[sep_field]

I'm in favor of Facebook taking down absolutely any page, whether it agrees with my political views or not. Why? Because Facebook's power comes from network effects. The more people, across the political spectrum, find their interests to be blocked on Facebook, the less people will find value in Facebook in general. Over time, this means Facebook is committing suicide. This is the best possible outcome for humanity.

Die Facebook, die.

[sillysaurusx]

I'm not sure this is a realistic worldview though. This supposes there will be a facebook competitor. As the decades march on, perhaps there will be, but it might not be till we're long gone. There still isn't a competitor to Google, for example.

Parler was a competitor to Twitter, and you saw how that played out. The next competitor is going to have to deal with that quandary.

[otabdeveloper4]

The Facebook competitor is "not using Facebook".

I haven't used it for ten years, can't say I miss it.

[wand3r]

The thing that brought me back is marketplace. Its super difficult to sell on craigslist you get so much spam and super long feedback loops. As a side hobby I buy, trade and sell Danish and Mid Century Modern furniture and finding a market is hard. So begrudgingly I use facebook and chat. It actually is a terrible product but there is nowhere else to tap into such a big market without paying a premium in purchase percentage.

[Hydraulix989]

What is particularly bad about it? Did you try Let Go?

[ginko]

> This supposes there will be a facebook competitor

Why does there have to be a competitor? I think we will do fine without social media.

[sillysaurusx]

Those on social media are more powerful than those off it. The most obvious example is that large Twitter audiences can be monetized, whether by selling a book or asking for Patreon subscribers. That seems to imply social media is here to stay, in one form or another.

It's a bit of a "rules for rulers" paradox: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs&ab_channel=CGPGr... in the sense that power structures exist independently of whether we like them or not.

[grumple]

More powerful in some ways. When I deleted my Facebook account, I certainly lost a platform for communication with a few thousand friends. But I gained so much time. I regained mental energy and focus. I basically immediately gained time to study and doubled my income (which is a more useful form of power in my opinion).

From another perspective, I also think the benefits of Facebook are ephemeral. Yes, many people use these platforms right now for turning themselves into commodities; but other platforms and methods certainly exist, are longer lasting, and you don’t have to worry about a sudden ban.

[tester756]

I completely disagree.

People who manage to monetize $platform are probably tiny, tiny %.

Also there are negative consequences of using social medias.

[playingchanges]

What if, just hear me out, we collectively decide we don’t really like the fb style social media and there actually isn’t a replacement. What if we just moved on?

[rib3ye]

You can still create an account and use Parler.

[sep_field]

...and be on an FBI watch list.

[sep_field]

Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex and Bing, two other competitors to Google.

Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race. Same with Twitter. We don't need them, and we don't need competition for them. They should go away with no replacement.

Source: was Facebook engineer. Listened to Fuckerberg make one too many all-hands speeches about engagement. Resigned several years ago.

[quietbritishjim]

The practical reality is that sharing photos of some group event with the other people at that event is easy in Facebook, and hard to imagine how to do that without some analogous service. I'm aware that many people use Facebook for other odd things but this was Facebook's original use case, and the literal source of its name, and it is still useful for that.

Even if you could come up with some alternative or even decentralised way of doing that, this doesn't change the fact that you're addressing the purpose of Facebook, rather than proving your claim that "it serves no purpose". At university (pre-Facebook) I had a friend who ran a Facebook-like server for sharing photos amongst our group of friends. That need was already there and strong enough he wrote code for it.

[hrbf]

What I’ve always wondered is what the issue is with using essentially any gallery service (or even a cloud drive with semi-public links for this) and just send that link to those people via their email address. Why would I need to use a service like Facebook for that?

Additionally, I’ve never grasped what those Facebook features supposedly used for private communication elevate them over simple email use in general. I’ve found them more cumbersome to deal with than email, to be honest.

[jtdev]

Why not just use iOS Messages or whatever Android app Google has anointed for the next 15 minutes for messaging?

[sep_field]

Facebook runs a huge amount of different services. Some of them have value, but they are ones that people had and have other alternatives for. This doesn't mean that Facebook as a whole has value, as the whole is more evil than the sum of its parts. Anything of value will not be lost as we de-Facebook the planet.

Also, the original use case of Facebook was for Mark and his buddies to rate the attractiveness of their female classmates and share inside information on them. Despicable.

[quietbritishjim]

Ah, I think I see... you're saying that Facebook is an overall net negative to society. Even you now acknowledge that it has some uses, but you consider them to be outweighted by its negatives.

Your original comment made out that Facebook has no uses at all. I think you were just trying to really emphasise your point that it's a net benefit overall, but you've ended up saying something totally different. I know that sounds pedantic but it undermines your point because most people will read its literal meaning (like I did) and then just think, oh, this comment is factually incorrect.

[andrewzah]

Hardline stances like this just lose people. C’mon, _no_ benefit whatsoever?

I quit fb around 2015 or so and it bit me when dealing with groups/events and social exchanges. Meetup wasn’t as big and it’s still not as good as fb since less people use it.

Fb marketplace is more useful for me than craiglist usually, but both are good to check.

[reimertz]

Would yoy be interested in doing an AMA? Seems like you have a lot to say and I'd be down to listen.

[sep_field]

I'm not really wanting to accumulate a fanbase that's interested in my opinions just because I have them, and I doubt I have anything worthwhile to say about just any random question. I add my contributions where I think I have something worthwhile to say -- if others appreciate my contribution as well that's a win-win. Thanks for your interest, its flattering, but I don't see an AMA working out.

[bko]

> Noone needs Facebook, it serves no valid purpose for the human race

Billions of people find value in facebook and use it daily. Who are you to make that call?

[justinclift]

Just because other people don't agree with that call, doesn't mean he's not allowed to have an opinion.

[sep_field]

I appreciate your support in this discussion, but please don't assume my gender. My pronouns are they/them. Thank you!

[justinclift]

So, "... doesn't mean they're not allowed to have an opinion"?

[sep_field]

They'll be able to find value in nonmonopolized and nonalgorithmic versions of the services that Facebook has gobbled up, just like they did before Facebook existed.

I'm not making that call, I'm making a prediction and hoping it comes true, and contributing to a discussion that may possibly, in some small way, contribute to it coming true. If you look around this thread, you'll notice some other people that seem to be aligned to this. I'm not the first to point these things out, and I won't be the last. As a former Facebook employee, I have a responsibility to speak up.

[jryle70]

Incredibly narrow minded. FB page is a godsend for a lot of small businesses, especially during the pandemic.

A friend of mine's 85 year old mom post her activities daily on FB. Great joy and peace of mind for my friend, as they live ocean apart. The old lady wouldn't gonna stop using FB, or wait for a different platform that suits your world view.

By all means, work on a better solution, don't just speak up if you feel strongly about it. My apologies if I don't take it very well idealistic view that disregards other people's way of life.

[nitrogen]

People did all of the things they now do on Facebook before, using email, phone calls, SMS, Flickr, slide film, photo albums, phone books...

Facebook can't claim credit for natural human activity just because Facebook's network effects give most people no choice in what digital city to live.

[bko]

When you use the word valid, you're making a judgement call. You have no right to decide what's valid or not.

On the broader point, you're making a strong assertion. Facebook is probably the most popular consumer product in the history of the world (apart from maybe Coke). You brush off what they do as just providing services that others had provided before Facebook "gobbled" them up, or providing some services that no one really needs or can be trivially replicated.

It's a big claim and there's a huge payoff if you're right. There are thousands of companies trying to pick away at facebooks services, but despite that Facebook usage and engagement grows every quarter.

You can speak up and make your prediction and hope it comes true. But it looks like wishful thinking at this point and it's underlying premise is wrong IMO. Trying to challenge Facebook or encourage others to do so with that framework won't work.

[legostormtroopr]

> despite that Facebook usage and engagement grows every quarter

How much of that growth is through aquisition though? Facebook was losing photo sharing, so they bought instagram, they were losing messaging, so they bought WhatsApp.

Its all well and good to say Facebook has value, and thats because they are using a behemoth (almost, but not quite monopolistic) position to squeeze competitors.

Take Facebook Marketplace, it has a huge number of posts that probably equals Craiglists - and they did that because they already captured peoples attentions. And they'll do it with their next product - hell they are still pushing their Portal picture frame on people.

[WanderPanda]

Doesn't this get boring at some point? By now everyone should be aware of the implications of using Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp and they still use it. Must it be the pure evilness of Facebook which manipulates the whole world or might it be possible that they are actually providing value to people?

[nradov]

I don't need Facebook but it sure is the best way to share my underwater photographs with friends. Nothing else provides the same usability, reach, or ability to engage with other users.

[andrewzah]

Well, there is Instagram... also owned by Facebook :-)

I do agree that there isn’t a alternative for fb groups. And marketplace is better than Craigslist in my area.

[harryf]

> Duckduckgo is a competitor to Google. Its based on Yandex and Bing, two other competitors to Google.

Interesting. Can you elaborate? Like is DuckDuckGo using some of Yandex’s open source? Or the Bing search API?

[Kuinox]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuckDuckGo#Overview

[boomboomsubban]

This is their writeup on it, I think they get some kind of permission based on serving their ads but I'm not positive.

https://help.duckduckgo.com/results/sources

[Andrex]

Something's going to change, soon.

https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/facecrook-dealing-with-a-...

[geitir]

Censoring an entire continent*

As soon as I see a dumb typo like that the rest of the article imo is now trash

[sep_field]

It's the kind of typo a spellcheker would overlook. Maybe the article could have used more proofreading but so what? Somtimes content is more important than presentation.

[geitir]

If the person who wrote it didn't proofread it, then the content likely hasn't been thought through.

[sep_field]

every writer knows its notoriously hard to proofread your own writing. you know how it is supposed to read and your brain just kind of goes on autopilot.

[hntcz]

I get what you are saying but don't you think that Facebook selectively taking down some pages based on political considerations actually increases their power and not decreases it?

[Larrikin]

Like when Infowars, Alex Jones, Donald Trump, the Parler community as a whole, became more popular and enjoyed popularity for years on end after they got banned?

Toxicity, violent rhetoric, racism, conspiracy theories, and lies in general all seem to thrive on social media. The Streisand effect is also a real thing. But there doesn't appear to be a meaningful overlap between the two after about a month.

Infowars gained a huge number of people when that guy was deplatformed, but that kind of nonsense needs a constant influx of new people when people eventually get burnt by believing something like Sandy Hook never happened, Q is real, Jews and black people are the cause of all your problems because you're special, etc and hard evidence gets presented. People wise up and peel off.

[eternalban]

Only if they are permitted to maintain a pseudo-monopolistic position in their market. So their own self destructive behavior, coupled with legal and societal push for options in the social network market.

The legal aspect may include legislation to forbid governmental organs and/or employees (of note) to use platforms such as FB and Twitter to disseminate and or engage the "public". If they engage the "public" then the platform must be open to "public" without restriction.

[hg35h4]

Doesn't work since big tech all works together to crush dissent and anything that goes against their business model.

Look at how attacked any right wing site is - they go after their ISPs, their CDNs, their DNS registrars, their hosting companies.

The Internet has got to the point that you cannot even operate a business if it goes against the "values" of big tech, or they chop all your arms off.