“I don’t do facebook.”

Pete Gossett said:

In reply to poopshovel again :

Too bad you don’t have an account. You’re truly missing out on the fun - no not with the general BS of Facebook, but with the groups, and especially some of the secret/private groups. There’s several offhand I think you’d really enjoy. 

The AI that recommends Facebook groups it thinks you will like has recently taken a turn for the weird. Here's the latest recommendations it's given me.

It must think Bollywood movies have universal appeal, I guess.

Even weirder - this list generally shows up when I'm looking at groups on engine tuning, and not on other groups.

I've been on almost since it was publicly available.  Early on it was a place where banger rally teams were coordinating efforts outside of the old forums.

As to privacy:  I work in IT, Im on the computer and various websites all day long.  I have zero expectations of privacy in anything I do related to online connectivity and I treat all interactions as such.  Therefore I just keep everything I post public and I dont lull myself into a false sense of security.  If the internets want to harvest that data well....good, you are the consumer or you are the commodity, as Im not paying for it Im the commodity.  I dont want to pay for it so I am ok with being the commodity (same can be said for most internet forums as well)

As to the terrible content posted by most people:  Anyone Im "friends" with on FB knows Im there for dog pictures and car talk.  If their usual content strays from that they are silenced.  Its a wonderful option to have.  Many permanently but during certain times (election cycles) I tend to use the 30 day mute function quite a bit.

But for the good:  as previously noted, marketplace.  Also interest specific groups.  Prime example, there is a car I have been hunting for about 6 years now.  Finding the right combination of condition and price has been challenging on what was a fairly low volume car to begin with.  I bought it last night, from an enthusiast group on FB which is the only place it was listed for sale.   Also because I was a member of that group I got to get reviews on the seller and many testimonials as to the quality of the work he put into the car as it was over 700 miles away so I had to buy sight unseen.  All the advantages we feel being a part of this GRM community can be amplified further with interest specific groups on FB as the reach is wider.   

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

Winner winner chicken dinner. 

I definitely look at Facebook too much, since I don't really get offended by anything, Facebook is the train wreck you can't stop looking at. But just because other people want to broadcast they weren't raised right, doesn't mean I have to jump in the wreckage as well. I'll just sit over here with my popcorn and watch.

96.4% of what I post is dumb memes I find amusing. Occasionally an interesting article, or news about music or cars. 

JThw8 said:

A Therefore I just keep everything I post public and I dont lull myself into a false sense of security.  

 

This is what I do, as well.   Consider anything you post to the intrawebz as public.   And permanent,   

z31maniac said:

Facebook is the train wreck you can't stop looking at. But just because other people want to broadcast they weren't raised right, doesn't mean I have to jump in the wreckage as well. I'll just sit over here with my popcorn and watch.

 

Its like when I go to Vegas.  I don't gamble, I don't run around with women, I dont drink to excess, but it sure is fun to sit back and watch the E36 M3 show :)   FB just lets you watch multiple E36 M3 shows from the comfort of your home 

Nice to see that people are coming back to the reality of the light.

Never have been part of FB- and I've posted about it here- ranting how some people think that you have to be there to interact.  Mostly got flack here previously.

If I really need to get something that I can't find on CL, I may make a fake account to at least look- but I see nothing productive or additive in my life via FB.  If people want to be in contact with me, they know how, just like I know how to contact them.

To be entertained by the E36 M3 show on FB?  Really?  

On the other hand, it's nice to know that I've not missed anything.

My dad wanted on Facebook, so I signed him up. He calls me and says "this is nothing but people talking about what they had for lunch and their kids and their vacation. I don't want to see that, who wants to see that?" I tried to explain that is what Facebook is!

In reply to alfadriver :

You can do what I did make an account for your dog and dogs being very friendly he'll let you use it. Oddly enough Tommie's been gone for a couple of years and he still gets friend requests.

When I was a kid, I had a fantasy that I could read people's thoughts.

Now I'm on facebook and I'm completely over it.

I'm on there, but these days, it's mainly for the Groups which have supplanted a lot of forums (NOT THIS ONE!!!) that I used to be part of. That and the cheap cars and guitars. Ignore all the other noise!

Yeah Poopshovel: cheap, awesome GUITARS. If it wasn't for Facebook, I wouldn't have four of my favorite stringed instruments. Most I paid for any of them was $130 for my Epi Goth Explorer with its original case. The thing shreds!

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Tom_Spangler said:

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Just for clarity within the context of my full post.  That control is NOT using the privacy settings to "hide" something.  You control it where your fingers touch the keyboard.  Once its out there, its public, never think otherwise :)

JThw8 said:

Tom_Spangler said:

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Just for clarity within the context of my full post.  That control is NOT using the privacy settings to "hide" something.  You control it where your fingers touch the keyboard.  Once its out there, its public, never think otherwise :)

Exactly this.  It's pretty much proven that any information you've given Facebook is public, even those details you've designated private.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-data-privacy-scandal-a-cheat-sheet/

Tom_Spangler said:

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Someone still needs to define the positive to make it worth it.  I still don't see it.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

It's also been proven multiple times, and by their own admission, that Facebook wants to collect everything, they maintain "dark profiles" of people who've left the service or were never even on it to begin with, they track you across the internet even when not signed into Facebook, and just this week that they using the iPhone cameras to checkout your surroundings when scrolling the feed.

If they were a foreign government, we'd call them spies, but because they are a "private" company they get the just brush it off with an apology and burying links to the stories deeper into the Google information vacuum. Which, funny enough, has been collecting health data, in private, without consent, from fitbit and insurance companies for reasons not specified.

1988RedT2 said:

JThw8 said:

Tom_Spangler said:

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Just for clarity within the context of my full post.  That control is NOT using the privacy settings to "hide" something.  You control it where your fingers touch the keyboard.  Once its out there, its public, never think otherwise :)

Exactly this.  It's pretty much proven that any information you've given Facebook is public, even those details you've designated private.

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-data-privacy-scandal-a-cheat-sheet/

Id go further than that, its not just limited to FB.  If you post it online/electronically, treat it as public.  Even email.  Sooner or later someone will get ahold of it.   The only security you have is that which you provide by not posting in the first place.

alfadriver said:

Tom_Spangler said:

JThw8 said:

TL:DR - there's nothing wrong with FB as long as you treat it (and all online activity) with care and most importanly engage your brain.  You control your experience.

So. Much. This. People who think things like Facebook are inherently evil puzzle me. YOU are in control of how much information you share, and what you see. If your experience is negative, it's on you.

Someone still needs to define the positive to make it worth it.  I still don't see it.

I will assume by your activity here that you find the positive benefits to this online community.   FB contains other online communities which may also be of interest to you and provide positive benefits.  Unfortunately it relies on each community having good moderators to weed out the junk, like any forum.   Find the good ones and you'll find the benefit.

In reply to JThw8 :

But this already exists.  Why do I need to find the doppleganger of forums I'm already a part of?

That's one thing I never figured out how FB even formed- before it happened, all of the forums I am a member of were in place- some for many, may years.  How in the world did that place become the replacement of forums that already existed?

But based on that previous statement, with the time I've spent in the forums, the level of "trust" has been enough that I can't really see the need to work on doing that yet again.  I've looked into other forums in the last few years, and none have stuck- just the ones I joined up to about a decade ago. 

On a similar thread, how in the world did FB replace e-mail?  I very much don't understand that.  

I left Facebook years ago. I like groups and the ability to schedule events but those seem to be low priorities for facebook, who care much more about advertising, microtransaction games, collecting information and looking the other way when stolen viral videos generate 10 times as many clicks as the source.

I generally trust the people running GRM forums and I know I can contact them if I have concerns. Not so with facebook.

Facebook was kind of fun in my early 20s, when it was nothing but single college students and it wasn't filled with ads and people trying to sell me crap. Now my 87 year old grandmother has an account and the news feed is just bored housewives trying to sell me essential oils or people posting what they've had for dinner.

I basically outgrew it a couple of years ago when I got tired of making money for them just to have people try and sell me things in between the increasing number of their paid ads. The juice wasn't worth the squeeze any more. I still log in a couple of times per month because it's the preferred method of communication for some long distance friends/family but I try to limit my time using their service to the absolute minimum necessary for me to check my own notifications and bolt.

alfadriver said:

In reply to JThw8 :

But this already exists.  Why do I need to find the doppleganger of forums I'm already a part of?

That's one thing I never figured out how FB even formed- before it happened, all of the forums I am a member of were in place- some for many, may years.  How in the world did that place become the replacement of forums that already existed?

But based on that previous statement, with the time I've spent in the forums, the level of "trust" has been enough that I can't really see the need to work on doing that yet again.  I've looked into other forums in the last few years, and none have stuck- just the ones I joined up to about a decade ago. 

On a similar thread, how in the world did FB replace e-mail?  I very much don't understand that.  

Because many car forums have seen their traffic decline dramatically the last few years.

And many of the young crowd don't understand the "There is a ton of information here, look around, read up, and then don't ask for the 87th time this week what oil you should use." 

You're just being a hater by not giving them the information with no work on their part. 

Facebook, bah.  Just becomes something else to maintain.  

In reply to z31maniac :

LOL- I love this forum.

alfadriver said:

In reply to JThw8 :

But this already exists.  Why do I need to find the doppleganger of forums I'm already a part of?

That's one thing I never figured out how FB even formed- before it happened, all of the forums I am a member of were in place- some for many, may years.  How in the world did that place become the replacement of forums that already existed?

But based on that previous statement, with the time I've spent in the forums, the level of "trust" has been enough that I can't really see the need to work on doing that yet again.  I've looked into other forums in the last few years, and none have stuck- just the ones I joined up to about a decade ago. 

On a similar thread, how in the world did FB replace e-mail?  I very much don't understand that.  

As others have noted, many of those forums went away.  Others are very specific or not specific enough depending on the needs.   If you have a wide variety of interests you may wish more than just the content which is located in a single forum.   A tool like FB allows you to peruse all these interests and groups pertaining to those interests in a single location.   It allows better linking between those areas of interest for sharing of information and in the case of FB in particular it has an exponentially larger user base which will provide greater variety of input.

GRM is a great place, but it has a limited scope.   Even with the expansion into other areas its not going to be a go-to for those areas (ie. video gaming, the simulation forum here is interesting but lacks depth due to the limited interest of the user base) 

Some people like a small tight knit community, some people like wide expanses of different knowlege and topics.  Neither person is wrong, its just preferences.

Don't get me wrong, as a whole FB can be a huge dumpster fire, but it contains great tools to customize your experience which most people dont take advantage of.   My FB feed isnt a mass jumble of cat memes and politics (well in truth I like the cat memes) I have it tailored to show me feeds from the groups Im interested in and posts from a very small select group of individual contributors with whom I like to share thoughts.  I've tweaked mine to the point where even the ads it shows me are often very relevant and useful.  It takes a bit of time to get it there but its a fairly useful tool for me now that I have it configured to my needs.

On a related note, what usenet newsgroup reader are the cool kids using nowadays?