Fuck Facebook in its hateful face, and its hateful book

People saying things like this on a social media platform they’ve made thousands of posts on always gets a smile. 

The only reason I still have a Facebook account is that Mrs hedben posts and tags me into family photos, holidays and stuff like that, which my family then like and appreciate. I never used it that way even before I got married, my photos were just random crap I'd seen that I liked.

I did get a slight pang of guilt when I logged in recently to get an old photo, and saw about a dozen birthday wishes from weeks ago that I'd ignored. But then, I've been ignoring them for years, you'd think people would have got the message by now.

Even by logging in just that once, they're probably tracking me across the whole internet now. Or they probably were already, because I haven't bothered to change all the hard to find privacy settings. I've come to accept tracking as par for the course rather than an evil invasion of privacy- it's the algorithm promoting right wing propaganda or conspiracies for clicks that I have a bigger problem with.

How did Facebook become a source of news at all? I haven't been on it for about 6 years and only had an account because FOMO etc until I realised it was horrible, but it was just inane tripe posted by insecure people, the usual 'been to the park with my kids' or 'beers in the garden' nonsense. I genuinely don't get how it became so important to the zeitgeist. I would never consider it a news outlet or conduit or whatever. There aren't Facebook journalists are there? I obviously just don't get it. Thankfully.

Never been on FB, beyond clicking on someones frontpage, and that first popup that asks 'do you wish to' whatever. No, whatever it is.

I used to use FB for band stuff (posting about upcoming gigs/releases etc) and it's still quite useful when I want to message shops or look for stuff (found a piano tutor for my boy by posting on the local musicians FB page asking for recommendations for example) but other than that I stay clear of reading other peoples posts and I certainly don't make any personal posts. It's generally a horrible place and I don't actually think we'd be worse off without it.

I thought about it for a while but finally got rid of it last year. The ‘social’ part of it dropped off years ago and I was just using it as a newsgroup aggregator, so it just ended up being yahoo groups but with lunatics I actually know.

I don’t really use Instagram that much, I just follow a few artists, so the only reason I knew Facebook was down was because WhatsApp died.

Presumably this is broadly the reason they are pivoting. Facebook is pretty much a dead technology for information gathering as people have changed how they interact with it quite drastically.

Yeah, I say ‘deleted’, I have deactivated it because I still need messenger as that’s the only way the elderly in my family can communicate. If you delete, it’s gone (supposedly), if you deactivate you can still use messenger.

The annoying thing is that if you auth the messenger app on a new device, it reactivates you whole Facebook account so you have to turn the fucking thing off again.

How infected with Facebook is WhatsApp? It's the only social media I use besides this

WhatsApp just eats your data, that’s the cost of entry.

Marketplace is pretty good, bought and sold alsorts over the years, plenty of twats on there for sure but found some great bargains. A few local groups are useful for finding a good licensed rubbish collector or finding out why some local road is shut or whatever and we used to have groups for the parents of our kids school year which was pretty useful for seeing what was happening there, until that went to WhatsApp. Apart from that though I have nothing positive, it's a seething pit of sexist and racist nastiness.

Facebook is definitely for old bastards.

Whatsapp for all it's flaws is amazing for keeping in contact with people in different countries.

Fucking Skype and calling cards were all expensive and awful. I can't recall when it really took off or when I first starting using it but it has made keeping in contact with people so much easier.

I suppose it also makes planning when and where to release a toxic nerve agent easier as well but hey ho.

Yeah my boy is all about TikTok (which I still don't understand) and has no interest in FB at all.

I don't have Facebook and never have - not out of any cyber or moral objection, rather that when it became a thing, I wasn't really in a place or position where I could use that sort of thing and by the time I could, I already knew I wasn't interested.

I used Instagram for a bit, but end in the end, it was just a bit boring and I dislike Twitter greatly.

Of course, the tech is neutral but the ways its used and the things it generates are potentially quite damaging, imo.

Kids use TikTok and Snapchat (still?) but definitely not FB. The wife does, though, although it's mainly to laugh and people being stupid and for Marketplace.

Everyone uses WhatsApp, though.

Fair enough - that's probably my mistaken oversight from never having used it.