Facebook - a penny for your thoughts.......

[Rufus T Firefly]

I get a sense that a lot of those who decry Facebook are doing so because it is hip / trendy / cool * to do so. Like nearly everything else, I think the best advice would be, if you don't like it, leave well alone and let others who do want to enjoy it have that pleasure.

There's a couple of Facebook Groups that I'm a member of - Armagh 1970s Memories and Ann Street Memories (Dungannon). Both groups get regularly updated with a treasure trove of old photos that bring back many wonderful memories and generate lots of great discussion based around those memories. The ability to save these photos (electronically) and share them with a wide group of those who value them is, in my mind, wonderful.

*  Delete as appropriate. 

[Esmarelda]

I get a sense that a lot of those who decry Facebook are doing so because it is hip / trendy / cool * to do so. Like nearly everything else, I think the best advice would be, if you don't like it, leave well alone and let others who do want to enjoy it have that pleasure.

There's a couple of Facebook Groups that I'm a member of - Armagh 1970s Memories and Ann Street Memories (Dungannon). Both groups get regularly updated with a treasure trove of old photos that bring back many wonderful memories and generate lots of great discussion based around those memories. The ability to save these photos (electronically) and share them with a wide group of those who value them is, in my mind, wonderful.

*  Delete as appropriate. 

Facebook is fine if you tailor it to suit yourself.

If you find that a lot of what you see is people posting up stuff that you have no interest in, then just unfollow them. They don't know you've done it as you remain their "friend". I did it recently and adjust it depending on who annoys me, and I find it a lot easier to get through now.

[Hardy]

What's the protocol when a real life friend sends you a friend request, but you don't want to them as a FB friend?

[Esmarelda]

What's the protocol when a real life friend sends you a friend request, but you don't want to them as a FB friend?

Ignore it and hope it's never brought up in their company. "Sure I'm never on it..............."

[seafoid]

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/dec/28/facebook-and-twitter-threatened-with-sanctions-in-uk-fake-news-inquiry

Facebook and Twitter could face sanctions if they continue to stonewall parliament over Russian interference in the EU referendum, the chair of a Commons inquiry has said.

Damian Collins, chair of the DCMS select committee, which is looking into so-called "fake news", has given the companies until 18 January to correct their failure to hand over information he requested about Russian misinformation campaigns on their platforms.

"There has to be a way of scrutinising the procedures that companies like Facebook put in place to help them identify known sources of disinformation, particularly when it's politically motivated and coming from another country," Collins said.

"They need to be able to tell us what they can do about it. And what we need to be able to do is say to the companies: we recognise that you are best placed to monitor what is going on your own site and to get the balance right in taking action against it but also safeguarding the privacy of users.

But what there has to be then is some mechanism of saying: if you fail to do that, if you ignore requests to act, if you fail to police the site effectively and deal with highly problematic content, then there has to be some sort of sanction against you."

[Syferus]

I support the corporations. Governments having free access to personal data is a road to ruin. The FBI tried to strong-arm Apple and failed miserably, thankfully.

[seafoid]

Given economic history I think FB and Google plus others will be broken up.

[Syferus]

Given economic history I think FB and Google plus others will be broken up.

Given modern history there's no chance of that happening.

Seafoid, surprise me and explain how anyone would even go about breaking up a service like Facebook?

[omaghjoe]

I support the corporations. Governments having free access to personal data is a road to ruin. The FBI tried to strong-arm Apple and failed miserably, thankfully.

You support a faceless organisations whose sole purpose is too make money over a democratically elected body to represent the people and govern society according to that people's will?

[Syferus]

I support the corporations. Governments having free access to personal data is a road to ruin. The FBI tried to strong-arm Apple and failed miserably, thankfully.

You support a faceless organisations whose sole purpose is too make money over a democratically elected body to represent the people and govern society according to that people's will?

Do you understand that congress is only one branch of government? The law and the justice system is there to protect the rights of the individual and check power grabs just like this one under the auspices of an investigation.

Anyone who doesn't get the chilling effect that unlawful access to personal data by politicians and law enforcement causes is genuinely missing the bigger picture.

[omaghjoe]

 
Your Presuming that the government will use personal information to turn the government into some sort of police state has no precedent in western democracy or at least is very far from the norm.
Most if not all branches of government  In Western democracies are democratically accountable in some shape or form, corporations aren't

Now Im no fan of governments even democraically elected ones but their end goal is to run a harmonious and properous society.
Id far rather them have my info than the likes of google or facebook, they can and are using it to manipulate you to relieve you of your time & money to enhance their bottom line.

The government has likely more info and interfers much less on the whole for majority of its citizens.

If you think the case with the i phone and FBI was anything other than a PR exercise by apple to portray themselves as protector of your personal info data then your gravely mistaken. But going by your stance it looks like they've been successful in gaining your trust to unload more and more of your info onto them.

[Syferus]

Your Presuming that the government will use personal information to turn the government into some sort of police state has no precedent in western democracy or at least is very far from the norm.
Most if not all branches of government  In Western democracies are democratically accountable in some shape or form, corporations aren't

Now Im no fan of governments even democraically elected ones but their end goal is to run a harmonious and properous society.
Id far rather them have my info than the likes of google or facebook, they can and are using it to manipulate you to relieve you of your time & money to enhance their bottom line.

The government has likely more info and interfers much less on the whole for majority of its citizens.

If you think the case with the i phone and FBI was anything other than a PR exercise by apple to portray themselves as protector of your personal info data then your gravely mistaken. But going by your stance it looks like they've been successful in gaining your trust to unload more and more of your info onto them.

Police states don't just come into being, they develop through the slow erosion of civil rights. Privacy of electronic data is one of the most important issues of the 21st century.

Anyone who thinks the Apple-FBI case was a PR excercise has very little clue to the lengths Apple have went to to ensure exactly that scenario is impossible with newer generation phones that store authentication data in a Secure Enclave that even the operating system cannot access. Of all the companies you could have singled out Apple is the one whose business doesn't hinge on user data - they take privacy very, very seriously.

I hate people pretending they know what the score is on topics like this because it's quite black and white and it's not law enforcement that's in the right.

[seafoid]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/11/facebook-former-executive-ripping-society-apart

Facebook has also faced significant criticism for its role in amplifying anti-Rohingya propagandain Myanmar amid suspected ethnic cleansing of the Muslim minority.

A former Facebook executive has said he feels "tremendous guilt" over his work on "tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works", joining a growing chorus of critics of the social media giant.

Chamath Palihapitiya, who was vice-president for user growth at Facebook before he left the company in 2011, said: "The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops that we have created are destroying how society works. No civil discourse, no cooperation, misinformation, mistruth." The remarks, which were made at a Stanford Business School event in November, were just surfaced by tech website the Verge on Monday.

"This is not about Russian ads," he added. "This is a global problem ... It is eroding the core foundations of how people behave by and between each other."



Ex-Facebook president Sean Parker: site made to exploit human 'vulnerability'

 

Palihapitiya's comments last month were made one day after Facebook's founding president, Sean Parker, criticized the way that the company "exploit a vulnerability in human psychology" by creating a "social-validation feedback loop" during an interview at an Axios event.

He also called on his audience to "soul search" about their own relationship to social media. "Your behaviors, you don't realize it, but you are being programmed," he said. "It was unintentional, but now you gotta decide how much you're going to give up, how much of your intellectual independence."

Palihapitiya referenced a case from the Indian state of Jharkhand this spring, when false WhatsApp messages warning of a group of kidnappers led to the lynching of seven people. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook.

"That's what we're dealing with," Palihapitiya said. "Imagine when you take that to the extreme where bad actors can now manipulate large swaths of people to do anything you want. It's just a really, really bad state of affairs."

Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[Rossfan]

So does everyone stop using Facebook or just block Syfīn on GAAboard?

[Tony Baloney]

So does everyone stop using Facebook or just block Syfīn on GAAboard?

You forgot to include "or both" as an option.