[nextlevelwizard]

When has this actually happened? And by this I mean that out of nowhere Facebook suddenly has deleted someone's page and then not restored it?

I get what you are suggesting, but I can't help but to think you are making this way bigger issue than it actually is.

Also all of you are missing the most obvious point: if it hasn't happened to a lot (and I mean literally more than 10-20% of user base) it is not a significant risk and thus spending extra effort for literally no gain (and actually probably more of a loss in views/users/buyers/whatever) is not worth paying someone to design you a website and paying for updates and then A) paying for (yet another) 3rd party company to host your website B) learning how to setup, host, update, and maintain your own website.

I'm sure most of people on this site could easily setup their own website and run it wherever, but the reason why people are paying you to do such things for living means that most people can't be bothered to learn all the necessary skills.

[angus-prune]

Facebook's real name policy affects some people lots more than others - particularly lgbt people, and sex workers.

I'd guess that amongst my friendship group around 5-10% of people have been affected by this. This is disproportionately high - a suburban soccer mom is far more likely to never see anyone have problems with their fb account. But amongst certain populations this is a real problem and can put people at risk.

Fb has decided that the increase in value from 99% of users is worth the pain for 1%, and that the network effect will keep the 1% in line. They're probably right. On the other hand, fb got a foothold in the market through 1% of the population who are college students, an alternative social network could get a foothold through the queer or other communities that fb is ignoring.

[interfixus]

Good luck posting some controversial point of view on Facebook or similar platforms. They'll axe you in the blink of an eye.

It's real. It happens all the time. I have seen it again and again.

[dajt]

I may have a business one day that sells bits for model steam locos. Many people who are likely to be my customers belong to a facebook group, and probably don't use their PCs much except for facebook and e-mail.

And if I needed to post a controversial point of view on my model steam loco business page, I've got bigger problems than facebook.

I can't stand facebook, but for my purposes it is probably the cheapest, most direct, and low effort way for those people to get to me. It's also probably pretty low effort on my part.

The business would never be more than a cottage industry and I certainly wouldn't want to spend ANY money on IT that I could avoid.

Anyone here offering to donate their time to keep all my IT in order for the same cost I can do it with facebook, and give me the exposure it will to my potential customers?

If so I'll give you my gmail address to get in contact ;)

[C4stor]

I think that your point of view is both : - totally acceptable :-) - not really answering the OP question !

The way I understand it, the question could be phrased : "What costs are we willing to pay to reduce the collective social costs of ultradependence on private companies". You clearly states what are the costs you're not willing to pay, but don't really answer the question which is : what costs would you actually be ready to pay ? (Maybe the answer is none, but I don't feel like you actually state that ?)

[dajt]

There are no costs for IT I'd be willing to pay for. The nature of the business is such that it wouldn't even be worth having a shopping cart type app running.

The web presence of the business would basically be an advertisement, newsletter, and contact page.

There are related businesses that sell lots of small items, eg nuts, bolts, material, that would be a lot more convenient to use with a shopping cart, but mine doesn't need it.

[sjg007]

I think you could have a connector between your site and Facebook. Basically an app that would synchronize content. You should certainly start on Facebook, see if you have something valuable and then think about transferring to a self hosted solution. At that point you might find it worth it but maybe not.

Docker containers make sense because they are portable apps. You can choose where to deploy them, upgrade them, and store the data or what not.

[dajt]

My day job is software development, and your second paragraph made me shudder. So imagine what someone who doesn't want anything to do with IT would think!

The majority of the world do not want to know about containers, hosting services, domain names, or anything else that is related to computers.

I'm not even sure that is changing with younger people - they're happy enough to dick around with social media but don't want to get involved in running a web site and all the software on it.

If a business can work with a "no obvious cost" platform like facebook, the owner won't start paying for something "better" in response to non-quantifiable downsides and threats possibly posed by the platform.

[mnx]

>And if I needed to post a controversial point of view on my model steam loco business page, I've got bigger problems than facebook.

Yeah, but what if you post it on your personal wall, and get banned for that? You won't be able to access your page, it doesn't matter you kept it clean.

[dajt]

I only use facebook for the model engineering group(s) and unless they decide discussions about miniature locos are dodgy I should be okay.

I can see there is a potential trap there for the people who decide to mix their personal and professional lives on something like facebook. I just think it is unlikely to get sprung, and comments like "why on earth don't they take complete control of their online presence and register their domain, get their system hosted, set up all their e-mail addresses, etc" could only be written somewhere like HN. The rest of the world would just shake their head slowly.

[mnx]

Yeah, I agree. But I think mixing personal and professional on Facebook is pretty much by default, and most people do it. Also, the illusion that people could control their own presence comes from the fact that this is how it used to work, back when the internet was a much different place.

[s73ver]

You're going to need to show examples for people being banned for JUST posting a controversial point of view. Most of the time I hear this, it wasn't for the point of view, but because the person was actually breaking the ToS, and they knew it.

[kakarot]

What happened for me was that people stopped seeing my controversial posts to the point where the only reason I still had facebook, which was to discuss tech, philosophy, and politics with the masses, became void.

That was an awakening moment for me. Promptly deleted the damned thing and every other social media account I had. Technological echo chambers are going to do so much harm to society.

[mirimir]

Yes, Facebook has an insidious shadow-ban system. Its goal is showing people what they like, and not what they don't like. So they're happy Facebook users, seeing happy Facebook ads.

[kakarot]

Some suggest it shows a healthy balance of things users like and dislike. That addicting loop of frustration and redemption we often find in the mobile gaming sphere. Not to mention it does this using machine learning techniques to get the timing down juuuust right.

Something something something beauty without pain.

I think my posts were well beyond the "frustrating but redeemable" category, because I had a purposeful tendency to discuss abrasive subjects in order to elicit strong reactions.

So the question is, how the hell do we create a platform that encourages people to challenge their preconceived notions in a way that doesn't make them unbearably uncomfortable in an age where people will do just about anything to not feel uncomfortable, even if it leads to stronger discomfort later?

I have a nascent idea of an anonymous conversation app that pairs users and groups together with various conversation starters, migrating them to new groups over time, while still allowing them to have conversations with users and groups they have befriended over time.

What do you think of such an app and its potential utility for solving this problem?

[mirimir]

> ... I had a purposeful tendency to discuss abrasive subjects in order to elicit strong reactions.

That sounds a little like trolling, but I get that you meant it as educational. Maybe a distinction that simple machines don't make.

> ... anonymous conversation app that pairs users and groups together with various conversation starters ...

And that sounds a little like Usenet, or discussion forums. Except that group selection and migration are totally voluntary. In my experience, unless there's moderation, you eventually get trolling wars. Which seem like harassment, to people who don't want to (and/or don't know how to) play those games. And everyone but the trolls eventually leaves.

If you could build an app that facilitated intense discussion, and prevented trolling and harassment, that would be very cool. Forcing anonymity would largely prevent harassment, because anyone who felt harassed could just move to a new persona. And there would be no meatspace impact.

Did you ever go on talk.masked? It used to be a main branch off core.onion (Tor onion services).

[kakarot]

I rarely started abrasive discussions, but I would jump on the abrasive statements of others pretty quickly to call out bullshit.

A little off topic, but an example: Someone declared that if you ever doubt any woman's claim about being raped or assaulted, you are the worst kind of person, and you're sexist.

Well, I was assaulted once, and then the girl turned around and told all of my friends that I attacked her.

I lost a LOT of friends over this and it had a pretty negative impact on my life. I shared this experience, and next thing I know dozens of women I'd never met are telling me I'm likely to be a rapist when I grow up and I should just kill myself and I was probably lying about not attacking her. I was just a white male who has no experience with abuse and should keep my mouth shut. Nevermind that I was physically abused for 15 years until I left home.

The complete irony of the situation, what with the victim-blaming and being called sexist while being told my opinion as a white male was invalid, was not lost on me. That was the first big sign that Facebook had become a cesspool.

This is exactly the kind of harmful backwards thinking I want to eradicate. However it seems that some rich and powerful have decided it is in their best interest to manufacture this kind of thought and impress it into the masses. I want to find out how technology can create a level playing field.

The app's just a thought experiment but I wonder if group moderation could be done in a way that doesn't produce social bubbles or echo chambers.

I haven't been on talk.masked. Is it not active anymore? I haven't been on Usenet in a while.

[qrbLPHiKpiux]

It happened here http://www.optimizationtoday.com/social-media/what-i-learned...

[mirimir]

I was thinking of this recent post: http://www.optimizationtoday.com/social-media/what-i-learned...

Searching "facebook blocked" suggests that it's a common problem.

[NoGravitas]

> When has this actually happened?

It happened to a lot of Facebook meme pages.[0]

[0]: https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/the-zuckening-mark-zuckerbe...

[_pmf_]

> When has this actually happened?

Germany and France do this regularly for what they consider "hate speech" (for example retweeting newspaper articles about attacks by migrants). Germany has just installed a law that allows imposing multi million EUR fines on companies for repeatedly violating requests to delete user content that violates these fuzzy criteria.

There's a huge influx of German users to gab.ai because of this.

[nextlevelwizard]

How would this be any different on self hosted platform