Social Media Blog

A Programmer’s Tale thinks the Facebook experiment has failed. The suggestion is that problem is Facebook’s emphasis on sharing rather than creating original content.

Facebook is godsent for people who love to talk, but have nothing to say. Here is a network that doesn’t care about originality or the quality of content. In the time it takes to create something original, they could share dozens of things.

There was a time when my feed was flooded with pictures which consisted of annoying platitudes superimposed on stock images and passive-aggressive someecards. Too many of these things originate from dodgy “like farms” run by spammers.

Inevitably, there is an entire industry working non-stop creating low quality, emotionally appealing content that gets ‘likes’ from gullible users.

Although looking at my own Facebook feed, the signal-to-noise ratio is nothing like as bad as described above. It may be that FB has improved their edgerank algorithm so that it no longer favours pictures over text the way it used to. Or it may simply be that I’ve unsubscribed from photos from a couple of dozen of the worst offenders for sharing low-quality content.

The conclusion is that we need to abandon Facebook in favour of returning to blogs and forums.

We need to go back to smaller communities. Where people aren’t lost in the mediocre averages of large networks. That’s where ideas flourish.

That’s one thing I don’t like about Facebook; the way it’s sucked the life out of other once thriving online communities. Whether it’s possible to go back to them, I don’t know. Many people say they appreciate the “one stop shop” approach of a social network rather than visiting dozens of different sites to check for new content.

The internet continues to evolved, and I’m beginning to think Facebook has peaked, and its day in the sun is over. What will replace it is anyone’s guess.

I see the Facebook Privacy Monster is rearing its ugly head again with another subtle unannounced change. People need to understand that Facebook does not care about our privacy. All they care about is selling our data to advertisers. And they notoriously employ no testers, so whatever privacy options they do try to implement are always going to be riddled with holes.

The problem with Facebook is the way it aggregates all your postings and comments across posts, pages and groups, and you have no control over any comments left outside your own page. If you post to public groups or leave comments against public posts, Facebook will show them to all and sundry. If you’re concerned about privacy at all, you should not be posting things you wouldn’t want you mum, your boss or your ex to see anywhere on Facebook. Keep that sort of stuff for closed mailing lists, private forums, or places that allow anonymous pseudonyms.

I wonder if we should all go back to forums and blogs, where your postings on different sites weren’t connected and aggregated together in the same way, and none of them ever forced you to use your real names anyway.

I see this cut-and-paste meme is doing the rounds on Facebook yet again.

Dear friends: I want to stay PRIVATELY connected with you. I post pictures of my family & friends that I don’t want strangers to have access to.

However, with the recent changes in fb, anyone can now see activities on ANY wall. This happens when our friends hits “like” or “comment” automatically, their friends would see our posts too. Unfortunately, I can not change this settings by myself because Facebook has configured it this way.

So as a big favor could you place your cursor over my name above (DO NOT CLICK), a window will appear, now move the cursor on “FRIENDS” (also without clicking), then down to “Settings”, click here and a list will appear. REMOVE the CHECK on “COMMENTS & LIKE” and also “PHOTOS”. By doing this, my activity among you my friends and family will no longer become public.

Yes, of course it’s a hoax, but such is Facebook’s cavalier attitude towards privacy that it’s hard to blame people for spreading it. But do try to remember that, like most of these cut-and-paste chain letter-a-likes, it’s a load of cobblers. The fact is, if you comment on any public post in Facebook, the whole world will be able to see it. That’s always been the case. And unsubscribing from photos means you no longer see that person’s photos in your feed. You do that to mute people who post too many annoying platitude-jpgs, not for the sake of privacy!

Of course, the problem with Facebook’s deliberate blurring of public and private is that it encourages people to overshare, all the better for them to sell your data to advertisers. That’s their entire business model. It’s not a “safe space” where you can share things you don’t want employers, partners or complete strangers to be able to see, as much as Facebook misleadingly makes people to think it is.

If you want to share things privately, and want control of who can and can’t see what you post, then Facebook isn’t really the venue for that sort of thing. There are plenty of photo-sharing sites that have far more robust privacy policies, so those family photos can’t been seen by anyone but family. There are also plenty of places on the net that don’t require you to use your real name, so your public postings won’t show up when some censorious busybody from Human Resources Googles on your name. And if you don’t want anybody eavesdropping in private conversations with friends, there’s always good old-fashioned email.