Alternatives to Facebook
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@minion-queen said in Alternatives to Facebook:
They make good money (more than some of us do). And again they do hang out on facebook and that is where thier client base is and hence where mine is.
Selling to people on FB isn't the same as using FB. That's like saying that newspapers are a viable tool, then talking about how ads on there work. Totally different things.
Newspapers are a joke. But you use them to filter your audience to only the most gullible.
It's the same underlying concept as SPAM. People make SPAM look like gibberish so that only really, really foolish customers that can be tricked most readily will respond. That doesn't make SPAM a "serious business tool", it doesn't make responding to SPAM a serious business tool, but there is a lot of money to be made by doing it.
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@tim_g said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@tim_g said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Why do you need Facebook to stay in touch with someone? So you can stalk them without them knowing? Give them a call. Send them an email with photos. Text them a link to your Instagram and Twitter.
The concept of FB is centralized accounts. Most people I know don't have anything but FB. It's not that we don't know each other, it's that email has been intentionally discontinued by millenials and anti-techers, Twitter isn't that widely used, Instagram IS Facebook (just another "view" of it like Messenger), and telephone numbers aren't stable. None of those things replaces Facebook.
That has changed.
Facebook is strictly about data gathering and advertising, nothing more.
I'm not saying people don't use it for the all-in-one function, but the world would be a far better place without Facebook and any similar platforms.
Nothing has changed. Facebook has always made its money one way, and the use case for it has always been centralized accounts. Neither has ever changed at all. Facebook's business model is not relevant to the products use case. It might show why it is foolish to use FB, but doesn't affect why people want to use it.
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I've been doing some testing on MeWe, and it looks good so far. Timeline posts are similar to Facebook's, but they have only one permission: My contacts. You cannot restrict it any tighter, but it is more private than Facebook's default. Videos do not auto play. I need to fiddle with this some more, but it is looking like something I can start recommending. I'm still waiting on their response to my tweet to see if they have a plan on protecting the privacy of their users when they launch the paid addons.
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@bnrstnr said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Snipity snip
Totally not easy to use, at all, but it is trivially easy to add anybody you know
Like a ponzi scheme
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@nadnerb said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@bnrstnr said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Snipity snip
Totally not easy to use, at all, but it is trivially easy to add anybody you know
Like a ponzi scheme
LOL, something like that.
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@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
but the only way that companies are going to learn from this is if Facebook goes under for how they handled user information.
But how did FB mishandle anything?
The last actual technical information I read was that their API allowed more information than they intended.
FB fixed it.
FB demanded that CA delete data and had a confirmation from CA that CA deleted all data they were not supposed to have collected.
CA lied.
Now, if this is not correct, please enlighten me. But it is the last technical information I read on the subject.
Now FB has other issues and news circulating, but none of those are the big damning thing that the CA disaster is being made out as.
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@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Instagram IS Facebook (just another "view" of it like Messenger),
Instagram is not FB. It is a separate product that is owned by FB, yes, but it is not FB.
There have been some integration since it was purchased, but not actually that many.
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@jaredbusch said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Instagram IS Facebook (just another "view" of it like Messenger),
Instagram is not FB. It is a separate product that is owned by FB, yes, but it is not FB.
There have been some integration since it was purchased, but not actually that many.
It's a bit. I think that they share all the back end. It's just two different places to have images visible.
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@jaredbusch said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
but the only way that companies are going to learn from this is if Facebook goes under for how they handled user information.
But how did FB mishandle anything?
The last actual technical information I read was that their API allowed more information than they intended.
FB fixed it.
FB demanded that CA delete data and had a confirmation from CA that CA deleted all data they were not supposed to have collected.
CA lied.
Now, if this is not correct, please enlighten me. But it is the last technical information I read on the subject.
Now FB has other issues and news circulating, but none of those are the big damning thing that the CA disaster is being made out as.
.There is little new. That doesn't make it any less damning. Facebook has been mining user data (largely with permission) for the entirety of its existence. That doesn't make it right. This furor has just swept back the curtain to expose what we already knew to the larger world. Fines aren't going to do anything when it comes to security or privacy. The only way to get companies to handle user data with care and consideration of the best for their users is if there are high profile consequences.
To your question though, the most egregious, recent revelation was that Facebook appears to be scraping call and SMS data without explicit opt-in permission.
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Signed up for mewe to see what's it like
sent requests to @scottalanmiller @Kelly -
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@jaredbusch said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
but the only way that companies are going to learn from this is if Facebook goes under for how they handled user information.
But how did FB mishandle anything?
The last actual technical information I read was that their API allowed more information than they intended.
FB fixed it.
FB demanded that CA delete data and had a confirmation from CA that CA deleted all data they were not supposed to have collected.
CA lied.
Now, if this is not correct, please enlighten me. But it is the last technical information I read on the subject.
Now FB has other issues and news circulating, but none of those are the big damning thing that the CA disaster is being made out as.
.There is little new. That doesn't make it any less damning. Facebook has been mining user data (largely with permission) for the entirety of its existence. That doesn't make it right. This furor has just swept back the curtain to expose what we already knew to the larger world. Fines aren't going to do anything when it comes to security or privacy. The only way to get companies to handle user data with care and consideration of the best for their users is if there are high profile consequences.
To your question though, the most egregious, recent revelation was that Facebook appears to be scraping call and SMS data without explicit opt-in permission.
It was opt in.
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I'm on MeWe... https://mewe.com/i/brant.wells
We'll see how it works out. There's another one I saw one time that I haven't checked out yet either while we're on the topic...
It's called Diaspora (https://diasporafoundation.org/) seems like an interesting concept.
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@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I've started to poke around looking for alternatives to Facebook. It is a hard sell to tell people to get off without having a good alternative. Have any of you tried anything else that might replace it, or the parts of it that you use? I looked a little bit at Vero (https://www.vero.co), and it looks promising since they are subscription based. However that is a hard sell still. Thoughts?
Alternative to Facebook.....how about a real life? I have hated Facebook since day one. My friends were all on it and got me to sign up and I saw what a waste it was and how narcissistic it was. I deleted my account after a week. This was many many years ago. If you're my friend, you will call, text, meet up for lunch sometime etc to find out what is happening in my life. I hate social media. I believe a forum like this isn't social media like Facebook is social media. Sure there is a community element to Manglassi but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all the tech conversations. Honestly, I am here because it exposes me to tech that I normally wouldn't be exposed to or know about. To know my true feelings listen to Weird Al's song Albuquerque and substitute Facebook for sauerkraut and you got my feelings on Facebook.
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@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I've started to poke around looking for alternatives to Facebook. It is a hard sell to tell people to get off without having a good alternative. Have any of you tried anything else that might replace it, or the parts of it that you use? I looked a little bit at Vero (https://www.vero.co), and it looks promising since they are subscription based. However that is a hard sell still. Thoughts?
Alternative to Facebook.....how about a real life?
Real life is an alternative to staying in contact with people. That's why we like things like Facebook, a chance to not be socially isolated and cut off.
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@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I've started to poke around looking for alternatives to Facebook. It is a hard sell to tell people to get off without having a good alternative. Have any of you tried anything else that might replace it, or the parts of it that you use? I looked a little bit at Vero (https://www.vero.co), and it looks promising since they are subscription based. However that is a hard sell still. Thoughts?
Alternative to Facebook.....how about a real life?
Real life is an alternative to staying in contact with people. That's why we like things like Facebook, a chance to not be socially isolated and cut off.
I disagree, Facebook makes you seemed connected when you are not. Facebook is all about the "me" and not about connections. It is also more perception/surface/glitz and not about depth and truly knowing someone. It is much harder to lie in person than on Facebook. It is not about being connected it is more about getting likes, again more about the "Me". I stay in contact with all my friends, without facebook. I might go days without knowing something but then when we do get together we get to have meaningful conversations.
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@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@kelly said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I've started to poke around looking for alternatives to Facebook. It is a hard sell to tell people to get off without having a good alternative. Have any of you tried anything else that might replace it, or the parts of it that you use? I looked a little bit at Vero (https://www.vero.co), and it looks promising since they are subscription based. However that is a hard sell still. Thoughts?
Alternative to Facebook.....how about a real life?
Real life is an alternative to staying in contact with people. That's why we like things like Facebook, a chance to not be socially isolated and cut off.
I disagree, Facebook makes you seemed connected when you are not.
I disagree. Facebook has allowed so many people I know, and everyone knows, to find each other, communicate, stay actually connected. This idea that talking via modern systems isn't "real" communications, but talking face to face is special or that old telephones are good while modern video chatting is bad is all just anti-tech reactionary stuff. It's not true. Facebook is every bit as "real" as any other form of communications. It's not some special exception to everything. But what it is, is enabling a level of connection that people have never had before.
Those of us in their 40s got to see how little communications, how lonely and disconnected the world used to be. Those young enough to have always had computers that connected really have no idea how disconnected and anti-social the world used to be. How even the slightest life events caused everyone to lose connection. How tiny your group of friends really was. Facebook, and many other tools, have changed that. The degree of communications, staying in contact, connecting with friends that is done today is so many orders of magnitude greater than it was without those tools.
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@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
Facebook is all about the "me" and not about connections. It is also more perception/surface/glitz and not about depth and truly knowing someone. It is much harder to lie in person than on Facebook. It is not about being connected it is more about getting likes, again more about the "Me". I stay in contact with all my friends, without facebook. I might go days without knowing something but then when we do get together we get to have meaningful conversations.
You are mixing one perceived use of FB with the platform. You are reacting to disliking the like and posting system. I dislike that too, and I don't see it, because you can turn that off.
All that happens without FB, too. It's called television and people were watching that "in real life." In fact, ever been to a bar ni the US? They "all" have televisions on so that people can sit there pretending to be doing something social, while actually being completely alone. If we treat real life, like Facebook, and select one common bad use case, we'd say that "real life" social interactions are totally fake and while yes, people sit physically in shared spaces, we have carefully engineered activities like reality TV and sports that allow them to stare blankly at moving pictures so that they are able to mentally isolate themselves while being able to tell others that they "spent time with people." But it is all fake.
If you cherry pick, I guarantee we can make "real life" way, way less social and less real than Facebook. But when you look at both as a platform and what it enables people to do, FB allows people who want to be social to be far more social than they can be without it. Both platforms allow people to isolate themselves as much as they want. In fact, one could define avoiding Facebook and only using "real life" as a form of simply using Facebook in the most anti-social, isolated means possible. You can think of never using or deleting Facebook as a use case of Facebook at the extreme end of the anti-social scale.
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@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I might go days without knowing something but then when we do get together we get to have meaningful conversations.
This is where things like Facebook are a win, in my book. I don't have to go days without knowing something. Using messenger and posts, I can have truly meaningful conversations with people that I would not get to talk with otherwise.
That being said, I prefer smaller settings like ML (and some small FB groups) for getting to know folks and carry on good conversations and daily banter and learn about them and their experiences.
I think being able to combine your online and real life lives is especially helpful.
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@dafyre said in Alternatives to Facebook:
@penguinwrangler said in Alternatives to Facebook:
I might go days without knowing something but then when we do get together we get to have meaningful conversations.
This is where things like Facebook are a win, in my book. I don't have to go days without knowing something. Using messenger and posts, I can have truly meaningful conversations with people that I would not get to talk with otherwise.
That being said, I prefer smaller settings like ML (and some small FB groups) for getting to know folks and carry on good conversations and daily banter and learn about them and their experiences.
I think being able to combine your online and real life lives is especially helpful.
Yes, ML is better for really knowing people and conversations. But FB is better for the big, global spread of people. I have hundreds of people on my FB, most of whom would struggle to stay in contact otherwise. They have no other stability in their lives. The rich can afford phones and email that never changes, the poor rarely can. Things like FB create a single, universal point of continuous contact.
One of my best friends from HS lives in a rural area by a lake, has no money and does factory work. Before FB we'd lose contact for years because she was physically remote, and could not afford things like phones. Now with FB, she's able to get online for free every few days and we stay in contact. Even when we lived near each other IRL, it was impossible to find her reliably.
She only made it to my wedding because a week before my wedding, after years of being out of contact, I saw her walking down the street from a restaurant that I was in and chased her down.
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@scottalanmiller said in Alternatives to Facebook:
But FB is better for the big, global spread of people.
Precisely!
