I have to agree that I do find that part problematic. It seems that I do not get all the posts from some pages that I am supposed to be following. And the barrage of advertisements and suggested posts is also not to my like, but it is a tool for communication that allows for searching for and joining common-interest groups.
I just thought about this: the mail service was one of the functions assumed by the United States government. There was and is “mail neutrality”, with the service provider not allowed to decide which mail to carry or how fast. What is the 21st century equivalent service? What would be Ben Franklin’s opinion about “net neutrality”?
Im not even sure I ever had a profile. I know I registered once when I was working at another company, since I had to implement some API stuff, but thing is, I’ve never missed Facebook. I admit that I was some time on WhatsApp up, but even that was annoying enough. The amount of chatter to content was abhorrent, so I signed off. Kindergardens and schools aren’t allowed to use Facebook and WhatsApp for work, iiRC.
Now, I don’t preach to the users. It’s pointless. Only to some of the „but you have to to.…“ is nearly as much a cult as some TV users (or Netflix, for that matter) who constantly tell you that „need to watch that show“ or some meat easters trying to question a vegetarian lifestyle. (For the record: i do use Netflix and I do eat meat).
It just occurred to me… how many facebook users do NOT have a picture of themselves on the site already? Seems like an unnecessary thing for them to ask for.
Oh, this is funny. i love ethical consumerism. you are going to make such a big difference by not participating in a megacorporation ! it’s not like we have an economic system that is centered on maintaining exactly this kind of power.
We live in a consumerist society, yes. some of us, however, have not accepted that this is the only kind of society we can have, and we are here to talk about how to change it.
I’m a huge fan of people doing things rather than states. However, what you are asking for is for several billion people to sacrfice a huge part of their lives that they do not have a choice about. Facebook is part of a lot of people’s work lives and it’s the way they connect to family and all of that. I’m sure some people could just avoid and deal with the inconvenience (for example, me, because I’m trans), but there is a reason it has so many users, and trust me, it’s not because of the convenient interface and friendly conversations. This is people’s lives you’re talking about.
If Facebook was nothing more than 2 billion people who individually voluntarily participated in it, it would not be such a problem in the first place. We clearly did not get here through voluntary means. This situation right here is evidence of that.
Facebook is a corporation with near-monopoly, and individuals making their own seemingly voluntary actions under life circumstances that they don’t have a choice about and dealing with their own consequences independently of each other is exactly how we got here, and that is why we can only continue to go in this direction, as long as we are only individuals.
But we’re not just talking about changing something big, we’re talking about changing something that is absolutely fucking massive and more importantly well organized, and even more importantly organized around our very lives, and that requires organized collective action.
Whether or not a state can or should be involved in such collective action is a whole other question, and yes, in that case, we would definitely need a solid foundation of democracy (which, we don’t) to even think about doing this sort of thing at a state level, imo.
