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posted by martyb on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:18AM   Printer-friendly
from the hit-the-hate-button dept.

According to The Guardian, one of world’s biggest advertisers — Unilever — says it will avoid platforms that ‘create division’. It further threatens to take its ad purchases off Facebook and Google, if they cannot reign in hate and protect children. Their chief marketing officer says their online spending sometimes is "little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency".

If this finally is it, I say good riddance to surveillance capitalism.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by TheRaven on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:10PM (9 children)

    by TheRaven (270) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @12:10PM (#637070) Journal

    I read the article this morning and the decline that they were predicting was weird: a gradual linear decay of Facebook usage. This seems to completely misunderstand what Facebook is. People don't use Facebook because they like Facebook, people use Facebook because other people that they want to communicate with use Facebook. Just as it saw rapid growth when it reached a critical mass, if Facebook starts to die it will be sudden. Everyone who quits Facebook makes it less useful to their friends (and groups that use it for communication, including advertisers). As soon as it's no longer the most convenient way of communicating with their friends, people will quit. As soon as they do, it becomes less useful to their Facebook-remaining friends, and some of them will quit and so on. As with MySpace, I expect that Facebook's decline will have a sudden inflection point where it goes from being the thing all of the cool kids use to the thing that none of the cool kids use in a couple of weeks.

    If you're on Facebook, why not hurry the process along: use Facebook to coordinate a group of 10 or 20 of your friends to close their accounts simultaneously, and see how much of a ripple that causes. As soon as there's a strong perception that people are leaving, it becomes a lot less attractive to advertisers, and when the bottom drops out of that market then I'll be very happy.

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  • (Score: 2) by Fnord666 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:17PM (3 children)

    by Fnord666 (652) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @02:17PM (#637109) Homepage

    People don't use Facebook because they like Facebook, people use Facebook because other people that they want to communicate with use Facebook.

    [...] If you're on Facebook, why not hurry the process along: use Facebook to coordinate a group of 10 or 20 of your friends to close their accounts simultaneously, and see how much of a ripple that causes. As soon as there's a strong perception that people are leaving, it becomes a lot less attractive to advertisers, and when the bottom drops out of that market then I'll be very happy.

    You can't really hurry the process along however. As you said, Facebook is a communications channel that people use to keep in contact. There has to be another, relatively better channel available to people first before they will leave this one. Right now it looks like Snapchat may be that medium [qz.com], at least among teens and younger users. Time will tell I guess.

    • (Score: 2) by quacking duck on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:14PM

      by quacking duck (1395) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @05:14PM (#637198)

      I've had a semi-dormant Snapchat account for a couple years now, so I fired it up to see how it might be a replacement for FB.

      It seems everything is geared toward "right now". Maybe I'm just too old now, but without an events/calendar/planning feature it can't replace FB as my primary social network. I know the younger generation(s) aren't into planning things even a couple days in advance, never mind weeks, but surely *some* gatherings need a definite yes/no RSVP? I'm not talking concerts, proms or weddings even, where a large number of peers will surely post "can't wait for x" snaps, but smaller ones with say same-aged relatives? What are they using for planning things?

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:16PM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @07:16PM (#637229) Journal

      Facebook is a communications channel that people use to keep in contact.

      That's what everybody who gets into it says.

      Until they find out it has taken over their lives.

      Its what Facebook wants you to say! (Zuckie thanks you for playing along).

      The thing is, humans were never intended to hang onto every person they ever met. People come into your life, you interact with them for a few years, and they leave. Let them go. You're old enough to make new friends, you don't need the same clowns you went to highschool hanging around, nor your sister's ex, your creepy uncle that you met exactly once.

      Pretty soon Facebook is your source of news, none of it vetted. You can't get out of bed in the morning without checking Facebook, nor go to bed any night without posting or commenting. Instead of letting people wonder whether you are an idiot, you start clicking those keys and prove it to everyone by responding to someone's picture of their lunch.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:04AM

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday February 14 2018, @10:04AM (#637538) Journal

        Really? That's quite sad, if that's how people use it.

        I created a Facebook account when it first started because I had been watching social media platforms since Yahoo, Meetup, Friendster, and other predecessors and was interested in how Facebook's approach achieved greater viral spread than others did. It was novel at that time to reconnect with people I hadn't talked to since grade school. But after a handful of awkward exchanges when it was clear I had nothing in common with people who had never left the small town where we were children, I walked away from the platform and haven't touched it since.

        So, you're right--it's not natural for us to stay in touch with everyone forever, because we ourselves don't remain the same people, with the same interests. If we lose the ability to move on with the networks of people we know, then we lose the ability to reinvent ourselves as what we hope will be a better iteration.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:26PM (3 children)

    by frojack (1554) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:26PM (#637214) Journal

    if Facebook starts to die it will be sudden.

    It has to start somewhere. It seems to be starting to die where it started to grow.

    https://www.recode.net/2018/2/12/16998750/facebooks-teen-users-decline-instagram-snap-emarketer [recode.net]

    Facebook is losing young users even quicker than expected, according to new estimates by eMarketer.

    The digital measurement firm predicted last year that Facebook would see a 3.4 percent drop in 12- to 17-year-old users in the U.S. in 2017, the first time it had predicted a drop in usage for any age group on Facebook.
    ...
    Overall, eMarketer found Facebook lost about 2.8 million U.S. users under 25 years of age last year.

    Besides, I disagree with your basic premise. The remnants of ancient social media are like the walking dead, There are people still using ICQ for pete sake!

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:47PM

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @06:47PM (#637222)

      No joke, ICQ uids from the 90s still work. I went to the website as a joke when I found out it still existed, and managed to remember my number and password from 18 years ago.

      My contact list was a ghost town, though. Was gaming contacts from 1999-2000.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:55PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday February 13 2018, @08:55PM (#637264)

      The problem is that FB can easily use the "Where are they going to? I'll buy that" argument ...
      If Google or MS got their social networks to expand, they could kill FB (teens flocking to MS would be quite a sight).
      Smaller actors will be happy to cash in a few billion to get FBorged.

      The phone manufacturers/networks carry a responsibility too. Pre-installing the PB app isn't quite as bad as Win pre-installs, but it still helps FB retain people who might have hesitated.

    • (Score: 2) by acid andy on Wednesday February 14 2018, @11:11AM

      by acid andy (1683) on Wednesday February 14 2018, @11:11AM (#637549) Homepage Journal

      i didn't even get why everybody abandoned ICQ. It worked great for its purpose so I had no desire to move off it, but pretty soon no-one else had it and couldn't easily be persuaded to install it. Most people seemed to move onto M$N. Why are people so damn fickle? A lot of people seem to abandon e-mail accounts as well. I think part of it is that their computer "breaks", they buy a new one and then they can't log in anymore to anything that was "on" the old one. Or their password just gets hacked.

      --
      If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:56PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday February 13 2018, @11:56PM (#637343) Journal

    Need to remember that Facebook is publicly traded, and highly overvalued. Investors, big and small, are banking on Facebook. Facebook won't implode. Remember "to big to fail"? Facebook may deflate, over a long period of time. But, it has accumulated enough money/power to prevent dying off in any short to medium term timeline. Facebook is going to be around long after all of us Soylentils are dead and gone.

    Don't get me wrong - I would LOVE to see Facebook wither and die within the next decade. It has a net negative value to society. But, it just isn't happening.