You’re not angry at Facebook, but with your friends

Nope I'm angry with Facebook. The point in the article about people's lack of genuine socialisation on Facebook not being Facebooks fault may be true, although here too Facebook's design plays a role by pushing the news feed instead of private conversation until recently.

But that entirely misses the point. This is the last thing people blame Facebook for. People are upset with Facebook because of their mistreatment of user data, the influence of 'fake news' (which sadly has to be put in quotes because it's been hijacked long ago by the producers of fake news), undermining democracy, and so on.

I don't buy it one bit. The medium forms the message: FB's structure (non-linear timelines, "one authentic identity", "it's their birthday!" engagement fishing) optimizes for short-term user numbers via flamewars and vapid bullshit over quality interactions. No shit you'll hate your friends if you're seeing them get into bare-knuckle political arguments with your uncle or the algorithm only surfaces their fun vacation pics when you're particularly depressed.

At the risk of sounding totally full of it, I, as a longtime FB-deleter, am experiencing none of the problems the author describes in the last half. I'd agree that deleting FB _and not replacing those channels of interaction with something else_ is a mistake, but it's not like there are alternatives whose first goal isn't to make money off of you. Recent stuff like the Fediverse, in concert with the good old stuff that never stopped working like mumble and irc, is capable of delivering what I think is a much better-rounded online social experience.

Nah. Im pretty angry with Facebook

Only in the sense that Facebook allows my "friends" to "share" / give away my personal info to third parties as a condition of them playing whatever the new equivalent of Farmville is.

The number of people who are clueless to this is an ongoing, never-ending mind-boggle.

What a stupid title, thx for telling me what I think