Can't help but feel that the world would be a slightly better place if it stayed this way.
We should be careful to not take our values from a spreadsheet.
If this is the event that teaches someone that Facebook is not the Internet, that’s a benefit to us all.
Seriously though, is the net utility of Facebook even positive there? It’s not like those businesses couldn’t interact with their customers over literally any other medium.
Rare problems aren’t enough to disrupt entrenched systems. It will take users suffering some recurring pain to motivate them to move to another network.
I get no credit for fixing things before they break, and sometimes it's shown up negatively on an annual review. If you have to cajole people to help you start to look pushy, or worst case like a bully. I've heard back from two former employers that the moment I left some manager tried to roll back things I did and be surprised when it turned out that the developers wanted to keep things the way they were.
You can see the lights go on for people in the trenches when some bit of software or step saves them from turning a 2 alarm fire into a 5 alarm fire, but the managers don't notice that non-verbal communication, and maybe half the time does someone editorialize the experience for all of the non-technical people (If I do it, it sounds like "I told you so" so I usually don't).
Seriously as transitions go, leaving WhatsApp and Messanger will be the smoothest most painless transition there ever was.
I wish regulators would have though that before allowing the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook. That both of the main messaging apps are down at the same time is worrisome.
SMS used to be priced like you describe until a new operator (aptly named "Free") entered the market in 2012 with free SMS plans and forced the other three operators to align.
Also US based here luckily everyone I talk to is spread across signal/telegram/discord/googlechat for the most part.
But, in general TBH, I don't use texting all that much day to day.
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&q=te...
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&geo=...
Worldwide it looks like Telegram is benefitting. https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=now%207-d&q=te...
lol, how can you be on HN and be this not informed
On the other hand, voice calls on Whatsapp are far better.
"the facebook's going black... no more political battles with elderly relatives, transmissions of any kind... we'll start again, live in villages"
(then cutting to zuck plugged into the planetsized AI... exploding)
It may indirectly, in that it may spur a transition to another platform. Most likely, that platform will also be a privacy-invading centralized service, but in an ideal world it would be something like XMPP, Matrix, etc.
Nobody would ever think about WhatsApp in one month. People that uses Facebook as their photo album would be pissed with losing some old photos taken with digital point and shoot cameras.
Stalkers of former boyfriends and girlfriends would be inconsolable for a few weeks but then move on and be better with it.
There would be a great cultural loss in the disappearance of some groups and even some profiles of very interesting people. But they would resurface, in blogs, telegram channels, forums and whatever else appeared to fill the vacuum. Nobody misses myspace. Nobody would miss Facebook. And eventually Facebook will disappear.
I've slummed it learning a new OS or using a new keyboard, within a couple of weeks you forget you had to change anything.
At the very least there are choices in many circumstances.
Personally I have a least one other messaging app + email address of people I contact regularly. At worst I could send a paper mail.
And I'm afraid I'm not naive enough to think that other companies wouldn't turn to the Dark Side. All of Silicon Valley, perhaps all of the tech industry is evil.
Also, the word "divisive" gives me shivers. It's better to be divided than to be united in a fallacy. And in many cases getting divided is our only hope of ever arriving at the truth.
There will always be false content on social media, but I don't think that means facebook gets a pass for actively encouraging it.
It is systematic, algorithmic preferential amplification of disinformation (at the expense of real information) based on 'engagement' vs truth value, moral compass, or societal value.
And it is allowing orgs like Cambridge Analytica to harvest vast amounts of PII and use that to specifically tune and target the dezinformatsiya.
If you think of Fb as some kind of passive carrier you are horribly outdated - it hasn't done that in decades. FB curates and manages every word of data coming across it's servers at a scale and effectiveness that no actual news organization has evrer conceived of, let alone implemented. And yet they hide behind the "we're only a carrier" fallacy.
It's like the fat epidemic - sure, you can blame each bite of what to eat on the individual, but the rapidity of the overall trend makes in undeniable that the entire food supply has been skewed, limiting the choices such that only those who work diligently to avoid all the usual choices typically remain healthy.
well not just mary-sue down the road disinforming but that of nation level actors doing so to spread discord to the detriment of their enemies. facebook amplified the velocity and reach of this disinformation.
I haven't really changed my default settings and all I see are posts from my friends, the same ads over and over again, and posts from my groups (recipes, potlucks, language practice meetups, going to museums, rooms for rent, questions from expats).
There's absolutely nothing that could "radicalize" me. If you add garbage to your RSS feed reader I wouldn't blame the software, I would blame the person.
Because their FB friends post it, or the groups they are in post it, and they interact with it (even if to say "stop posting this crap" to their family members).
I used to see it a lot, then I unfollowed (but stayed "friends") with the family members who posted that crap or marked the content "don't show me this" and now I rarely see it.
I suppose that commenting or arguing with him would have the algorithm look at the words used, see that there is more interaction than normal, and promote posts from strangers that also contain those words? That's certainly how I would have designed the news feed algorithm.
So is a problem then that the algorithm can't distinguish between good interactions and bad interactions? (If it were me and I could parse comments with emotional intent to determine what are bad interactions, then I would try to learn from those bad interactions and minimize them)
If so then the duct tape fix is to just unfollow rather than let the algorithm think you're interested in that type of content. The proper fix would be to minimize bad interactions, but I guess that's where that whistleblower person is going (but that will minimize time spent on FB, minimizing revenue dun dun dun)
It's not rocket science, every user who uses YouTube and hears "comment on this video for the algorithm" knows that commenting = interaction that is perceived by the algorithm as a sign to get this seen by more people. So obviously commenting on stuff you hate will just get it seen by more people & get more stuff recommended.
It's like if I hate comedy clips and I keep clicking on each clip in order to downvote it. Of course I'll get recommended more clips.
But until having something like that, you're just guessing.
As for the reason for the hate, well, we have to deal with the radicalized people here in meatspace. It's a negative externality that we are subject to even if we aren't the target of the advertising.
After ignoring "region to the West of me" local news, I've had to delete about 40 other regions spanning farther outwards. FB keep pushing more data for you to interact with which in itself is not exactly healthy.
And it's easy to say ignore it, the simple fact it's in front of me, in the part of the screen where I'm reading new information is the problem.
It's not radicalising, it's just an absolute time and life suck. If it weren't for COVID and lockdown I'm sure my local cause would prefer not to use Facebook.
Their aggressive insinuation into the fabric of most websites ensures that there are very few places I can go without Mark Zuckerberg personally stalking me, along with a legion of inhuman advertisers.
Facebook and its sites can't stay down long enough; if they were offline forever, it wouldn't be enough. Even if this doesn't affect their advertising services, any hit to the FB ecosystem is a societal good.