The End of Facebook?

[+ pitman]

Logging Out

by Andrew Sullivan

 

Is social media on the decline? Here’s hoping. A lovely piece in The New Yorker last week by Jia Tolentino lamented the loss of blogging, idiosyncrasy, quirkiness, and intelligence from the web. This set of reflections on the Awl compiled by Max Read in these pages also conveys the essence of the Internet That Nearly Was. Tom Scocca gets the essence of this old era: “What the Awl represented to me was the chance to write exactly what I meant to write, for an audience I trusted to read it.”

 

I feel entirely the same way about the blogging golden age. What was precious about it was its simple integrity: A writer gets to explore her craft and develop her own audience. We weren’t in it for the money or the clicks or the followers. We were in it for the core experience shared between a writer and a reader — and the enormous freedom that removing the editorial gatekeepers unlocked. It was a brief period, but an alive one, and it was largely lost — or abandoned — because of a major failure of nerve on the part of most print media. (Harper’s was and is a notable exception.) I was there, for example, at The Atlantic, when it felt it had no choice but to abandon its small group of bloggers and their devoted audiences in favor of a business strategy to maximize page views through social media. I witnessed a great American literary institution a century-and-a-half old feel it necessary to suck up to Facebook and Twitter. I saw when the goal across the media shifted from simply writing what you believed, however idiosyncratically, to writing more and more and more, so that the sheer volume of traffic might save the economics of web journalism. The fire-hydrant stream of “content” (“writing” was so passé) was so overwhelming that no single editor could manage it, no group of writers could give it character, and no single reader could even begin to read it all. Maybe the web made this inevitable. But it didn’t make the dissipation of so much heritage any less agonizing to watch.

 

And after a few years of “social” obsession, online media began to seem all the same: a heaving, pulsating, twitching ocean of hot takes and insta-news in which tribal identity always took precedence over style or elegance or quirkiness or diversity of view. And it didn’t really work as a business model anyway. Instead of consolidating their own readerships and loyalty, magazines became dependent on Zuckerberg and Twitter, vulnerable to shifts in the Facebook News Feed, which is now moving away from news. Increasingly and mercifully, writers and editors are discovering that their actual economic value lies not in countless page views, but in a relationship between readers and writers. Subscriptions increasingly matter more than page views with their diminishing ad revenues, which is why the subscriber buoyancy of the Washington Post and the New York Times is so encouraging. I’m proud that my own blog, the Dish, never bent the knee to social media, and was eventually proof that the best business model was always reader loyalty and engagement — quality, not quantity. Which is why we were able to develop an online subscription model of 30,000 paid and passionate online subscribers — still more than any other purely online website has acquired two years later.

 

But there’s hope on the horizon again. The sewer of most of Twitter is now so rank that even addicts have begun to realize that they are sinking in oceans of shitholery. Facebook is long overdue for a collapse, and the old institutions are showing signs of developing more character and coherence. Nick Bilton at Vanity Fair cannot waitfor FaceTwitterGramChat to peak:

 

A few years ago, for example, there wasn’t a single person I knew who didn’t have Facebook on their smartphone. These days, it’s the opposite. This is largely anecdotal, but almost everyone I know has deleted at least one social app from their devices. And Facebook is almost always the first to go. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other sneaky privacy-piercing applications are being removed by people who simply feel icky about what these platforms are doing to them, and to society.

 

The evidence that social media has turned journalism into junk, has promoted addictive addlement in our brains, is wrecking our democracy, and slowly replacing life with pseudo-life is beginning to become unavoidable. And the possibility that the media may recover from its loss of nerve is real.

 

Readers will reward quality. The editors of our day, if we’re lucky, will begin to realize that this is the economic future of journalism, and bank on it again. This tide will turn. Drop your Twitter; abandon Facebook; and buy a subscription to a magazine that is trying to save its own soul.

[bigvalboy]

. This tide will turn. Drop your Twitter; abandon Facebook; and buy a subscription to a magazine that is trying to save its own soul.

 

Spot on...

[+ Pensant]

Don’t forget the annoying LinkedIn.

[bigvalboy]

Don’t forget the annoying LinkedIn.

 

Another social media outlet that's full of over inflated resumes, lies, and dishonest practices that makes you think you are part of something larger than it really is.

 

You have to take it with a grain of salt...

Edited February 18, 2018 by bigvalboy

[liubit]

Don’t forget the annoying LinkedIn.

I hate Linkedin.

[+ WilliamM]

A few years ago, for example, there wasn’t a single person I knew who didn’t have Facebook on their smartphone. These days, it’s the opposite. This is largely anecdotal, but almost everyone I know has deleted at least one social app from their devices. And Facebook is almost always the first to go. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and other sneaky privacy-piercing applications are being removed by people who simply feel icky about what these platforms are doing to them, and to society.

 

Facebook was never a place to argue or learn about politics. I still have a Facebook account because it is valuable in keeping in touch with relatives and friends whom you seldom call on the phone.

[+ Gar1eth]

I’ll be sad if Facebook goes. For one thing I live over 1600 miles from my family. And I don’t get back home often. It’s somewhat bittersweet, but I enjoy seeing pictures of my Mom, siblings, nieces, nephew, great-nieces and nephews, and the rest of the family. Plus with my newly diagnosed myasthenia gravis I’ve joined a FB Group.

 

I personally am not great at phone calls-so Facebook definitely serves a purpose in keeping me connected.

 

Gman

[+ Gar1eth]

Andrew Sullivan has different interests. Fine. Using Facebook does not mean people are not reading books and newspapers.

 

Andrew most likely has a lot more money than I’ll ever have as well as a much more active social life. He probably doesn’t need FB as much as I do.

 

Gman

[bigvalboy]

I agree, Facebook has it's place and for those that understand it's limitations, it can be a real social connect. I've abandoned facebook because it no longer was a useful way of connecting with people. I tend to just pick up the phone more, text (to make sure someone is available) and email, but calling is my preferred method. I like to hear the sound of someone's voice. You can tell more about what's really going on in someones life.

Edited February 18, 2018 by bigvalboy

[LaffingBear]

I stopped posting on Facebook about one year ago. I still take a look every so often to be certain I haven't missed any major life events of friends and family - for there are still people who live their life on social media.

 

I also stopped blogging a year ago. I blogged through the 2016 election. About guns, about anti-Semitism, about professional sports, and social media. I recognized that my blog primarily served me.... my need to "say my piece." There's a moment when posters must realize that "likes" and "followers" aren't necessarily demand. They read and react simply because its there. People will slow down and rubberneck at a highway accident; that doesn't mean they wanted the wreck to occur.

 

"If you build it, they will come" is now "if you post it, they will click." I choose to refrain from adding my voice to the cacophony. ("except for here," said the hypocrite.)

 

This post is titled "the end of Facebook." Last month FB reported the first ever decline in user hours. Facebook may go the way of AOL.... I don't share Andrew Sullivan's view that it signals a shift to pithier content and more substantive information .

 

I have a rather disdainful view of social media, human impressionability, and herd behavior. We've bred short attention spans into the population. Humans require some level of attention and interpersonal contact... and devices have become the addictive means. I doubt we'll see a resurgence of any information requiring more than six-seconds to consume.

[+ honcho]

I shared hundreds of Facebook messages with a close friend -- a journalist in Europe and Africa. His last message to me before he was killed in the cross fire of war: "Thanks for sharing man. And talk soon." He never would have had the time to wrote e-mails but Facebook worked well.

 

I don't want to "like" the fact that he he died pursuing his profession, but I want to thank you for sharing this with us, and offer my condolences.

[+ Gar1eth]

I shared hundreds of Facebook messages with a close friend -- a journalist in Europe and Africa. His last message to me before he was killed in the cross fire of war: "Thanks for sharing man. And talk soon." He never would have had the time to wrote e-mails but Facebook worked well.

 

I don't want to "like" the fact that he he died pursuing his profession, but I want to thank you for sharing this with us, and offer my condolences.

 

I’m very sorry too @WilliamM. And that was an incredibly nice post @honcho.

 

Gman

[+ ArVaGuy]

I usually post on Facebook once a week if that at most. Unless I'm on travel then I'll post some of the sites I've visited for work. The CEO of my company and two of our board members follow me so I'm very careful what I post for obvious reasons. Absolutely no politics and I skip over such posts from friends and colleagues. Don't really have time for ignorant pontificating.

 

My company rolled out Facebook Workplace to the wider organization in January. Gawd what a nightmare. This is billed as a tool for fostering collaboration. I'm skeptical of that.

 

When it first went live there were tons of pet pictures. People were posting pictures of their dogs and cats as well as other animals. I complained to the COS and I wasn't alone. After about two weeks the pet group disappeared.

 

For collaboration I think it's just like regular Facebook. Useful some of the time but not as effective as all the hype tries to claim.

 

IMO, after the last election cycle Facebook, Google, Twitter, and the rest of social media proved to be more detrimental to civil discourse and society than could have been imagined. The social media companies have become too large and pervasive. They proved incapable and unwilling to protect their platforms from nefarious outside influences that easily managed to manipulate users.

 

Facebook, Google, Twitter, Snapchat, and all the rest of these platforms should be classified as public utilities and regulated accordingly. I also wouldn't mind seeing these companies broken up on antitrust grounds. Collectively the social networks have created more harm than intended.

[+ pitman]

Perhaps this discussion is more appropriate for the political forums, but I think this is an important point.

 

Facebook Still Lying About Its Role in the 2016 Election

By Josh Marshall | February 17, 2018 7:34 pm

 

I flagged this on Twitter before President Trump started flogging it. But I’m not at all surprised that he did. Because, somewhat to my surprise, it revealed that Facebook seems still to be committed to lying, albeit now more artfully, about its role in the 2016 election and more broadly as a channel of choice for propaganda and misinformation.

 

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/facebook-still-lying-about-its-role-in-the-2016-election

[+ tassojunior]

Facebook started downhill when they got too damn many commercials. Then they started blurring the line between paid promotion and normal stuff. It's strange they keep the rather Spartan format and little commercialization on their Instagram platform. I think my breaking point in trusting them was during the election when these Russian keystone cops were so obviously comical in their attempted deception. After that I didn't trust any "news" column I didn't know and respect from previous columns. And that's a loss to Facebook as I had come to depend on FB for much of my news.

 

I've met a lot of dates on FB with genuine guys who I've friended from friends. But I've also met a lot of hot guys on FB who each seem to have exactly 5000 friends but few candid photos or history.

[maninsoma]

Facebook was never a place to argue or learn about politics. I still have a Facebook account because it is valuable in keeping in touch with relatives and friends whom you seldom call on the phone.

 

That's the way I generally use Facebook as well. I don't have it installed on my phone, though, since I agree that Facebook is more intrusive than it needs to be. I don't want Facebook to associate my phone number with my account and then start linking me with anyone who has ever called me or whom I have called.

[mike carey]

I've ceased to use Facebook as much as I did in the past (I've even stopped commenting on @Brian Kevin's posts there). I have quite a few American friends there from my time working in the US, some are extremely gay friendly and others are very conservative (although I've never seen even them post anything homophobic). All my exchanges there have been civil, but I've only offered measured comments on conservative issues (even on posts that have been shared from that fascist troll Pamela Geller). FB can be civil!

[MartyB]

I deactivated my FB account over a year ago. My life has not been altered for the worse. FB began to censor to the extreme. As for family and friends I don't need FB to wish them happy birthday or what they are eating for breakfast. Plus the politics of the last presidential election caused such a rancorous and hostile place and not just the Trump supporters but the Bernie supporters as well. Plus I like to keep my life private and on FB it's not.

[+ pitman]

Is Facebook Too Much Of A Shape-Shifter To Regulate?

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-facebook-too-much-of-a-shape-shifter-to-regulate/

[+ stevenkesslar]

Is Facebook Too Much Of A Shape-Shifter To Regulate?

 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-facebook-too-much-of-a-shape-shifter-to-regulate/

 

From the article:

 

"But it was Congress’s concern about privacy issues that dominated regulation talk, perhaps natural given the ostensible reason for the hearings. Sen. Dick Durbin pressed Zuckerberg, saying, “I think that may be what this is all about. Your right to privacy. The limits of your right to privacy. And how much you give away in modern America, in the name of, quote, connecting people around the world.” Likewise, Sen. Maria Cantwell

Zuckerberg over a consent decree Facebook entered into with the Federal Trade Commission in 2011. The Washington Post wrote that the decree language “was written to require Facebook to identify and address emerging threats to user privacy as its business practices changed over the 20-year term of the consent decree.” Cantwell expressed skepticism that Zuckerberg and his company were adhering to the terms of that agreement. “When … I look at where you are from the 2011 consent decree and where you are today, I’m thinking, ‘Is this guy outfoxing the foxes, or is he going along with what is a major trend in an information age: to try to harvest information for political forces?’”

 

I agree with Durbin and Cantwell. The takeaway should be the protection of privacy.

 

I avoid Facebook and Twitter like an STD. To me they encourage mass stupidity. If you need proof, here it is:

 

 

The antidote to mass stupidity are magazines like The Economist. Even Fox & Friends is genius material compared to Twitter. As much as it might help matters if everybody read The Economist every week, that's a tough standard I can't meet.

 

But what The Economist is saying now is right. It's time for the US to pass some law like Europe's new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Priority #1 should be protecting the data privacy of Americans.

Edited April 12, 2018 by stevenkesslar

[mike carey]

The anecdote to mass stupidity are magazines like The Economist.

Antidote perhaps?

[+ José Soplanucas]

I stopped using Facebook about one year ago, when I started to feel like 80% of my friends and acquaintances where not able to distinguish between fabrications and reality, when I started to have rage attacks every time someone would sent a chain post, which means when I started to have quasi epileptic attacks several times a day, when people would not recognize the gap between the cheap quality of the "quote" shared and the writer it was being attributed to. That was the last thing that really pissed me off. Someone created a v-card with a deist aphorism, very poorly written, and signed it "Jorge Luis Borges". It was resent hundred of thousands of times.

 

The last time I signed up was last year on my birthday, to thank for all the messages and to let everyone know that I would not be back there again ever. I still receive emails from FB letting me know I have notifications. I just ignore them.

[+ stevenkesslar]

Antidote perhaps?

 

Can't a guy get a break around here?

 

I mean, your well hung buddy Peter is the thoughtful one. And I even spelled the word "entrepreneur" right.

 

He's the one with a god damn speech at the end of every post. All I say is that I am a humble, ignorant whore.

 

Well, okay. My tag line doesn't actually say I'm humble. And at least now I can prove I'm ignorant.

[mike carey]

I mean, your well hung buddy Peter is the thoughtful one.

Who?

[maninsoma]

I think one's Facebook experience has a lot to do with what one makes of it. Just like every other website I visit regularly, I am highly selective about what and whom I engage with. I have a few "friends" who occasionally post stuff that seems like propaganda, but for the most part what I see on Facebook are posts from friends and acquaintances about what is going on in their lives. People's vacation experiences. People's social outings. And because of my personal interests, I will see posts of hot men, drag queens, and delicious food.

 

I think this website is similar. One can limit one's participation here to specific topics and areas of interest, or one can give it more importance than that.

 

I'm not suggesting that Facebook and the Message Forum are equivalent in terms of social impact. I don't think Russian bots are among us trying to sway members' political opinions because we are very small fish in a very large pond. I have some understanding of Facebook's failings and agree that it deserves scrutiny at the national level. I am merely suggesting that, like any other online resource, Facebook can be used in different ways.