 1 February 2024 08:36 (eight months ago) link

three weeks pass...

Anyone else find themselves inundated with unwanted "Reels and short videos?" Every time I hide them and ask for fewer of them, but they're never not there. Complaining via help and support is pointless, of course.

clemenza, Thursday, 22 February 2024 01:53 (eight months ago) link

Reels seems to be a big part of FB's business strategy right now: https://www.reuters.com/technology/metas-reels-revenue-narrows-tiktok-boosted-by-ai-2023-07-27/

jaymc, Thursday, 22 February 2024 02:04 (eight months ago) link

I'll see if I can talk them into ignoring their marketing strategy to please a retired Canadian grade-school teacher.

clemenza, Thursday, 22 February 2024 02:24 (eight months ago) link

two months pass...

What's with this thing where someone posts something fucked up and the first thing someone does is write I HAVE 55 MUTUALS WITH THIS GUY, WTF GUYS, THAT'S FUCKED UP and yet won't state who it is that said it, like everyone knows.

Like I see it all the time now, why is it the assumption that everyone is complicit if they friend someone who eventually says fucked up shit and they're perennially online to the point where they see everything the moment it goes up.

ain't nothin but a brie thing, baby (Neanderthal), Friday, 26 April 2024 21:12 (six months ago) link

I don't really even add people anymore but can tell you it helps a lot more if you just say "hi this person is fucked up, here's their name" so people actually are aware, particularly when the algorithm hides so much, rather than assuming everyone knows and tolerates it

ain't nothin but a brie thing, baby (Neanderthal), Friday, 26 April 2024 21:14 (six months ago) link

It’s a bummer when I do open the app and look at memories and 12 years ago see interactions with a dozen people who don’t use Facebook anymore (me either, really), old friends who live thousands of miles away. Now maybe there are some mutual Instagram likes but no real interaction.

The depths of the enshittification of Facebook are astounding.

papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, 26 April 2024 21:41 (six months ago) link

two months pass...

today, a friend called out mutual friends who were re-adding a FB friend who was a known pedophile. I and another friend asked her if she could provide details, but she hadn't responded yet (likely due to work), so I tried to search friends' FB posts to see if someone else had mentioned him, so I could find out who it was and make sure I'm not friends with them. I did a search for the key word "pedophile".

Facebook immediately pulls up a scary message that "it sounds like you're searching for child sexual abuse", warned me that "child sexual abuse is wrong" and that even searching for the term I put in could harm children, and tried to provide links where I could get help for my 'urges'. no way to side step it other than going. because normally one seeking child pornography would do so by going onto Facebook and typing PEDOPHILE, sure, that scans.

all these protections they put in are automated without human oversight and wind out zapping out the wrong things while actual harmful content makes it past the censors on the regular.

perpetually awkward, perennially unhappy (Neanderthal), Monday, 8 July 2024 21:33 (three months ago) link


You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.