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Facebook - what do you think about it?

Pauline

Forums Admin
All this press about Facebook lately and them allowing political ads with “false claims”. I still use Facebook but like it less each month. I use it to follow a few friends and for local news (e.g. is our one highway closed?). I don’t post much but I do flip through each day, like flipping through a magazine. I am thinking about stopping.

I could use Twitter for local news. I used Twitter for a couple of years when it first started but have not used it since

I still like Instagram (owned by Facebook) because I enjoy the photos from the people I follow.

The Guardian - Facebook exempts political ads from ban on making false claims
Firm quietly rescinds policy banning false advertising as UK general election looms

What social media do you use?
 
I stopped posting on Facebook early this year. I was going to stop completely but I have photos there that I have linked to some of my posts here. Not sure what to do about it.

I still post some on Instagram.

I also use Messenger to touch base with some friends. I need to make that a stand alone as well.

I also limit "friends" and followers on these accounts.
 
I deleted my account over two years ago. Facebook should fold as far as I am concerned with all that Zuckerberg has allowed to occur. The fake political ads are nothing new. This has been going on for quite some time. The breach of its users' personal information is criminal.
 
Facebook:
I use it to keep in touch with friends that I otherwise don’t see And to see posts from semi-public figures who post thoughtfully and from organizations I’m interested in.
As for travel—— I no longer travel much so it’s not an issue for me. If I do travel, it’s likely to be to Israel and if I check in with the particularly helpful TA Israel Forum.

When I exited Slow Travel in 2009, I made a little list of people with whom I wanted to remain in touch and set up a list on FB called “Travel Obsessed” and in the past I’ve posted travel related questions and photos to that limited group. It’s my experience that friends who don’t/can’t travel really don’t care to know where I’ve been.

Instagram —- flooded with posts from people I may love but whose eating adventures are not of much interest to me. I never post on it and follow almost no one.

I come here to SlowEurope to follow Pauline’s adventures in Israel and to see if Pauline or Jim Z have found interesting movies or series to stream.
 
I rarely post on Facebook except in private groups. I mostly check about once a day to keep up with what is going on with family/friends who live far from me and I don't see often. It has become less interesting due to the number of ads recently - especially in the app for Android I use on my phone. I don't use on my PC in a browser unless in private mode and normally use the Windows Store app since I know it is sandboxed and not connecting me with anything else (and the quality of the app is pretty bad).

I do use Messenger to communicate with some people including some in Italy and England. I use Instagram to follow a few people but rarely post myself. It's often my daily dose of Italy with 2 of the people I follow being Venetians. Never created a Twitter account. I used Snapchat with fellow students in Italian class as everyone knew how to use it.

I prefer sites like this where the content is more likely to be of interest to me.
 
I use Facebook for things like updates on family, friends and neighbours. It would never occur to me to regard it as a source of news, in the way I would think of my newspaper and the BBC. After all, FB keeps on insisting it's a platform, not a publisher, so as a news source, it's of no greater value than any wall that people stick posters on, or scrawl on.
 
I have never been a member of Facebook. I guess I am one of the 15% left in the world! I have come close to joining a few times but each time, Facebook does something to make me not want to join.

I watched some of the recent Congressional hearing and was disgusted with Zuckerberg. The pointed questioning was not one sided either. Both parties did not seem to be happy with Zuckerberg and his company. Not only am I alarmed about Facebook allowing false political news stories to run, but the privacy concerns have still not been resolved. Because my sister & brother are on Facebook and neither are very concerned about privacy issues, I am sure Facebook already has all of my info from their contact lists from their phones. Not happy about that! During the hearing, I was very alarmed to learn that when I visit a public Facebook page, Facebook is collecting information on me even though I am not associated with Facebook in any way! That is just unacceptable. I only visit sites when there are no other ways to obtain info on a company or restaurant or to read about travel since Facebook has replaced blogging for some.

I do not personally have an Instagram account. I almost joined but then Facebook bought it. I do however look at other Instagram posts so probably Facebook is collecting my data once again. I do not use Whatsapp (also part of Facebook). I attempted to join the last time I was in Italy but when I started to sign up and Whatsapp wanted me to allow access to my entire contact list, I deleted the app.

At this point, even though I am missing out on connecting with other travel friends and Facebook would be helpful with my genealogy research, I am boycotting Facebook and Zuckerberg. I have found other ways to keep in touch with family.

I do use Twitter. I have learned to navigate around much of the bots/fake accounts. They are usually pretty easy to spot. I just block them as well as unwanted tweets I don't want to see in my timeline. I find that the trending topics give me a heads up on what is happening and from there, I do further research through news sites. I have also found that Twitter is a great tool to keep up with baseball (one of my original purposes of joining Twitter). It's too bad it never caught on for travel, although there are a few interesting travel people I follow who post regularly.
 
I must say, I've never thought Twitter would be of much use to me. It seems designed to encourage instant throwaway remarks, but in a format that means they're not actually throwaway, and speeds up the amplifying effect towards more extreme emotional response, which was identified as one aspect of electronic (never mind internet) communication.

Another example of how these things can be turned into anti-social media, especially if the proprietor's business model depends on pushing "more of the same" at you, like Facebook.
 
My involvement with Facebook is a big positive for me. I've been on Facebook for about 10 years. I have a lot of people all over the world that I want to stay in touch with... family, friends from high school and college, former work friends, friends from my travels (including several hundred from our groups), former students. It would be impossible for me to maintain contact with many of these people otherwise, and I enjoy keeping up with their lives.

Just one example. My father passed away recently, and I was able to let friends know about this. I received over 300 messages as a result. I can't tell you how much all this meant to me. In today's world (and especially with a network of friends around the world), otherwise, most would not have known. Likewise, I appreciate knowing when something good or sad happens to my friends. Facebook provides a good way to keep us connected.

Another example. My niece is a working mom with three children. She doesn't have time to write me or send me photos by email, but through Facebook I can stay in touch with her and watch her kids grow up. I also know more about what my sister and brother are doing.... and occasionally my daughter too!

Pauline, I like knowing about your trips and your walks and other bits of your life when I see your posts in FB. (So please don't stop posting!!)

I would rather posts about my travels on Facebook because it reaches a broader audience of my friends than those I can reach through forums like this. If someone isn't interested, they can unfollow me, ask to "see less of Kathy," or I think if they never like or comment on a post, they won't see mine.

I'm involved in several groups and like these a lot. I'm in groups for my high school and college classes, some groups of friends, a few special-interest groups. My extended family has a group so we can communicate privately when we want. We have hundreds of old family photos on our family Facebook page. My high school class planned our reunion through our Facebook group.

I do get news through Facebook. I follow several publications that interest me and have selected to see these first in my news feed. I have several national publications and a few local, even a few outside the USA. I just see a little blurb in my newsfeed and I can choose whether to go read or not. This way I don't have to check every publication every day, and I also can see breaking news. There are a couple of public people whose posts I like, and I follow those.

I use FB in my business. I run two business-related pages and get a fair amount of interaction. It's a good way to share information of interest and to keep people involved if they want to be (and many do). I've actually gotten a few bookings through Facebook.

I have learned to block posts and people that I don't want to see. I've reported a few posts over the years. I can move quickly past ads and I note those that I don't want to see.

For me, the good of FB outweighs the other issues, and I feel sure that the company will continue to work to address these.
 
I'm connected to so many through FaceBook. It would be difficult to end participation, but I'm sharing less on my timeline, and more in private (locked groups).

My personal account is locked down quite well, and I limit my number of friends to 250. If I get requests from someone I really want to communicate with, I look through my list to see who just isn't posting much that is relevant to my interests and "edit" my list.

Due to my settings, I'm not seeing ads that are offensive. I'm quick to "hide" and "never see again" any ads that I don't want to appear.

As for Twitter, they suspended my account while I was in France in September. I appealed twice, but they won't let me back on under that userid, yet they would not tell me what I did wrong. I think it had to do with my retweeting specific news stories so quickly, with the same hashtag, that they thought I was a bot.

I'm just not into Instagram.
 
I, also, do not post frequently on Facebook unless I am traveling. It is a way to stay in touch with my 92-year-old mother (who used to love to travel). She gets to share our experiences through our posts - it lets her see what we are doing and she then likes or comments on the posts, so I know she is OK. :) I don't feel like I have to call and check in on her every day and she told me she really looks forward to the posts.

I do belong to several closed groups and have found them very useful. And, as others have mentioned, it's a nice way to see what some of my friends are doing and what is happening in their lives.

Haven't gotten into Twitter or Instagram.
 
I also only use Facebook to keep in touch with a few close friends and family members. My brother is currently in Spain and it's a good way for me to see what he gets up to. I did purge my Friends list of most people I don't see or chat to at all, as it helps limited all the notifications and stuff that I'm actually no interested in. As for the ads, never really pay them much attention. So I think it definitely still has its use, I just limit what's going on there
 
After starting this thread I decided to slow down on using Facebook. I "unliked" all business pages and "hid" posts from people I really don't know. I started checking it less and less.

Today I deactivated the link on the forums to Facebook. People can no longer register using their Facebook data and are not logged in if they are logged into Facebook. I also took away the "share on Facebook" option.

I've started using Twitter but mostly for current news. I follow news sources and journalists. I don't check it often.

I still use Instagram because it feels much more casual and it isn't addictive like Facebook was for me.

I want to do more reading of legitimate news sources, where I am not tempted to read comments and see the food fights that happen on Twitter. Currently I read the Washington Post and the Guardian but I am going to start reading the New Yorker more to fill in the Facebook gap.

Now I have to delete the Slow Europe Facebook page (which I have not posted on in months) and then delete my Facebook account. Instead I may purge my friends list and keep the account as people have suggested.
 
I have never been on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat or any other social media that can track what you do, what you like, where you are or where you've been, etc.

Unfortunately I can't totally avoid it. We have a friend who regularly posts info and pics that include us on her facebook page. So other people we know see it. It's annoying when they ask us what we were doing at such and such place when we never told them anything about it.

We have nothing to hide, but we abhor the told lack of privacy.
 
I'm a voyeur. I never post but flip through frequently. There are small organization that only have a FB account and reading on FB allows me to get info I need. I also posted false info on my sis called profile. I didn't see any reason for them to know my birthday or anything personal about me. I never sign in with my FB account.
 
Glad you brought this to SE, Pauline. After we had our own conversation about it, I have cut way back on checking it or posting. As far as the news goes, I've not given it much attention on that app, anyway. I have more reliable sources, as you've mentioned. Besides, with all the ugly news out there, I prefer not to focus on anything that makes me feel small or impotent. FB has so many elements ripe for that not to mention it's just old news, repetitive, uninteresting offerings. Forums are far more vital and inspired.

My big question is why have I not just shut down my tour page? Still in that question and when I get a clear answer will act.

Ciao,
Cheryl
www.italianexcursion.com
 
Facebook and social media in general has been very good to me. I've learned so much (travel, food, language, etc) and developed friends I would never have found if not for FB. If not for FB I would not have found my long lost family in Sicily. I'm here posting this because of the connection on FB. If not for these friends I would not have known about all of this. Yes, it has drawbacks but for me it opened up a whole new world... literally. Long live FB.
 

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