I got banned from Facebook

[Samson]

Yeah, I could. But who would read it and interact? Interaction and discussion are why I went online in the first place 17 years ago.

This is off course what fesesbook et al. do, they are good at driving peoples attention without the creator having to do the work. However I believe if you write what is worth reading you should be able to get readers, and they can interact in the comments. How this scales to a social media-esk interaction is a question, but I feel it is defeatist to say it cannot be done and so feel it is compulsory to give zuckerberg all your and your readers data so he can sell adverts.

Of course it is a choice you can make, but it should be recognised as a choice, not a necessity. I hope the internet using community will get better at choosing who they have driving their attention, and pointing this out is one way that we can move towards that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

This is off course what fesesbook et al. do, they are good at driving peoples attention without the creator having to do the work. However I believe if you write what is worth reading you should be able to get readers, and they can interact in the comments. How this scales to a social media-esk interaction is a question, but I feel it is defeatist to say it cannot be done and so feel it is compulsory to give zuckerberg all your and your readers data so he can sell adverts.

Of course it is a choice you can make, but it should be recognised as a choice, not a necessity. I hope the internet using community will get better at choosing who they have driving their attention, and pointing this out is one way that we can move towards that.

I don't see ads on FB.

Well, I do think that what I write is worth reading, and going by the number of "likes" I've gotten on some topics, I'm not just being vain in saying so. But the question is how to let people know that the blog is there in the first place. There are many people on CBC who are fed up with the insane censorship there, and lately there have been a number of questionable articles about such things as accusing the average Canadian person of being racist for not knowing how to pronounce certain Arabic names. Well, excuse us, but if you don't explain how it's pronounced and just leave people to guess based on the spelling and they guess wrong, it's not anyone else's fault but your own. And then there are the articles that toss out the words "colonizer" and "settler" and tell everyone who isn't FN/indigenous that we're supposed to feel this tremendous guilt for things that happened all the way from 500 years ago to last week, regardless of whether we were even born or could do anything to prevent it... and these are not open to comments... yeah, people are getting angry.

It's also frustrating that most articles about disability aren't open to comments. Apparently people like me are not considered abled enough to speak for ourselves - we must have "experts" to speak for us, as though they know the situation of every disabled person in Canada.

 

[warpus]

My textmode art group of friends are used to "oldschool" ways of communicating like Bulletin Board Systems. We all pretty much hate facebook, but use it to connect. A lot of us have since migrated to discord to chat and exchange ideas, but that place is basically.. IRC for morons.. It's not that bad really, but.. it's basically IRC with extra hoops to jump through.

Anyway, what I'm trying to get at. Online communities don't have to be toxic like facebook or twitter. Just like at uhm this forum here maybe

Some of you who are too young to have experienced BBS', would have probably loved them. Somewhat clunky, but the message boards weren't just people hitting LIKE and writing something spelled wrong about Jesus or something political about cardboard. Lots of great discussions, and of course a lot of garbage too, but not nearly to the same extent as now. And nobody was keeping track of what we like and then bomboarding us with ads related to it. Nobody was stealing our data, even though each BBS was a private thing administered by some pimpled teenager in his parents' basement. We only had 8 bit graphics and super slow speeds and somehow it was.. better.

It was better but none of us call BBS anymore, even though they're up. The userbase is just not there anymore, and we're all used to click and point and boom you're on. A BBS is more clunky. Maybe one day somebody will improve them a bit - people are still programming upgrades to BBS software today..

Yeah, facebook helps connect you to people easier, but it's.. well, evil. So.. I do sort of miss those old days, when you couldn't even go online, because the mainstream internet didn't exist yet. I was running a BBS when I was a teen and people would call it and occasionally I'd see what they're up to. I'd call other BBS' on the other line, leave some messages, connect with people, and then disconnect. And that's that! I was disconnected and when I left the house nobody could message me. So nice..

Eventually facebook will die and will be replaced by some other thing. Assfilm. Or whatever. The kids will all jump on some thing and it will be the new thing. And it will suck

 

[amadeus]

Some censorship makes NO sense. I've been censored on CBC for the name "Margaret Atwood"

heh heh, wood.

Well, I don’t know where I’m coming at this morning (morning here!) but here come the pretzels: Tuckerberg and let’s throw in Bezos, what have they got between the two of them? A bulletin board and a catalog. Whoopee. That’s what gets you four hundred billion dollars? You can’t see the face I’m making, maybe I need some kind of book to put it in.

What’s the latest development? Oh, virtual reality, sorry, the “metaverse.” What can you do? You can fly, you can go to a virtual concert (it’s always a concert!) or you can play virtual ping-pong (and it’s always ping-pong!) But wait, there’s more: now you can look at virtual ads for virtual merch and spend your real dollars on them. “I Went to the Metaverse and All I Got was a Sequence of Bits” virtual T-shirt, how about that? Very meta, guess I’m going to be the first metabillionaire.

I heard a phrase that stuck with me, a culture that “fetishizes the authentic,” might have been from the NYT. Good descriptor for what I last saw—granted I’m coming up on about fifteen years of isolation from the cultural Anglo-verse. Are people still paying seventy $$$ for an “artisanal” hamburger? Bespokeburgers? How do you meld that with a supposed universe where nothing has any physical properties at all?

I think we’re all being taken in by space-age grifters.

 

[warpus]

Zuckerberg and let’s throw in Bezos, what have they got between the two of them? A bulletin board and a catalog.

Zuckerberg has a lot more than that. He has a bulletin board where people voluntarily submit all their personal details for FREE that he then sells to advertisers and who knows who else. That's why it's worth so much. It's essentially a mass surveilance network that does not require any spies or torture chambers. He's cut out the middlemen and convinced the users to enter all their personal details without a punch thrown! and no waterboarding! Or secret cameras. It's brilliant (if you're evil)

 

[uppi]

You know that most people do not run a node? You just need one in a thousand or so to be able to run a node, and others can use it. I guess it will not surprise you to know I do not have that problem with whatsapp, a closed source program that has a history of getting people killed because of its poor security holds no temptation for me.

It is not like fecesbook is any less technical that diaspora, it is just the tech is a bit more hidden. It is no harder to start using than whatsapp (I guess, install a bit of software and create an account).

I could run a node if I really wanted to, but why would I? Setting it up is one thing, but then I would have to maintain hit, convince my friends to use it, do tech support and then my friends would complain to me when it would not be working. That is way to much effort that I would do it based on idealism alone. And I am one of the very few people I know who has enough idealism to avoid whatsapp and pay the social price for that.

 

[amadeus]

@warpus I think its value in data collection is over-rated by many magnitudes. They can take my stool sample if they want, I’m still not buying LED Christmas lights.

 

[warpus]

If it wasn't worth their time to sell all that, facebook wouldn't exist.

 

[amadeus]

If it wasn't worth their time to sell all that, facebook wouldn't exist.

Facebook is just the advertisers’ advertiser, selling companies endorphins on loan from cognitive biases.

 

[warpus]

Just because you lie about what kind of underpants you like on facebook or whatever, doesn't mean that overall this data isn't very useful to many people (and it wouldn't make sense to just give it away for free either). It's not only the likes and the details you type in, but also the connections, the places you've been etc.

I also lie about what kind of underpants I like on facebook FWIW

 

[NovaKart]

I don't see ads on FB.

Well, I do think that what I write is worth reading, and going by the number of "likes" I've gotten on some topics, I'm not just being vain in saying so. But the question is how to let people know that the blog is there in the first place. There are many people on CBC who are fed up with the insane censorship there, and lately there have been a number of questionable articles about such things as accusing the average Canadian person of being racist for not knowing how to pronounce certain Arabic names. Well, excuse us, but if you don't explain how it's pronounced and just leave people to guess based on the spelling and they guess wrong, it's not anyone else's fault but your own. And then there are the articles that toss out the words "colonizer" and "settler" and tell everyone who isn't FN/indigenous that we're supposed to feel this tremendous guilt for things that happened all the way from 500 years ago to last week, regardless of whether we were even born or could do anything to prevent it... and these are not open to comments... yeah, people are getting angry.

It's also frustrating that most articles about disability aren't open to comments. Apparently people like me are not considered abled enough to speak for ourselves - we must have "experts" to speak for us, as though they know the situation of every disabled person in Canada.

I don’t know how anyone could promote their blog content without Twitter or some other social media unless they’re already well-known and even then they would probably want to advertise that.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

heh heh, wood.

I'd like to think the CBC unaccountable, biased moderators are older than 12 with minds that aren't in the gutter, but sadly it seems that some of them are.

Well, I don’t know where I’m coming at this morning (morning here!) but here come the pretzels: Tuckerberg and let’s throw in Bezos, what have they got between the two of them? A bulletin board and a catalog. Whoopee. That’s what gets you four hundred billion dollars? You can’t see the face I’m making, maybe I need some kind of book to put it in.

What’s the latest development? Oh, virtual reality, sorry, the “metaverse.” What can you do? You can fly, you can go to a virtual concert (it’s always a concert!) or you can play virtual ping-pong (and it’s always ping-pong!) But wait, there’s more: now you can look at virtual ads for virtual merch and spend your real dollars on them. “I Went to the Metaverse and All I Got was a Sequence of Bits” virtual T-shirt, how about that? Very meta, guess I’m going to be the first metabillionaire.

I heard a phrase that stuck with me, a culture that “fetishizes the authentic,” might have been from the NYT. Good descriptor for what I last saw—granted I’m coming up on about fifteen years of isolation from the cultural Anglo-verse. Are people still paying seventy $$$ for an “artisanal” hamburger? Bespokeburgers? How do you meld that with a supposed universe where nothing has any physical properties at all?

I think we’re all being taken in by space-age grifters.

I guess it's weird that my latest book purchase was the Kindle edition of a how-to manual about embroidery. It's not that I don't know how to embroider - I do, but just basic stuff and whatever I learned in the SCA (I took an Ithra course in Yemenite embroidery).

I also learned that when you're embroidering garments, you need to pay attention to what you're doing. The seneschale of our shire spent 2 YEARS embroidering a sideless surcoat she was making for herself. The fabric wasn't anything special - some kind of grey colored inexpensive material. The embroidery, however... she spent 2 years embroidering that thing in a complicated pattern of gold thread using blackwork stitches. One night at an Arts & Sciences meeting she declared triumphantly that she was FINISHED and promptly scampered into the bathroom to change so she could show it all off.

Whereupon we heard a shrill scream, and then hysterical laughter.

It turned out that she'd just spent 2 years embroidering the BACK of her dress, instead of the front. The back, that would hardly be seen, and you really don't want to sit on metallic thread, as it's rather delicate (and pricey).

Well, I can sympathize with the frustration, as I once accidentally sewed one of my costume hats together sideways and had to spend another 8-9 hours taking it apart and doing it right - the day before the SF convention.

But this woman and I never got along very well, so I carefully did not laugh at the meeting. I saved my own hysterical laughter until I got home.

I don’t know how anyone could promote their blog content without Twitter or some other social media unless they’re already well-known and even then they would probably want to advertise that.

That's exactly the problem. I'd never be allowed to mention it on CBC, and the regular commenters there are exactly the readers I'd be looking for. I can't even post it on the CBC FB page, because they've permanently banned comments there as well.

I nuked my own Twitter account years ago due to hacking. I might need to get another one, though, since my MLA has decided to post her updates there rather than on her FB page (I guess she finally realized that only about 3 people who post there actually like her and the rest of us hate her).

Probably my best chance on CBC would be if I could successfully pitch an opinion piece, but they probably wouldn't like what I'd have to say. It's just mindcroggling how obnoxious TPTB have become there.

 

[amadeus]

Just because you lie about what kind of underpants you like on facebook or whatever,

Generic polyester blend boxers that I get from the discount store.

 

[NovaKart]

That's exactly the problem. I'd never be allowed to mention it on CBC, and the regular commenters there are exactly the readers I'd be looking for. I can't even post it on the CBC FB page, because they've permanently banned comments there as well.

I nuked my own Twitter account years ago due to hacking. I might need to get another one, though, since my MLA has decided to post her updates there rather than on her FB page (I guess she finally realized that only about 3 people who post there actually like her and the rest of us hate her).

Probably my best chance on CBC would be if I could successfully pitch an opinion piece, but they probably wouldn't like what I'd have to say. It's just mindcroggling how obnoxious TPTB have become there.

I think Twitter is better for connecting with people you don’t know who have certain interests. I just use Facebook for people I know personally. But people do use Facebook groups and pages.

 

[Quintillus]

A few days ago, a friend texted me to ask, "Are you not on Facebook?" as he was trying to invite me to an event via Facebook. I haven't had a Facebook account for over three years, and he apparently hadn't noticed (and had invited me to plenty of events by e-mail, text, call, or in person during that time).

I found quitting Facebook made my life less stressful, and more productive. I still waste time online, but at least it's discussing things on CFC, or reading a long but fascinating article about an obscure topic, such as stagecoach rides in early 1800s England, instead of hearing 40 people that I used to know chime in on whatever the latest headline is, or talk about what they had for breakfast this morning (okay, that was more Facebook 2008 than 2018).

I think for most of us, Facebook also becomes a bubble that reinforces our world views. You know how you Newsfeed-blocked those friends who kept posting angry political messages that irked you? Yeah, me too. You know how most people who reply to your political posts agree with you? The ones who don't probably didn't even see it. If not because they blocked you from their Newsfeed, then because Facebook shows them content from the friends whose posts they are most likely to respond to. Before I quit, I remember checking a few profiles of people I knew way back when I joined but hadn't heard about forever. Turns out many of them had still been posting, I just wasn't being shown what they were posting because I hadn't searched for them (or reacted to any of their content) in so long.

My social life does not appear to have been negatively affected by quitting Facebook. The people that I was seeing in real life were already in contact with me by other means. It probably does help that several other friends quit Facebook, or quit using it, within the past five years. But even among those who are still active on it, there's a silver lining that when we catch up, we don't already know what the other one has done because we haven't read about it online. So we can tell each other the stories from our lives and not be bored because we've already heard it. Although I do have an Instagram, where I follow my sister's cats. That's a pretty reliably positive subject matter.

I suspect I may have been one of the people whom @warpus mentioned who would have enjoyed BBSs, but missed the boat on them. I've occasionally searched for an equivalent, including figuring out how to connect to actual BBS systems via Telnet from an old XP box in 2018; I found a nice, slow one hosted on an Apple II. I've also followed the Gemini project off and on, which has some promise for a more intimate, text-first, de-commercialized and de-sensationalized alternative to the Web.

------------

Returning to the original subject, 3 days isn't enough to break the grip Facebook has. But if you continue to get banned, and it's for longer times each time, you might eventually break free. It's an option worth considering.

 

[Samson]

I don’t know how anyone could promote their blog content without Twitter or some other social media unless they’re already well-known and even then they would probably want to advertise that.

You know weblogs existed before twitter and FB?

 

[NovaKart]

A lot of weblogs no one read unless they stumbled on it somehow.

 

[Samson]

A lot of weblogs no one read unless they stumbled on it somehow.

That is the story of the internet, on or off fecesbook.

 

[Gorbles]

I mean, some of us put it in our forum signatures (and anywhere else it can go), but it doesn't really help much. Of course, if I ever had a stable readerbase, I'd actually have to come up with semi-regular content. Yeesh.

 

[warpus]

I suspect I may have been one of the people whom @warpus mentioned who would have enjoyed BBSs, but missed the boat on them. I've occasionally searched for an equivalent, including figuring out how to connect to actual BBS systems via Telnet from an old XP box in 2018; I found a nice, slow one hosted on an Apple II. I've also followed the Gemini project off and on, which has some promise for a more intimate, text-first, de-commercialized and de-sensationalized alternative to the Web.

I'm not sure if you are on facebook or not, but I am a member of multiple BBS aficionado and sysop groups there. Let me know if you are interested and I can send you an invite, the barrier to entry is pretty low. Sysops post their BBS links there, and these days a lot of those have a web access point of some sort, at least from what I understand (I haven't exactly called any new ones in a while). There's also all sorts of discussions about all things retro really, it's not exclusive to BBS' discussions, although that is the focus. These groups also has some coders who are building the BBS solutions of tomorrow.. still. There's artists like there me too. So it's a pretty interesting space.

Here's some active BBS you can easily access via the web that I remember off the top of my head.. Aaactually I only remember one it seems. It has some fantastic art though, and 2 of the sysops are friends of mine. If you happen to sign up, you can use me as a reference (if it asks)

Undercurrents BBS - https://undercurrents.io/