Facebook Is the 'Zombie Internet'
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I have many friends and family who share events, experiences, and ideas on Facebook every day. Many of the groups share cherished memories (or interesting trivia) of beloved hometowns, attractions (such as amusement parks), natural settings, and pop culture.
Many of us who use it are aware of the bot problem and of the content posted to stoke outrage (aka "engagement"). But that doesn't negate the living and vital community interactions happening there.
I've unaware that any of the large networks are anything but complete garbage (insert reply comment about how there are a couple great niche subreddits).
Commercial shilling have gone hay wire too.
I dunno if the ratio of insane people to normal people has changed, but judging from Reddit I really hope the toxicity scares away users rather than some fundamental shift.
I work with clients and marketing agencies to host web infrastructure that includes their main site, which is often their only marketing website. (Some clients have multiple marketing sites.)
What I see from that is that with respect to small businesses in particular, Facebook and Google advertising platforms are in effect the only games in town metaphorically and somewhat literally.
Metaphorically because these two players dominate the online advertising space. “Somewhat literally” because of two things: i) the issue called out here which is that for many people Facebook has become more or less interchangeable with the concept of the Internet; and ii) because when people aren’t using Google, they’re using Facebook, and the “local” nature of Facebook gets laundered into some amount of perceived credibility.
In the words of a salesperson I was recently talking to about online advertising: “if you’re not advertising on Facebook, you’re not advertising.”
Meta has a perverse incentive here. Everything that drives interactions with and traffic to their platforms creates that much more they can offer in aggregate to advertisers. They’re incentivized to foster interaction (authentic or not) to keep advertisers interested. Advertisers don’t really have much in the way of alternatives because no one else can offer the kind of targeting, analytics, and just plain eyes-on-ads impressions that Meta can provide.
Advertisers aren’t interested in creating a competing option because, well, why would they want to do that?
And in the case of zombies, let's not forget the "deadbook" phenomena, which many predicted already back when FB was only picking steam: accounts from dead people, but where others sometimes still comment / upvote / like / tag / whatever.
I remember a post saying "Hey xxx, long time no see, what are you up to?" to someone I knew who was dead more than a year ago.
That was chilling and eerie.
I'm sorry that upset you. But I have to wonder -- can't that happen in any community setting (online or RL)? For example -- imagine returning to your hometown and stopping by at a neighbor's house only to find they had passed on.
How is that really different? In the end, death is a part of life.
There's the guy who constantly posts braindead religious and political memes that sort of remind you of when a very small child is learning the concept of what a joke is.
There's the girl rapidly approaching middle age posting vague feelings and insinuations about someone who wronged her that remind you of a dramatic teenager.
There's your aunt who posts objectively deligtful to at least mildly interesting updates about her life (I love the cookie press you found made by distant relatives' business in the 30's)
And then there are sporadic groups which are fairly specific niches and well moderated. Like the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz, local EDM (dance music) groups, that group that only posts people who kinda look like Adam Sandler...
Meanwhile, I get a very small peephole onto my actual friends' and family's postings. Man is its feed just abysmal.
And the creepy sexual content can be discouraged if you give the "I don't want to see this" feedback enough times and then wait a day. The alternative isn't good but at least it isn't deeply unsettling when I want to catch up on the few things of value left on facebook.