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Social media as it was born touched a novel point of contact that didn't quite exist before. It was a powerful shift from what we had before. Social media allowed you to be in touch with people in a way that wasn't possible with phone calls, text messages, instant messaging, email, or domain-specific forums. What I could do in Facebook in 2010 was stay "friends" with selected acquaintances such as old classmates with whom I never was in email terms, messaging terms, or any other terms except having known them in school (or at work or at a hobby or...) I could follow their life via their posts, and I could leave a comment, sometimes, without any expectation that we should ever talk, meet, chat, or become more than old classmates. I haven't sent email to anyone in my school that I didn't know outside of school, as a friend. I don't have their numbers and it would be awkward to even consider calling someone with whom we didn't necessarily even talk much in school. But it was perfectly okay to ask someone to be your friend on Facebook (like, Hey, I know you? and if he did remember he would accept) and follow their postings and maybe (re)kindle something with no pressure to grow it into anything more than that. We had that. Now... we no longer do. Or we still have Facebook and we can send friend requests to old acquantainces that I'd like to follow but there's nothing to follow because they aren't posting and because Facebook wouldn't show me their posts. So we're back to the point where actually making contact with another person (on Facebook) basically requires sending them a message in Facebook. Which already goes beyond what's expected from an old acquantaince on Facebook. I recall a site for classmates where you could register to your school years and see your classmates there. But that was before social media and there weren't any posts that you could comment. You could just see your classmates listed there, and one in ten might have written a few words in their profile. And that was classmates only, not ex-work colleagues or other people you've passed behind in your life. Facebook was really good at the time it became a thing. We still have email, instant messaging, etc. but what's the platform today where I can keep in touch with people I'm not emailing or talking with? Is there one? |
They don't show you what your friends actually post. Someone saying "hey - I'm in the parking lot at some place, I need help moving this thing" 5 minutes ago? You might see it on your feed in a week
They engage in reputational decay https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1775182 (see also, photo tagging)
They've cut off access to your friends https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4151433
It's a company involved in lots of OTHER things which don't make it a good netizen https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791198 (oh and their own cryptocurrency in Libra, that's fun)
"Dumb fucks" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1692122
Edit: You get banned at any time while the obviously horrible thing you report doesn't get taken down. That's not sustainable. It's not a thing where you can actually physically keep in touch with people, either nominally strangers or the best of friends