Social media is killing Amiga forums

[malko]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Privacy isn't a luxury. It's a basic human right. [...]

+1. We can add that it WAS never, and it WILL never be a luxury.

"Our freedom is built on what others do not know about our lives." Soljenitsine

"Saying that we don't care about the right to privacy because we have nothing to hide, is like saying that we don't care about freedom of expression because we have nothing to say." Edward Snowden

[vbgd]

Social media is not killing Amiga forums, it kills brain cells at all.

[sonninnos]

Social media is a bar/club for posing, forums are a library for learning.

[Daedalus]

Privacy is indeed a basic human right, and people can choose to exercise that right by not giving information to companies whose business model it is to sell that information. They all have terms and conditions that tell you they harvest your data, so if you're not happy to pay for the service they provide in information, just don't use them. Find a service you can pay for with money instead.

[malko]

deepl.com translation (source: https://www.20min.ch/ro/multimedia/s...nnees-29683978)

20.12.2019

Facebook fears massive data leakage

One researcher found data from 267 million Facebook users on the "dark web".

Facebook on Thursday was investigating a potential data leak of 267 million of its users, revealed by a cyber security researcher who found them exposed on hacker forums. "We are looking into this issue, but we think it is information obtained before the changes made in recent years to better protect people's data," a Facebook spokesman told AFP.

The database, put online on a forum of hackers a week ago, was no longer accessible on Thursday following the alert given by Bob Diachenko, according to Comparitech. The researcher believes that the data was retrieved by "criminals in Vietnam", thanks to a system of automated robots that copy all the data they manage to access.

In September, phone numbers linked to more than 400 million Facebook accounts ended up being stored online, at the mercy of malicious use, according to the American site TechCrunch. Facebook had partially confirmed this information, assuring that according to its checks, the number of accounts involved was only about half of the 419 million mentioned. (nxp/afp)

[malko]

deepl.com translation (source: https://www.20min.ch/ro/multimedia/s...nence-17711621)

19.12.2019

Facebook tracks its users all the time

Even when location data is disabled, Facebook can still track the location of its users.

Facebook has acknowledged that it collects information about the location of each of its users at all times, whether or not they have enabled geotagging, for security and advertising purposes.

"Even if someone doesn't enable location data, Facebook can still determine their location in part from the information they provide through their activities and connections on our various services," the group said in a letter to two U.S. senators on December 12 and relayed on Twitter on Tuesday.

"Facebook admits"

Democratic Senator Chris Coons and Republican Congressman Josh Hawley wrote to the social networking giant nearly a month ago to hold it accountable for the way it collects this type of data. "We are concerned that Facebook may not be offering its users the level of control (over their data) that the parameters suggest," they wrote, before asking direct questions.

"Facebook admits," reacted Josh Hawley on Tuesday, sharing a tweet from a reporter from "The Hill," who published the first three pages of the letter. "Even if you turn off the position option, they continue to track your location to make money (by sending you ads)," he continued. "No control over your personal information. (...) This is why Congress must act."

In the United States, only California has ratified a consumer privacy and data protection law. Many officials are calling for federal legislation on the subject.

"Improve advertising"

In its response to the senators, Facebook reminded them that location data allows users to share their location or search within a certain area. This information "helps us put forward more appropriate content and improve advertising," the network said.

When people turn off geolocation, the platform still has clues. But it is above all the IP addresses (identification system of a connection on the Internet) that betrays users concerned about confidentiality. In this case, Facebook nevertheless specifies to stop at the city or postal code level, without trying to go any further, except for security reasons.

The Californian group collects personal data of all kinds on its 2.2 billion daily users of at least one of its platforms (Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, Facebook). They form the basis of its business model: the commercial exploitation of consumer profiles through ultra-fine advertising targeting on a very large scale. (nxp/afp)

[DamienD]

Moral of the story; ditch FakeBook like I did many, many years ago

Actually, make that most of the social media rubbish...

Can you actually believe these days there are courses in "Social Media"; what's this world coming to

[Retroplay]

Originally Posted by DamienD

Moral of the story; ditch FakeBook like I did many, many years ago

Did that too years ago.
Most people would be surprised how easy it is to "survive" without all that "social media" rubbish.

[quantum8]

Originally Posted by sonninnos

Social media is a bar/club for posing, forums are a library for learning.

Pretty much what it is, depending on what groups you read on the socials. I find it great for tech news updates and quick answers.


Forums have the huge advantage of in depth articles and discussion, more control over retention of content, along with a decent search function to find what you're looking for!

[Dustyarddog]

I have little to no time for Facebook or Twitter, unless its scouring Marketplace for retro gaming bits n bobs. Forums all the way for me. Learning with like minded people, less politics and experts in all matters. Less dramas and fake news. If I'm not in a forum, I'm gaming.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Dustyarddog

I have little to no time for Facebook or Twitter, unless its scouring Marketplace for retro gaming bits n bobs. Forums all the way for me. Learning with like minded people, less politics and experts in all matters. Less dramas and fake news. If I'm not in a forum, I'm gaming.

[small OT] Don't hesitate to join/participate and do both : https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=100385 [/small OT]

[johnnybarker]

Wow, this is quite a heated discussion!

I think we should turn it down a little and try to step back and look at the whole picture.

Social media is simply a new way of mass communication and sharing information. It is neither the cause nor the solution to problems with our society. The article referenced blaming facebook for extremism is a particularly interesting point. Genocide resulting from religious or extremist views is not new and most definitely pre-dates facebook! The problem with any "open" forum is it means that anyone with an agenda, the right backing and a strong will can easily hijack and exploit it. This is human nature and has been seen throughout history. Social media is simply the new pulpit from which the aspiring mega-o-manic stands on.

We should look at social media as a service for which we pay a for fee. Facebook supply a service which many find useful and others do not. They earn their money through advertising/data trawling. We all know this and it is ultimately up to the the individual to decide if this is something they are willing to subscribe to. Facebook, forums, Twitter, bulletin boards, email, IRC channels are all basically social media but just a variations on theme- usually just with a fancy front end.

I use Facebook from time to time to stay in touch with people I otherwise would not have contact with. I watch what I write and I am aware that there will be people looking over my shoulder.

I agree privacy is a big issue. I live in a small village in Scotland where everyone knows everyone else's business. Ironically, if you really want privacy then you need to move to the biggest city you can find. Perhaps social media could actually be the only place where you can communicate without any knowing the real truth about you? After all Facebook only use the data you choose to provide. I think I may change my name to Napoleon and see if I start getting adverts for Bicorne hats....

Lets face it, all they are interested in is money?

[meynaf]

Originally Posted by johnnybarker

After all Facebook only use the data you choose to provide.

Alas this isn't the case. They use all the data they can grab. They are even suspected of getting data on people who actually don't have an account...

[johnnybarker]

Yes, you are correct there. It is true that they are also likely gather data about you which is provided by other people. We should perhaps also take care to watch what we say about our friends and family and hope they reciprocate. If they are gathering data unlawfully against the new and quite strict GDPR guidelines then this should catch up with them in time. Unfortunately technology is often one step ahead.

If you have the time and inclination is often possible to gather a scary amount of information about someone by going into a library or public records office. Old newspapers can be particularly interesting. Even the phone book give away a great deal. Essentially what I am trying to say is that much of this data collection is not actually new.

Also lets not forget that it also possible for data collection techniques to extract quite a bit of information from sources such as forums and piece things together if required. Not to mention the monitoring of emails by every major government.

Sorry Alexa, who was that you were talking to???

[BippyM]

I've not read all 9 pages of this thread (Bad Bippy), but I will say I don't think social media is killing forums per se. If anything it brings new people in. Retro has exploded over the past few years, and that includes the Amiga. This is down to social media, pure and simple. If it wasn't for Facebook, then a lot of users from way back wouldn't have had their childhood rekindled, simply because with socail media they have seen something retro, and it has awoken something inside, that may not have been stirred had they not seen something on social media! Whenever I can I am promoting and linking to EAB on Facebook. This can only be a good thing long term...

The forum provides a different perspective than social media, and it is much easier to find information out. It is better moderated and managed as it isn't as massive, and any shit can be debated and removed. On social media, it is sometimes hard to differentiate bollox from fact.... Oh and every other sentence on social media involves capacitors
The real die-hard fan, who was here before and is still here now won't be jumping ship. They'll just do both!

[malko]

But, but... what about "Privacy and security is in our DNA [...]" so dear to FB ?

deepl.com translation (source: https://www.20min.ch/ro/multimedia/s...oogle-23414297)

24.02.2020

WhatsApp Conversations accessible via... Google

Experts have found that the sharing links of group discussions were indexed by search engines.

Hundreds of thousands of WhatsApp group discussions were publicly accessible through a simple search on the Internet, without their participants being aware of it. This is the result of a survey conducted by the US site Vice last week.

Specialists discovered that search engines such as Google or Bing have been indexing the share links that can be generated on the email app over the past few months. They make it possible to invite other users to join a group conversation.

In France, the Numerama site was thus able to find, in the list of participants of some WhatsApp discussions, the identity and phone number of French personalities by typing "chat.whatsapp.com" combined with keywords.

The Facebook subsidiary reacted by arguing that this was not a flaw. It calls for the responsibility of WhatsApp group administrators, who may be tempted to share these links on web pages. When they are created, the app invites you to share them only with people you trust. In the meantime, Google has dereferred the links.

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by johnnybarker

Wow, this is quite a heated discussion!

I think we should turn it down a little and try to step back and look at the whole picture.

Social media is simply a new way of mass communication and sharing information. It is neither the cause nor the solution to problems with our society. The article referenced blaming facebook for extremism is a particularly interesting point. Genocide resulting from religious or extremist views is not new and most definitely pre-dates facebook! The problem with any "open" forum is it means that anyone with an agenda, the right backing and a strong will can easily hijack and exploit it. This is human nature and has been seen throughout history. Social media is simply the new pulpit from which the aspiring mega-o-manic stands on.

We should look at social media as a service for which we pay a for fee. Facebook supply a service which many find useful and others do not. They earn their money through advertising/data trawling. We all know this and it is ultimately up to the the individual to decide if this is something they are willing to subscribe to. Facebook, forums, Twitter, bulletin boards, email, IRC channels are all basically social media but just a variations on theme- usually just with a fancy front end.

I use Facebook from time to time to stay in touch with people I otherwise would not have contact with. I watch what I write and I am aware that there will be people looking over my shoulder.

I agree privacy is a big issue. I live in a small village in Scotland where everyone knows everyone else's business. Ironically, if you really want privacy then you need to move to the biggest city you can find. Perhaps social media could actually be the only place where you can communicate without any knowing the real truth about you? After all Facebook only use the data you choose to provide. I think I may change my name to Napoleon and see if I start getting adverts for Bicorne hats....

Lets face it, all they are interested in is money?

I use to moderate on AOL (remember the AOL CDs and their custom software/AOL 'intranet'?) many years ago (around 2003 - 2005).

Can't begin to imagine the horror show that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram moderators face on a daily basis. It must be so demoralising.

The trouble with social media (present time) is that it's been hijacked with everything under the sun (I'm talking political, news corporations, brands, dodgy content, analytics, questionable groups, product 'placement' for those with large followings, bickering/arguing/threats/trolls etc). I know these types of things have been around on the internet for a long time, but it's massively scaled over the years and almost difficult to ignore (and moderate 24/7).

Facebook and all its original intents and purposes to keep in contact/share photos with friends and family - fine. However, time has not been friendly to these platforms with how they've 'developed'.

If I had young children becoming aware of these platforms I'd be extremely worried. I remember the excitement I had when I owned a 14.4kBps modem way back when and dialling into my first BBS - all fun, simple, harmless, met some nice people along the way in my early teens. But the head mash of 'social media' now?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I'm finding I'm distancing myself more and more from the 'social' internet and sticking with just one or two trusted forums. Each to their own I guess. These platforms are here to stay, many people seem to like them but they just seem so overwhelming to me personally (on a mental level).

[Cloudane]

Interesting thread (well, I've read about half of it)

I am one of many who flocked to social media and abandoned forums, and now find myself trying to return to dead forums Luckily EAB has hung on.

Like pretty much everything, I think there's a use for Facebook and Twitter when they're used well, and "in addition to" rather than "instead of" forums and direct person to person communication, while staying aware that "liking" someone's anniversary photo isn't the same thing as "keeping in touch" (or at least, it's just about keeping in touch, but you need to be mindful that it's not all that meaningful) and also staying mindful of certain pitfalls like the political echo chamber and filter effects. It's just that most people don't, and I think it's largely responsible for the partisan world in which we now find ourselves.

Chat groups have problems as well, I'm in various Telegram and Discord groups and it's great, but they've also kind of killed the forums they sprouted from. And when IRL friends use it - well it's good right now with all the social distancing but before all that I found Facebook Messenger to be be quite exclusionary - for example when I found myself sort of 'ousted' from the group of friends I used to drink/socialise with (well, as social as I get as a shy introvert which between that and a slightly cringey interest is probably why I got ousted, but I like being around people). It started that I'd be sat with them in the pub and they'd all be very conspicuously having a private conversation in a messenger group I wasn't invited to (which... I don't know, maybe it's paranoia but you just find yourself wondering if they're talking about you). And then all their meet-ups were arranged via said group and that was the end of that. When chances are, without a messenger group to hide in, maybe someone could've said "hey, can we get you more involved in the chit chat" or "can you wear something a bit less cringe so that you're not cramping our style" or whatever it is that offended them (or even "we don't like you, go away") and I would've known where I stood and wouldn't have been left wondering (I'm over all this now incidentally, it just came to mind and came out as a rant)
Don't get me wrong I'm no saint either, I used to be sat talking with people on the other side of the world when bored with their conversation (say if it went onto a football debate). And I'm now part of a smaller subset of that group with our own darn messenger group with blackjack and hookers, and it IS useful for co-ordinating our own little outings. But there's a special pain to a "shadow" conversation going on between the people you're sat with.
It's more a fault of social dynamics than messenger itself, of course. It's just an app to send messages. Group texting used to be prohibitively expensive.

I'm not on the extremes of "never use Facebook or Twitter, shut them down!!". I do use FB to keep some form of contact for example between, ironically, internet friends made on a forum that shut down around 2007 (not due to social media - other things were happening specific to the forum). I enjoy memes a friend churns out. The lives of a couple of pets have been shared and documented there. A bit pointless in a way but people fed back that they genuinely enjoyed it and felt a part of their lives and were sad when they died. I actively use FB groups related to my car in addition to a forum. Twitter... in all honesty I mostly use that to be a "Karen" towards customer service of various companies as currently it's the most effective way to get things sorted. But otherwise I barely use them. If anything I'm most active on Instagram now as it seems to have mostly sidestepped all the political BS and is just a place to share pretty pictures to the ether and hope someone enjoys them, and enjoy other people's.

Twitter is particularly toxic around political issues though, it's a heck of a problem. Hate will always exist, it existed on forums and "chans" long before Twitter so it's not that, but it turns into mobs and dogpiling. Horrible.

[Flimbo]

I miss niche forums like this one. For me social media never plugged that gap.

[Dradd]

Originally Posted by Flimbo

I miss niche forums like this one. For me social media never plugged that gap.

Have to say I completely agree. 'Back in the day' I was on so many forums like this and made a lot of 'real world' friends because of them.
Whilst I use Twitter and FB for my business, I'm not a great fan of them 'socially'.