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Comment by nedp | Hacker News Reader

Filipino here. I blame carriers here for making Facebook free-of-charge. Yes, good thing that Messenger let's us send messages for free. But the thing is, we can't see images nor visit links unless you get a data pack/promo or connect to a Wi-Fi.

Especially news, people can't see thumbnails or click links so they directly jump to wrong assumptions based on what they see and hear from the comments. Some people just lost the time to click articles as time goes by.

I wish they made the plan's cheaper but this is the Philippines where internet sucks and PLDT (PH's largest internet provider) and Smart (PLDT's carrier) are the worst.

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Ouch. Now combine inabilitity to read entire articles with the way clickbait works in the real world, where title+perex often times say wildly inaccurate thing to attract you to the actual article, at which point you realize it was basically a lie.

One recent example is where most news sources had a title that some [probably famous] man assualted a woman, yet the only local source had a title where it was clear that both man and the woman were arrested and charged. Google news actually makes this easier to see, because it groups titles from multiple sources into one "story" box.

So like Hacker News? (guilty as charged, and no offense intended since it's not really comparable)

I wonder if people adapt by copying articles instead of linking?

In some posts, some commenters paste the news contents from the link in the comments section but this is most usually happens during election time just like in 2016 wherein there is a hot discussion about a candidate (and blame news websites for bias reporting).

You forgot to mention Globe’s broadband. Which is way worse.

I tried their home broadband. Not bad at all, I think it depends on the location.

Globe is best on mobile. They're the best but not so good with the promo offerings they give.

I agree. It is just their reputation that Globe broadband still sucks. But their mobile data on my area is top notch.

Can you really blame the carriers, at what point does personal responsibility take over?

> at what point does personal responsibility take over?

Maybe a good approach can be:

- When there are millions of people with otherwise functional lives falling for unhealthy behaviour then you blame the carriers.

- When there is a very small percentage of the population engaging in that behaviour, then is personal responsibility.

For example, personal responsibility cannot be asked for when people lack education.

This is such an unbelievably condescending opinion. Filipinos are not so uneducated that they lack the ability to assess the quality of their own lives. Facebook didn’t invent self-destructive behaviour (to use a hyperbole), it will always be available for people to indulge in. Personal responsibility will always be the only answer to it, and to imply that Filipinos lack the education to implement it is remarkably offensive.

The reference to education was an example. I don't think parent implied lack of education in Philippinos

[Edit: spelling]

It's incredible how condescending people here are. Since you see no value in Facebook, those who use it a lot must be uneducated barbarians who are not willing to spend their time on [thing you enjoy]

Economists talk about “revealed preference,” that is, people enjoy the things that they do. But I don’t think that’s actually true. FB, like drugs, short-circuits your brain and just because your reward system is hacked and you spend all day doing it doesn’t mean you actually are getting real value from it.

Like people retired people who will spend all day and most of their disposable income sitting in front of a slot machine pushing a button. I imagine that is not what most of them wish they were doing with their lives.

Carriers are partly to blame for accepting the money from Facebook. They are getting paid.

Yes, personal responsibility is also needed.

Keep in mind though that Facebook has used a lot of behavioral manipulation to squeeze engagement out of its users as much as possible. They purposeful made their product addicting.

In a lot of third world countries, digital literacy is lower than in developed countries so awareness of the bad effects of social media is low. Heck, even the US, didn't realize how bad addiction to social media is until the past few years.

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