Facebook Banned Me for Life Because I Help People Use It Less (2021)
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Instagram is suffering the same fate, it doesn’t show my posts to my followers, really wants to show me post that have nothing to do with my interest and I’m getting a lot of likes from bots. I noticed my friends don’t post to it as much anymore so it’s feeling like a ghost town.
I have an experiment going on, I have an art account on insta and X, every night I post the same image to both and X gives a lot more views and engagement than Instagram for the same content. Also it seems like the X algorithm is smarter than FB/instagram because it shows me similar art to what I post and keeps the correct vibe. Insta/FB show me random crap I couldn’t care less about.
Dead internet theory. AI generated stuff. Busted algorithms, and attention-soul sucking 'pull me in' psychological warfare ad induced stuff. We need to reclaim our sanity from doom scroll/infinite scrolling.
I have it in my /etc/hosts file to be blocked unless I'm at a computer that requires me to log in.
I don’t mind the Youtube algorithm, it used to be better but it’s still good enough. I don’t use Youtube with an account so I have gotten good at “training” it and getting it to show stuff I’m actually interested in. The X algorithm is not bad either, if I post art related stuff it will only show me art related stuff.
I scream this and my love for Linux from the rooftops, hoping other people show the love for the internet and things like I do and don't put up with the exploitation. It's _OUR_ psychyes and their psychological manipulation, and our future generations they're going after.
And you can check your fingerprints with: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ that has a adtrack company that openly shows how it fingerprints you, with WebGL, canvas'ing, timestamps.
I have the random timestamp addon, random user-agents, canvas blocker, exfil data, Ublock origin. The 0.0.0.0 day 'Port Scanner' -> https://github.com/garywill/LAN-port-scan-forbidder
Yeah, they can use JS to ping stuff on our LANs to fingerprint too.
It's an internet hellscape out there.
Most people don't care. I do.
Out of curiosity, does it successfully block https://fingerprint.com/?
Highly disagree. I'm down to one hyperspecific account that follows hundreds of people, and my "for you" page might as well be someone else's. Literally nothing there matches the purpose of the account.
I'm also convinced that clicking "not interested" doesn't do anything because every time I click it, I can just refresh the tab and see the exact same tweet all over again.
The garbage that they serve up on my feed is astounding. When they don’t have any info from “friends” to populate it, it looks exactly like a collection of chumbox ads
The Facebook experience when you have no connections is so horrid that I’m guessing they don’t put much thought into new users anymore. They already have everyone
Facebook ads are egregiously bad. Overwhelmingly scammy: Drop-shippers pretending they are having a going-out-of-business sale, products priced double or triple where they are priced elsewhere. And of course, I've started seeing straight up malvertising campaigns which somehow made it through review. ("somehow" being - paid ads get little scrutiny)
If Facebook groups hadn't totally taken over a few communities I want to be a part of (car enthusiast groups, local fishing groups), I would probably never check it. Actually, less and less my friends and family post there, preferring other social networks, if any.
#DeleteFacebook
I've been on the lookout for one. Wish there was a cool one. I go out and volunteer for sanity.
The issue is, the big platforms are where everybody else is. To them, the internet IS facebook, insta, X, etc..
To us, it's something more.
I'm always checking out the blogs I find on here though. I should interact more with them.
2. I think it’s a matter of being proactive. I treat blog-to-blog interactions the same way I treat person-to-person interactions. If you want the connection to happen you have to be willing to act. Which is why I often send emails, share thoughts on what they wrote, maybe share a link to something they might find interesting based on what they write about. More often than not, people with public personal blogs want to interact with others.
[1]: https://havenweb.org
The obvious downside is that (like with other apps) everything is inside a closed ecosystem. But there is zero spam, only a few non-intrusive ads, and generally good UX all around.
Until they give in and introduce ads, it's just too convenient to run small groups/communities in it, instead of anything else.
I'm not an American, I don't live in the UK, and I'm working towards gaining a second citizenship rather than removing one.
Also for example, an ad from a government of a country I don't live in about them banning a breed of dog I've never heard of. I don't own any breed of dog, definitely now whatever that was.
On iPhone it’s in More -> Feeds. They really work to hide it.
The main caveat is it only shows a few days worth of activity. But it’s still better than the main feed.
Literally just call them. You don't even have to ask for permission. Cold call them. If they don't want to talk now, they won't answer. That's fine. Call again another time.
In the last year I have just started cold calling my friends and family. It's been great.
At some point Facebook crippled those features. Maybe for good reasons (I guess the possibility of stalking might be one). But in any case, I use Facebook much less now.
what would make chats awkward is if the topics never go beyond smalltalk. if every so often a message exchange is like: hi, how are you? how are the kids? i am fine, kids are doing well. how about you? likewise thanks. and the conversation keeps remaining at that level, then i start wondering, why are we even talking. there has got to be more.
Second, I love that you decided to reach out to that old friend because relationships come and go and it's never to late to pick up an old friendship.
As for your final point, if the idea is to call someone in order to replace the classic facebook passive stalking I think it's fine if the conversation never goes too deep. It's a way to show you care and sometimes it's all that matters. Maybe in doing that, when it's time to have deeper conversations, they'll remember that you called them and showed interest. And that's something they can't see if you just scroll their facebook page.
And I'm saying you generically, not talking about you specifically.
But I do get what you're saying, if every time you talk to someone you have shallow chats, after a while you might start wondering what's the point.
I've known people who have gone from on the phone all the time people to using skype to those in discord voice chats. Largely because of the costs of calling internationally as well, can't leave that out!
Although I will say, some of these platforms could learn a thing or two from the voicemail system!
Now it’s a lot easier to do a voice call and also do something else since you’re probably sitting in front of your computer. And you can stay there for hours chatting about literally nothing.
Phone calls, had to be a lot more intentional. Firstly because of the cost but also because it was harder to do something else while on the phone.
And I kinda miss that.
Dunno what kind of weird experiment they were conducting last December but once I start scrolling, I was getting AI generated images of really poor quality accompanied by comments from bot profiles among normal stuff, obviously out of chronological order from my friend's list.
Not that I'm visiting that page that often - on contrary; every few months to see if those who don't have anything beside messenger want something.
It's annoying as I'm constantly clicking the X. I'm on Facebook to follow family & friends and groups I joined not other groups I didn't!
You post the same image? And then you're happy you get more engagement from x?
I don't get your experiment... You want lots of engagement when you post boring content repeatedly?
"each night, i choose one image, and upload it to both x and insta" i guess would be less ambiguous?
One guess is if social media engagement isn't as high as desired, users are increasingly presented with alternatives to take them in different directions until they're more engaged, or at such a deficit of dopamine they will be ready to jump to the next thing, maybe like a tik tok?
Today, if a social media network made and kept it about people and not algorithms calculating the topically desired outcome of one company, maybe there would be a different usage.
People have historically learned how to tune out certain forms of media when or if they became too focused on topics not aligned to them, including advertising. Newspapers, Radio, TV..
Hyper personalization may be an option, but if the result of it is distance and not supporting authentications in real life and not digitally, the brain is wired for one for the former a lot longer than the latter. An example of this is how much more.. vivid spending time in person with someone was after not being around people as much during the pandemic.
"The algorithm is poor" is not a thing anymore, algorithms are easy to get right and even easier to break on purpose for their own benefit.
No large corporation actually serves their algorithm for you any more. That's why TikTok got so popular, their algorithm actually worked for you for a long time.
Personally, would have just open sourced the project. Then Zuck would have to spend engineering time (and employ more people) to “combat” these types of usability hacks which reduce their bottom line.
Similar to how YouTube is in a perpetual battle with the entire world over ad blocking on the platform.
Personally, I just stopped using FB/IG all together. Much happier. And relationships are much more meaningful. No more filters/ai/thinly veiled bullshit/“curated ads”.
Seems like this could have been answered by releasing the source code? Someone else could remake and distribute the app; and if Facebook didn't like that, they'd have to be the ones to file a lawsuit.
Of course they could still be on the hook for normal costs relative to the actual workload imposed (i.e. what the median law firm would charge), but that’s a potential consequence for any lawsuit whatsoever in the UK. Or any other ‘loser pays’ jurisdiction.
That still seems like too much for a free tool that they are getting no revenue or monetization from, and the author seems to agree.
The statute you are referring to is likely the *Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996*, specifically *Section 230(c)(2)*.
Section 230(c)(2) provides immunity to providers and users of an "interactive computer service" for actions taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected. This includes the development and deployment of programs intended to block or filter malicious software.
This section has been crucial in allowing companies to create and distribute tools designed to protect users from harmful or unwanted content, including spam filters, antivirus programs, and parental control software, without the risk of being held liable for the consequences of their actions.
which I use to get rid of those "suggested posts" from groups I never joined. You could also customize it to do what this guy's tool does, I suppose.
https://micg.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/output.gif
I have to scroll for like 2 minutes just to find a local group post (small town that gives out local town news), It's all suggested/sponsored/ads.
I have facebook blocked in my /etc/hosts file so I can only view it at the shelter etc. But yeah, that's the crap its feeding in our faces. When you visualize it, it's like and see what it's really doing to your brain/eyes, you need to reclaim that time and attention sink.
- i only see posts from people/organisations i friended/followed
- those posts are in chronological order
- and i don't see what people liked/commented somewhere else
- on top of that, i don't see "reels" or whatever this feature is called
- and when a contact change their name/deactivate/unfriend i receive a notification
It loads 10 posts at a time and filters out all of the junk. Then you have to manually load more posts.
It's really eye-opening when you load 10 posts and it filters out 9 of them.
But besides that, the thing that's really pushing me away from FB is the pure hate, agression and stupidity on display in the comments section of local groups. It hurts to see the levels people descend to when they can comment without any repercussions.
[the thing that's really pushing me away from FB is the pure hate, agression and stupidity on display in the comments section of local groups] -- you are seeing what lurks inside, and what degree of personal refraint exists.
FB, of course, has billions of users so that doesn't work.
Maybe I live in a boring area?
After deleting about 100 pages from my list of followed pages, I notice the last 10 would re-appear. Every 50 or so pages I'd delete from my list -- which to begin with is a purposefully slow and painful UX whether done manually or javascriptically -- 5 or more pages would reappear. It took a while to realize what was happening because it wasn't always 5 or 10, sometimes it was 2 or 4 and the time between occurrences was sometimes so long that I originally assumed I just missed some. Then I noticed some pages got re-listed after a day or so. This got me pretty upset but it was only the beginning.
I began making it a daily mission to delete at least 50 pages a day and keep deleting them as often as they came back. It was at this point when pages stopped reappearing and I'd get an alert from the app that went something like "Hey (stop sign emoji) stop! You shouldn't be doing that!" and a bunch of lines about how I'm using the app in a way that's not meant to be, and some vague noise about continuing in such a way may lead to repercussions to functionality and/or my account. What? I'm not supposed to use the delete button on the Pages Followed (or whatever) pop out list?
After ignoring these warnings and deleting as much as I could, one day I found the delete functionality would just stop working after deleting 20 or so pages, if at all. My frustration led to me pausing my account for a month or so, then reactivating when I felt motivated to delete more pages until again the functionality would either be limited or completely impossible. Finally I paused my account for 4 years until 2016 when I found I got delete all followed Pages. I was so happy about this I started using FB daily again but not nearly as much as I used to.
Funnily enough the same thing happened to me in 2021 on Instagram when I tried to unfollow accounts.
That said I've always thought FB had/has the potential to be a public utility as a local-first product. Like, families should have an FB. Your street or the floor of your building should have a FB. Neighborhoods should have a FB.It doesn't even necessarily need to be ad-free, just community oriented. I suppose that's Mastadon's intention but FB does it best IMHO
Even funnier, I did this with my story archive, and it actually hid my entire archive from me after I deleted about 10 of them. Now, I can't access my story archive except through Instagram's "Download Your Information" downloader. It now won't let me delete or even view my past stories.
Food for thought.
Parent's issues predate GDPR (i think?) - but i do know i tried one of those reddit "wholesale delete all content and interaction" apps/scripts/plugins whatever, and i got the same thing.
actually ignore my first, i just realized it's to stop people from either stealing and selling, or just the owner selling their account - imagine a 16 year old FB account, it'd be pretty hard to ban that account (you'd think).
either way, it's my data, and i want it NOW
I don’t have a tool that does this for you, but it’s definitely the way to go. Literally when I go into LinkedIn it’s just a completely blank page; it’s fucking glorious.
—-
I deleted Twitter during the 2008 election cycle and I “disabled” my FB acct (allowing me access to Messenger and Marketplace; the former only used for the latter) and it’s been amazing.
This is how you deal with these companies: by using their services without the noise and advertising that keeps them afloat.
No need, You can use the SocialFocus extension to hide the feed :)
Do you know if customising Ublock Origin makes you more likely to stand out, and so easier to fingerprint ?
Strange that it does work for you, but not for me! I'll try that extension though mentioned in the other reply, thanks for the tip?
I read this post whenever it was made (the OP) and i'm glad i read downpage a bit, because i remembered 3 plugins mentioned, and the other one is fbpurity, and the third is i forget, but the Vet mentioned it i think (ctrl-f vet)
You don't need Facebook for that. Write down a list of the people you care about and contact them with some frequency, at least on their birthday.
in general, reaching someone through other ways than their preferred channel only works if both sides are willing to do so. very often, especially with non-technical people that is simply not the case.
you can replace facebook with any other tool that is used for messaging, and you will find cases where not being able to access that tool would be a problem.
most of my contacts are only reachable through one specific messaging tool.
the reality is that we can no longer allow any of these companies to control who does and who doesn't get access. getting access must be a right that mustn't be denied to you if you choose to use it. or, better, all major messaging systems should be made interoperable so that you can stay in touch without needing an account there.
A right to an account on web platforms? Okay... does that apply to every single platform, or only those of a certain size? What size? What about people using the platform to spam, harass, or threaten other users?
> or, better, all major messaging systems should be made interoperable so that you can stay in touch without needing an account there.
This is a far more reasonable take, though still not probably viable.
those are a matter for a court to decide. noone should lose their account without due process.
in germany some law firms offer a service to help you get your account back with a well crafted letter from a lawyer
And personally, while I don't mind users being able to be banned for harassing users, I do think everyone, including trolls, should have the right to information collected about them and their account
germany is neither a different reality, nor does it live in the future. but it provides a real example of a place where things already changed.
Sounds nice but the UK doesn’t benefit in regards to laws from another country.
so yes, companies can not arbitrarily ignore due process in their term and conditions
Maybe the user could make an argument in court that Facebook was hurting his business but hard to prove with a free service. No real harm has come to this person.
but until someone sues small companies will probably fly under the radar and the focus is on big companies as it should be. and yes big companies do have an advantage, that's why their actions deserve closer scrutiny.
Funny in American schools teachers and administrators are known to show allyship to bullies in that they take no action to stop them unless they go really too far and kill somebody. I took a summer course though that was taught by two German instructors who actually led the bullying directly. Maybe they have a more toxic culture than the US.
I know the EU has a "right for embezzlers to reoffend" law which must have been an example of people who use their social skills as a weapon against other people using their social skills to turn the law into a weapon against the rest of us. The "right to be forgotten" is itself a crime when embezzling is concerned because embezzlers have a very high recidivism rate, essentially 100% when behavioral addictions like gambling are involved. This is a crime which can destroy businesses, ruin lives, deny people a secure retirement, and cause unemployment. I can think of no reason why embezzlement treason should ever be forgot.
yes, the laws are not perfect, may need to be changed. actually that is the core of most of this subthread. the example that for this case in germany the laws are better than in the UK, and that it is possible to improve the protection of users against these big companies.
I can think of no reason why embezzlement treason should ever be forgot
this is another example of a law that may not be perfect. again, laws can and should be changed when evidence emerges that the current laws are not suitable to protect people from harm.
in this particular case i would argue that we may not have enough data to decide. there may also be a component of believing that people can change, and the question is what causes them to recommit such a crime, and what can we do about it to change that. one problem here is that a permanent record does not stop people from recommitting a crime, but it does make it very difficult for them to reform because reform requires that past transgressions are forgotten.
but we could go on endlessly finding examples of laws that are broken, and argue about how they should be fixed, or claim that because there are other broken laws, then the one we are discussing must be broken too, or whatever the argument is here. but doing so while we are discussing one such law is not really helpful, and feels like whataboutism.
It should be taught in MBA, and VCs should tell startups that aim to get "millions" of users that they need to plan, in advance, for this sort of thing.
This isn't really a gotcha, i'd put a hard line somewhere around "10% of the global population" as needing extreme scrutiny.
There are people in my facebook feed who I haven't seen in person in over 20 years. It's nice to keep up with them and their lives and families, but if I lost access to facebook tomorrow, it wouldn't change a thing for me. I am friendly with these people but I don't actually know them anymore and am not all that invested in their lives.
the problem is that the choice of messengers is decided at the beginning when you meet someone for the first time. the person is not yet a friend but they may become a friend if you can only find a way to stay in touch. for me, as the more technical person in most cases this means that i must accept their choice of messenger, because i can't babysit them to switch. (though i do have counter examples where switching worked)
i travel a lot. when i come to a new place and i need to build up connections to locals it is totally not possible to come in and dictate which messenger they should use to communicate with me. i need to use theirs. only once i gained their trust and a friendship emerges i may suggest switching to a better way to communicate. but the reality is, that if i refuse use their messenger or worse are blocked from using it then i am unable to stay in touch with people i meet.
when i moved to china i long refused to use wechat. i was unable to stay in touch with most of the people i met during that time because of that. until i gave up resisting.
It's got nothing to do with introversion, you aren't comfortable makeing phonecalls. Start making phonecalls and it will get better.
If you truly struggle, stop lying to yourself that it's just your introversion and seek help. Mental health issues aren't something to be ashamed of, it is affecting your quality of life and should be diagnosed and treated by a professional.
I'm not saying you have a mental health issue. I'm just saying if you do, you don't need to let it effect your life.
possibly, though the reality is that i grew up before the internet and i was making phonecalls just fine then. somehow it got worse. either bad experiences, or something changed when i discovered the ability to communicate with written short messages instead. i have no idea.
but look around on hackernews. i am not the only one who dislikes phone calls. one potential reason i explained here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41345469
i like to take the time to think before i answer, and that just doesn't work on the phone.
but the real point here is that you tell me i should be able to switch away from a method to communicate that i don't like but use another one that i like even less. that doesn't make any sense. why would i do that? (and i haven't even touched on the fact how much i hate giving people my phonenumber, on most messengers at least i can ignore people if they bother me)
The philosophy is no feed, no ads, no addiction, just your real social life. It would have been easier to have users sign up with facebook, but I decided the best thing to do was to be entirely Meta-independent. They will undermine anything that threatens The Feed.
The idea is also to merge in a single app many needs of events, like group chats, photo albums, expenses splitting, and I'm planning to add more. I realized groups have similar needs to events, so I added them as well. They're not designed for massive communities though, more like small groups of friends.
All of this is stil very early in development and it definitely needs some more work before a Show HN, but we've found it very useful for weekends and holidays already.
Consider it an open beta, so feel free to give it a try and give me your honest feedback :)
[1] : https://weavus.app
virustotal scan of the "installer" -- https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/ba3cdc5190b44da96e5ecb5f...
If only facebook were held liable for what they allowed to be advertised.
Anyways, it appears FB is on a slow decline.
10 years ago, I'd post multiple times a day.
Now, I only go there a few times a month to check for events.
People who claim they would say the same thing about "...dumb fucks" because it's dumb to give away information (already pretty spurious, but whatever) seem to miss the other part where he says "If you need any info on people, just ask"
Because it sure seems like the pattern of behavior keeps continuing, rather than stopping, as a once young immature person who then learns