Here's an idea, and it strikes me every time the news ("news") talks about Farcebook giving away more user information, or being hacked again, or their oppressive speech tactics...
STOP USING IT.
It's like the old Carlin routine about censorship - "if you hear something you don't like, the radio has two knobs on it. One changes the station, and one...TURNS IT OFF".
Farcebook is NOT required in order to lead a productive, happy life. I know this, because I deleted my account YEARS ago. It's a waste of time - and a waste of time its creators admitted they created to be ADDICTIVE.
Just...drop it. Delete your accounts. CALL your friends if you want to talk with them. OR better yet...spend time with them IN PERSON. Don't sit at a table with three friends, and tap your phone so you can talk with people who aren't even there - SPEND TIME WITH THE PEOPLE IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE.
I promise - it pays off.
The only reason Farcebook is so "big", is because people GAVE them the power. Delete your accounts, and take away some of that power.
I think back on all the asylums that were closed here in Indiana. I made deliveries of goods to some of those places. I also made deliveries to some prisons during that time. I felt safe in the prisons. I knew that the closings of the asylums released a number of their general population into the streets. The world did not become better for it. As I understand it, the place now holding some of the insane is the prison system. I have lost track of a step brother that I finally located 2 years back. He was wanting put back in the institution. In my uneducated mind, it is where he needs to be. I know his manifesto. God help us all. It may take me another 15 or 20 years to locate him again. The only reason I wasn't worried before was that the meds he was on kept him suppressed.
It's an invaluable way to keep in touch with friends and family for me. I couldn't do so any other way.
The news feed and commenting on it is another matter. It's two separate environments for the most part.
It definitely deserves competition!
I tend to agree that in its current form, the big social media essentially monopolize the market, constituting a public square where free speech ought be upheld, but it's an arguable point. Facebook is likely in for some serious trouble as they're playing both sides of the speech coin, claiming immunity from responsibility for the posts of others as they are not the content author, while at the same time claiming authority to censor speech acting as a responsible publisher of content to protect people. That second stance puts them at risk of some massive damages in libel and other lawsuits.
~FWIW the people who claim to know what crazy is, the American Psychiatric Association, removed the 'disorder' from their old classification "Gender Identity Disorder" in 2013. Now it's just called "Gender Dysphoria."
I don’t see this as a significant change. Probably done just to align it with the names of other psychological conditions. Dysphoria is still an illness.
In 1973 there was a shift in the way psychologists practiced and their governing body said they "will no longer insist on a label of sickness for individuals who insist they are well and demonstrate no generalized impairment in social effectiveness”
While it is nice to think we might still live productive lives even if our minds work strangely, it does appear that our video subject is having some real emotional problems. While it could be gender dysphoria, it could instead be anger management problems.
I don't know how to solve their problems, but I think pot would sure help mellow them out for a little while. The patient gets to choose their treatment if they're not incarcerated. Priests are usually free so if that works that could be convenient. Maybe SUPERMA'AM can come to the rescue! Maybe after some costume adjustments, though...
It's an invaluable way to keep in touch with friends and family for me. I couldn't do so any other way.
Blake - I respect you and your views, but...how do you view FB? Phone? If you can't call (I know it's tough, having to have the other person available when you are), text. Send photos directly. Communicate directly. Just as accessible, just as easy, just as portable, and with group-text, just as efficient.
When I was on FB (in a hospital bed in '08), I kept getting pinged by people I'd gone to school with...who, honestly, I'd fallen out of touch with for a reason.
I make time for people who I care about; I don't need "the easy way". Been working for me for 46 years now...and I'm not subject to some Big Entity, and their random rules of engagement.
There are other (often better) ways to communicate. But the FB masterminds, in creating an admittedly "addictive" application, have managed to make most people forget that.
There's a reason I started the Trekkie thread, about a mind-control, fully-addictive electronic game that threatened to ruin the crew and destroy the ship...
The primary function for me is to communicate with the people in my subdivision, as there is a page for our HOA.
It kind of branched out from there, because I had fired Facebook years ago... only got back on it when I started getting involved with the neighborhood "politics".
Then.. people find you and send friend requests, and I feel like an ass if I don't accept them... so it's kind of a thing now, but I really don't care about it. It's in it's place, and I can do without it entirely without any kind of emotion over it's existence.
I hear you on the FBook pings from distant acquaintances. I had a similar experience. I've since set up my account to receive zero pings, zero texts, zero email, just the little notification indicator atop the Facebook page, and that only for very limited cases. I visit via web browser interface on all platforms, usually the iPad, sometimes the phone or laptop/desktop, rarely via streaming TV.
I set my feed to "Recent" and scroll down to see what's up.
Family is spread out all over the nation. I really enjoy seeing my nieces, nephews, cousins, grand nieces, grand nephews, second cousins, aunts, uncles and good friends from college and high school days, and yes a number of current and dormant/former BadWeBrs too. None of them are about to start emailing or texting me duplicates of what they share via FBook; that would be irritating to them and me. LOL.
I do have people that I stay in touch with who aren't on Facebook. We text mostly.
I've thought about ditching the site as you suggest. I'll just turn over my political commenting to Reindog, and Pwnzor.
I got into FB and was collecting friends. I turned no one down. Had over 400. Sasha Grey and her sister were among them. I didn't know she was a porn star. One day I realized I never knew who was doing what because of all the activity. I spent a day and got rid of all but 4 friends. I am up to 76 now. I found out that you can un-follow people without un-friending them. I think I'll get rid of 25 of the current ones. That will be from the un-followed ones that haven't noticed it.
I was told I needed FB to see some sales pages, and keep up with the Household extended group.
My page, such as it is, only has a comment in the who I am section telling folk not to be upset if I didn't respond, at all, since I don't go to my own page. Satan & Zuck alone know how many posts, alerts, threats, whatever, are on there. I've never posted.
I get emails telling me a few people have posted puppy or kitten pics. I have responded with a Happy birthday to a few folk when notified. I have no idea how or why I get these notices, and don't care.
When FaceBook started, I knew it was a scam. When it's free, and there's no advertising, you are the product. For sale to others. No one seems to care, so neither do I.
I also let others use my supermarket discount cards, so I get ads for utterly inappropriate stuff, to my amusement. I used to do surveys, in pre-internet days, but now don't bother.
And my redacted connection with redacted that runs the web, informs me that the annoying click bait quizes, "test your WW2 knowledge" & " what Hogwarts house are you? " types, feed directly into the metadata analytics companies, that helped Trump get elected, and tell Putin how to manipulate CNN. ( could be the same company, or others )
According to my source, the future of banking is developing the algorithms to determine the best loan risks with browser & social media analysis. Do people who like history pay on time? Are death metal fans poor risks? Is the ideal customer someone who is a prepper also into D&D? Do B&D folk pay on time? You'd be surprised.
And now that Google's new motto is "make evil more profitable", and China goes to a sci fi dystopian nightmare of social media control, as seen on Black Mirror & The Orville, and they seek to export this unholy system to the rest of the planet, I expect more Cassandra effects on life I will try to ignore.
I took 25 of them off. I look at it like I just took them off speed dial. If we have been friends on Facebook for a year but haven't talked on the phone....well.
In a rare moment of agreement with The Donald, I have to say the game show guy is right. The Media is the enemy of the people.
So is Twitter, Facebook, Google, and the new gods of the internet.
Multiple companies with the same agenda. An authoritarian police state.
I think some of you are silly for going on & on about the rage monster that prompted Blake's banning. You couldn't ask for a better advertisement for old, conventional morality.
And quoting the bible to attack the mentally ill? Why? Attack the Pharisees! Condemn Facebook!
Sure, you don't want your child to watch a Gay Pride parade. Or a Klan rally. Or watch a speech by my governor. All bad examples, and why did you bring them there? Would you take a child to Burning Man?
Feel free to go get kicked out of a school board meeting. Get your voice heard to ask them not to promote whatever annoys you. ( for me, it was teaching reading badly. I wear that badge with pride. )
Feel free to tell me I'm wrong when I don't think teaching safe anal sex practice to teens is evil. But giving 6 year olds hormone treatments when mummy has a gender problem is.
Sex change for children is like vegan cats. The decisions aren't being made by them.
My bottom line has long been "consenting adults", and I'm willing to negotiate on age. Romeo & Juliet were 14. And that was a tragedy. You can marry at 14 in some states. Soon, there will be no age restriction, because of Sharia.
By 2021, you may be hounded out of a job, your home burned down and family murdered, if you don't bow to Social Media and sell your truck to get an electric car. Or forced to have your daughter mutilated so she can't masturbate. Crazy talk?
Last year teens were eating Tide Pods. Today, hyphen Cortez has announced a comprehensive plan to run your life. And no one on CNN has complained that a bartender intends total confiscation of all money and printing more to pay for free everything...... Because if it isn't free, you can't have it under Green New Deal.
I know I've posted it before, but you guys need to read some of Jaron Lanier's work. He's the guy that created a lot of these algorithms and is now regretting how they are being used. He is actually trying to do something about it too.
His more interesting book: "Who Owns The Future" is a great history on what happened and how to fix it.
