So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid's school.
This makes me so fucking angry.
We need a dumb browser.
This browser doesn’t work for most shit, making it the best browser available for most shit you actually need to do.
That’s a browser I can get behind.
I can't stand how many companies and organizations only have a presence on Facebook. When I reach out to them to ask if there is another way to stay connected I usually get a big NOPE.
Anger is pointless without action. Either accept the situation as it is, or start regularly attending school board meetings. If you want a policy changed, speak out about it. Don't just give them vibes either, give them good reasons to change the rules and processes. Have a solution at the ready which is idiot-proof, accessible, and well-supported. Oh, and also, make sure that your clear solution is zero-cost, which is why schools fell into using Facebook and municipal groups used Twitter.
If you want to change the situation, you have to understand why it became the way it is and address the pain points that led here, as well as their pain points that both prevent moving and/or encourage moving. If Facebook suits the needs of the school and the majority of parents, stop being angry and realize that there's a value in the platform for the purpose.
I don't have any kids. But I've been in similar situations. My previous employment place used Facebook for company comms. I spoke out about it many times. I've volunteered for multiple orgs and asked them to move to Nextcloud several times and they just refused. I've even turned down volunteer opportunities because they refused to communicate over anything other than Google Chat. No one cares.
I get your frustration. Why don't they care? Have you asked people directly what benefits they get from Facebook and why they won't move?
I expect you'll get the following, based on my experience:
Exposure - Most people can access Facebook regularly.
External Accessibility - Facebook can be accessed on multiple devices, by people who are not tech-conscious.
Reliability - Facebook outages are rare enough to be newsworthy, so no matter what conditions the school or the org is in, it will stay up and be exposed and accessible.
Internal Accessibility - Everyone in the org, even the people who aren't regularly involved in marketing or community comms, knows how to post to Facebook.
Cost - Facebook's non-monetary costs are subtle and mostly apply to private users. To any organization with a tight budget, Facebook and Twitter are godsends, because they don't need to have a P&L line that can be scrutinized and audited. I'm sure you understand as a volunteer how important it can be to dodge the accountants while getting messaging out.
Of course there's also experience, knowledge, and negative inertia built up over time. Until you can cover all 5 of those points at least, you don't have a viable option. Nextcloud is neat, but who will administer it without pay? Facebook runs the platform without being visibly paid by the school or the org. Facebook has widgets prebuilt to integrate with the website (that the org also outsources administration of). Nextcloud doesn't natively have that. Facebook is hosted on a massive network of data centers, Nextcloud would have to be run on one mistakenly undiscarded computer acting as a server in the basement. And it would have to be that way because the org doesn't have the budget approval for AWS or added hosting. And yes, everything will always come back to that cost issue. Until you can beat that, you have nothing.
Why don't they care?
Because the status quo works for them. Anything else is a you problem.
This answer applies to a broad swath of topics.
I mean, yes. But I was trying to get at why it works and what would be needed to change the status quo. Tbh if Facebook or Twitter could be prosecuted for their role in harm to children or sex trafficking, schools would very quickly be ready for change.
what would be needed to change the status quo.
One of the following:
I’ve recently accepted that the vast majority of people who use technology daily will never question or understand how it works, but will act as if it is indispensable, omniscient, and impenetrable.
In other words, it's a god
Indeed
Literally the only reason my family interacts with Facebook. It's infuriating.
I deleted Facebook maybe two years ago. One of the last things I saw was a very obviously AI generated image of six or seven soldiers that had lost the same leg and all had it replaced with a prosthetic at exactly the same point, with some caption about “let’s get some likes for our wounded warriors!” Followed by dozens of comments in support, I assume all were bots.
What I barely understand is why businesses keep fueling this ad inferno. If it’s mostly bots farming engagement, isn’t that going to limit the effectiveness of advertising? Won’t that eventually show up in their returns on the advertising’? Do they really want their business associated with scantily clad 14 year old feeds, or are they all totally blind to that.
I get part of it… social media is the internet now, for most people. So if you want reach, where else are ya gonna go? Cable? Newspapers? Local news? They killed everything else. Google’s even killing YouTube sponsors now, auto skipping sponsor segments in the app.
The businesses that advertise on Facebook are mostly scams from what I have seen. For them the ads work, and they have no reputation to lose.
Are big businesses still advertising on Facebook? I'd heard that they were running ads for full-on scams, presumably because few real people are left on the platform and it's no longer attractive to most advertisers.
Also, this is not that far from Instagram. And even with real women Insta always felt slimy to me.
And… weird. I don’t get the appeal.
So long Facebook, see you never, until one day I inexplicably need to use your platform to get updates from my kid's school.
Screw any school or PTA that distributes information by Facebook. That should be outlawed.
If only there was a way to send the same communication to a group of people at once, regardless of what platform they use.
Alas, that sort of technology seems impossible. Even in Star Trek they don’t have such a thing.
Who needs Fakebook when there is moltbook
I sat in a brief on this, and while it definitely was hyped up a bit and strategically poked by humans to get some responses, the overall takeaway is that I'm fucking terrified of what's to come with AI... and I work in AI research...
I never imagined how stupid the average AI user would be.
Like, just the amount of trust, sycophancy, and blind faith they put in these things is terrifying. OpenClaw is the worst though. Imagine just throwing money into the money furnace for … this??
How is the average AI user stupid? I think that's just... your average human in general. Some extremely smart people that make amazing use of it, most that are reasonable and use it for some things but know their limits, and some that have entire relationships with an AI or kill themselves due to it.
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
