Social media is killing Amiga forums

[Amiga1992]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

But Facebook still isn't the house. It's a table you've booked in a local restaurant. It might be just your friends at the table, but you're still in public, with waiters who can overhear you and see what you're eating. If some people aren't aware of this principle, then honestly that's their own problem - the Facebook terms of service are quite clear about what they do with your information.

If you had read the article posted by nexus or the one I linked to, you couldn't be using that analogy mate. It's again not about what the public eye can get. It's what the people in the shadows get and what they do with it, how they use it to distort reality.

That has nothing to do with tailored advertising. If this was just about seeing a bunch of creepily accurate ads, I wouldn't be talking about it. We had those for a long while, starting with Google, and they can easily be dealt with. And Mark Zuckerberg himself has come out this week to talk about this unfolding case and basically saying "we fucked up".

It's sad though that this basically ended up in me being put in the "tinfoil hat" corner. I go back to not understanding why people would defend a corporation like Facebook. It's mind blowing.

[Marcuz]

Originally Posted by Akira

We're clearly referring to Facebook, Twitter and any other site that uses their "users" as their profiteering asset and bargaining chip, which call themselves "social networks".

right, because the internet providers's mission is really to empower the users, not to earn money because of them. Or a football championship is about sport not about stadium subscriptions or advertising, or finance investment.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

[...] the Facebook terms of service are quite clear about what they do with your information [...]

As said in post #7, "[...] I am not for or against these platform as they may have their usefulness [...]".

What I dislike actually with the kind of argument you are providing here, it's that you never mention what can be called the "collateral damages". Indeed if you (as a person) are a user of the "GAFAM...", indirectly you force the people NOT wanting to use theses services to also share informations when dealing with you.

I will only mention three examples (without too much exaggeration ) :

1) On FB, when you post a picture (family, diner, holidays, landscape (with other people), when you get smashed, etc.), you also provide informations about the other people that are on the picture. Did you ask them if they agreed ? It's not only the picture that you post, it's also all the informations contained in the EXIF data of the picture (date, time, gps coordinates, etc.). Did you know that FB use for some time now a facial recognition algorithm ?
And don't tell me that you can turn it off. Examples are legions where options are suddenly "on" due to a bug... Look at windows 10 .

2) On your mobile phone you install messenger. "Nicely" the application can look through ALL your contacts to search for friends (and suck them up). So now, depending on which informations you save with your contacts, FB has access to your <put any name from your contact's list>'s picture, birthdate, phone number, e-mail, physical address, etc. . Again did you asked the people in your contact list that are NOT using FB if they agreed to share their informations with this "social network" ?

3) Outside FB, GMail/etc. is also "nice" as they scan ALL your messages (and not only for viruses). So let's say somebody not using gmail want to inform you about "private" stuff and send you an e-mail to your gmail address...
Better meet you in a restaurant as I think it will be more private than by e-mail .

People consider that it is abnormal if a phone company "listen" to their conversations BUT will find normal if informations are sucked up from internet ? Sorry but this is something out of the scope of my comprehension .

If you want the sort of privacy you expect at home, don't go to a restaurant; have a LAN party in your actual house instead. Free services on the internet are not for you.

When people go to the restaurant, even if the waiter or the neighbours 'can hear' the conversation they have, the scope of the "leak" is weak. With the "GAFAM" the scope IS huge as they monetize with various partners what they suck up from you. It's even automatic .

Don't take it personally Daedalus but either you are stupid, either you just like to lie. Indeed, how can you pretend that these services are free as people have to give something in return...
Take any dictionary and look at the definition of the word 'free' .

[...] If I could pay my electricity bill with empty juice cartons, I'd do that too, but alas...

Alas, even for the "free" services you use you cannot pay with "empty juices cartons". People in your contact list, friends on photo, wife, kids, relatives, etc. are not "empty juices cartons"...

With a closer look you will see that most of the companies providing paid services are cheaper than the pretending "free" ones.

Back in the day already, Soljenitsyne said : « Our freedom is built on what others do not know about our lives ». Even if this is a little bit strong, I am part of these people who think that it is not because they have nothing to hide that they have to share everything with everybody.
Everything is a question of proportion...

[Ian]

For me social media will never replace a forum, for the simple reason everyone in the world will not know the extent of my nerdyness, sure they know I am a nerd, but they do not know how deep it runs.

And if they do know, like BippyM my only friend of facebook that posts here, well, they have it too

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by malko

Don't take it personally Daedalus but either you are stupid, either you just like to lie.

That's like saying "don't take it personally, but you're an asshole". Sheesh, this used to be a friendly forum. What happened?

[malko]

Originally Posted by gimbal

That's like saying "don't take it personally, but you're an asshole". Sheesh, this used to be a friendly forum. What happened?

With this sentence I am only insisting on the point that I want to say something frankly without aggressing him. You know, when you speak friendly eyes-to-eyes and the person in front of you understand.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by Akira

If you had read the article posted by nexus or the one I linked to, you couldn't be using that analogy mate. It's again not about what the public eye can get. It's what the people in the shadows get and what they do with it, how they use it to distort reality.

Yep, I know that. And I know the article and I have been following the scandal closely as it has been developing.

That has nothing to do with tailored advertising. If this was just about seeing a bunch of creepily accurate ads, I wouldn't be talking about it. We had those for a long while, starting with Google, and they can easily be dealt with. And Mark Zuckerberg himself has come out this week to talk about this unfolding case and basically saying "we fucked up".

Yep, they gave 3rd party access to people's data, and the 3rd party abused it. The only thing that's really surprising is that it's taken this long. How many other companies have been abusing this information for years? And why have people been happily giving this information to the 3rd parties, knowing that they will have access to that information and will have their own set of rules and procedures outside those of Facebook. I mean, they read all the terms and conditions of Facebook when they signed up, and those of every game they played and quiz they completed, right? Zuckerberg is only sorry because it's a scandal now and that means losing users, which are the lifeblood of Facebook.

It's sad though that this basically ended up in me being put in the "tinfoil hat" corner. I go back to not understanding why people would defend a corporation like Facebook. It's mind blowing.

That's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is that this shouldn't be a surprise to you or anyone - this is just what happens to people's information when it is willingly surrendered to a company who will use it for their own gain by selling it to 3rd parties (and tell you as much from the outset).

[Retrofan]

Facebook is something good when you want to share something with everybody, but I've got the idea that some people -like they are in real live- just want to show that they've got "more...whatever" than you've got and they get mad trying to prove that.

Don't take me as an envious guy, it's just that I wouldn't take so much time to take photos or videos while I'm enjoying something; I just enjoy that time -I can take photos and videos- but I forget about the social media. Well, in fact I'm the one that asks you later for some video just because I've been so "busy" in the party... and in fact they've recorded you . I just think that I prefer to have those memories in my memory than in the pendrive or in Facebook...

Of course (that's another important thing) I wouldn't share my best/private moments with a hundred of people that you've got as "friends" there... But well, your friends or family certainly can publish them

I think you understand what I'm telling. In fact it's a bit of the old "hidden" story about "My car is better/newer/faster/more expensive" than yours, neighbour", and that's was at least back in the 60's; surely before...

[scuzz]

Difficult for me to comment about Facebook or Twitter cus I have never used them. I guess I don't get hung up with social media cus it is pretty much useless to me. What concerns me more is the plethora of self important nobodies that populate the so called news and media sites , tweeting on their phones as some kind of substitute for real journalism. Just get so sick of it, and why....

Well in the days of the serious magazine publications I read the articles cus I wanted to learn something, or to find something out about a product. Over time of using certain publications I became aware of certain journalists views and warmed to those that I respected. But, all the time the articles were professional , well documented and informative.

Fast forward to today and what has happened.... serious journalism has all but vanished along with the publications, and been replaced with... endless ' LOL, idiot. Use to play with him. Doesn't know his left from his right foot.... ' signed empty barrel. And on and on... Even the president of the US does it, I am told.

And so I think the villain of the peace is actually the ease with which a telephone message can populate a post. And the entertainment value that generates, given that the posters always try to one-up each other as a way of obtaining some kind of self importance. Its so obvious that many of the forums and social media sites are just ways by which ordinary folk can get some kind of joy out of feeling part of their own social circle.

What ever makes you happy. Sadly, though, we do seem to have lost the professional journalist in all of this and voices that actually were trustworthy. When I read some of the forums and answers to supposed serious questions, not necessarily here by the way, I am reminded of that old saying .. empty barrels make the most sound.. or tweets.. or blogs.

Me , I'm an empty barrel, but then this is the era of the internet mouther... or verbal jouster. So anything goes.... at least it gets folk writing. Unfortunately way too many words.. way too many words. But sadly like food without taste, never really filling. I really do miss the magazines... especially the Amiga ones.

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by malko

What I dislike actually with the kind of argument you are providing here, it's that you never mention what can be called the "collateral damages". Indeed if you (as a person) are a user of the "GAFAM...", indirectly you force the people NOT wanting to use theses services to also share informations when dealing with you.

If they signed up at all, they also agree to those terms, including being associated with your information. If they don't agree with that, they shouldn't sign up.

1) On FB, when you post a picture (family, diner, holidays, landscape (with other people), when you get smashed, etc.), you also provide informations about the other people that are on the picture. Did you ask them if they agreed ?

If they signed up, they already agreed. If they didn't sign up, Facebook doesn't know who they are, so it's no different to me sticking that same photo up on the wall in a pub somewhere.

It's not only the picture that you post, it's also all the informations contained in the EXIF data of the picture (date, time, gps coordinates, etc.). Did you know that FB use for some time now a facial recognition algorithm ?

Is that not common knowledge? It's quite good, but not nearly as powerful (and hence as useful) as Google's, which I use all the time.

And don't tell me that you can turn it off. Examples are legions where options are suddenly "on" due to a bug... Look at windows 10 .

Nope, turning it off protects others from seeing the information. You still submitted it to Facebook, who can still do what they want with it.

2) On your mobile phone you install messenger. "Nicely" the application can look through ALL your contacts to search for friends (and suck them up).

Only if you let it. Again, this works both ways. If you don't want that convenience, don't install it or don't let the app access your phone like that.

So now, depending on which informations you save with your contacts, FB has access to your <put any name from your contact's list>'s picture, birthdate, phone number, e-mail, physical address, etc. .Again did you asked the people in your contact list that are NOT using FB if they agreed to share their informations with this "social network" ?

If they haven't signed up to Facebook, the information isn't worth anything to them. But yes, if you are stupid enough to agree to such terms and conditions, then you're to blame for FB accessing your contacts' details like that.

3) Outside FB, GMail/etc. is also "nice" as they scan ALL your messages (and not only for viruses). So let's say somebody not using gmail want to inform you about "private" stuff and send you an e-mail to your gmail address...

Then why are they sending information to me through an inherently insecure protocol? If they wanted it to be private, email isn't the way to do it unless they're running their own server. The scanning of email for details is one of the things I like about GMail, and the reason I use it for the things I do.

People consider that it is abnormal if a phone company "listen" to their conversations BUT will find normal if informations are sucked up from internet ? Sorry but this is something out of the scope of my comprehension .

If I got a certain advantage from people listening to certain details of my life, then maybe I'd consider it. Obviously I would only mention things I wanted them to hear in that case.

When people go to the restaurant, even if the waiter or the neighbours 'can hear' the conversation they have, the scope of the "leak" is weak. With the "GAFAM" the scope IS huge as they monetize with various partners what they suck up from you. It's even automatic .

And that's exactly what I was saying. Of course that's where they get their money. I'm well aware of that and even said as much in my post if you read it carefully enough.

Don't take it personally Daedalus but either you are stupid, either you just like to lie.

How should I take a personal insult from you like that then, pray tell?

Indeed, how can you pretend that these services are free as people have to give something in return...
Take any dictionary and look at the definition of the word 'free' .

Again, I think you've misunderstood my post. I'm fully aware of the various definitions of the word free, as I am also of the nuances of the word that get lost in translation. Read my post again, where I clearly say (more than once) that I'm paying for these services with information.

Alas, even for the "free" services you use you cannot pay with "empty juices cartons". People in your contact list, friends on photo, wife, kids, relatives, etc. are not "empty juices cartons"...

The analogy was that I provide information that I essentially discard, and get services in return. If an item is valuable to me, I won't discard it, and therefore in this analogy, I won't share it either. You're making the completely unjustified and unsubstantiated leap from worthless items to family members. You won't find any information on my children on Facebook for example, though you will find information on my wife, since she has also signed up for Facebook, agreed to their terms and conditions, and has also agreed to make public the fact that she's my wife. We're not going to make any money from that information, and it's a matter of public record for anyone caring enough to look into it, so why not exchange that for services, for example?

With a closer look you will see that most of the companies providing paid services are cheaper than the pretending "free" ones.

That depends, what monetary value do you put on your information? Besides, there are also paid "services" like Microsoft's Windows 10 that will happily take your money *and* your data. So paying for a service doesn't guarantee anything in the way of integrity either.

Back in time already, Soljenitsyne said : « Our freedom is built on what others do not know about our lives ». Even if this is a little bit strong, I am part of these people who think that it is not because they have nothing to hide that they have to share everything with everybody.
Everything is a question of proportion...

What gave you even the slightest impression that I'm sharing everything? I thought I made myself pretty clear, but perhaps I didn't. I made the point that you *shouldn't* share everything, only that which you wouldn't mind everyone knowing.

[E-Penguin]

Unless you're a subsistence farmer living in a cash only economy, some corporation has information on you and is using it to increase sales in some way. Unavoidable consequence of modern life. I'm nowhere near interesting enough to bother hacking, or having my details data mined. They'd find that Iike cats and antiquated computers. Whoop for them.

The biggest downside to closed data spaces like Facebook is the lack of record. No way back machine for Facebook posts.

[apex]

For sure we do not want every Facebook and Twitter and Instagram User... These people cannot read, they even post questions as picture, cannot wait, cannot follow rulez...

[Pyromania]

EAB is an Ultimate Amiga forum! It's a great place to be!

[daxb]

Seems that Daedalus eab account was taken over by someone. If not, you should inform yourself about it.

[Retrofan]

About what you can actually find as "news or informatives" as your first instance (afortunately there are still some free ones online) or what you can actually get in related Tv channnels or... The WORST, as it's nowadays taken as a reference to work with as it is "WikiPedia" that is supossed to be updated with opinions, updates and so, and as you can see by yourself that's a complete lie and that you can't not change a single word about politic or historical terms...

Maybe you can think at that instance; when you are trying to update or change that information that is completely wrong and then it happens that at that same moment that you are trying to update it, then it has also been changed, it was some other guy thinking just the same that was in fact already written...

But you really can see that your update of that page has been just deleted in second 0 by the coded engine that the site has built in. You can keep trying to update the page forever, but if you persist -the page will always stay the same- what you'll only find is a warning from Wikipedia about taking your out.

So... read while you can the "1984 book by George Orwell", but please read this post fast before this same page of this thread gets changed...

Edit: Do you remember two days ago something about a corporation that has some relationship about Trump's being elected and the british people deciding to leave the euro?. I suposse that you surely didn't see it or maybe you will forget that very soon as NO news about that will be found.

Here in Spain we've got a lot of proverbs or made phrases, and one we've got is "Ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente"; "Eyes that can't see, heart that can't feel". So if you don't see what has happened -or if you only see a version of it- then you won't worry about that. And also, on the contrary if they want you to concern and -get your vote- against whatever, then you'll find something about that everywere.

Edit: Just to comment if you didn't know that best lies are the half-truth ones. Half of true, half of complete shit, joined all together.

If you are a politic and you've been bombered with that news then you can of course get a lawer and so, but in the case that you win that process even, it won't be published so intensively, so you'll be culprit just forever.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

If they didn't sign up, Facebook doesn't know who they are,

Already in 2013 (5 years ago) : I am sure you have heard about the shadow profile .

How should I take a personal insult from you like that then, pray tell?

As said in post #66, no offence here as it is not an insult (from my perspective). A "rough" way instead of a "politically correct" way for sure, but not an insult.

For the others points, allow me to answer with this citation :

"Between What I think, What I mean, What I think I say, What I say, What you want to hear, What you hear, What you understand ...
There are seven possibilities that we have trouble communicating. But let's try anyway ..."
(unknown author)

At the end we are only sharing opinions here.

[grelbfarlk]

My worthless unsourced opinion-social media is not killing Amiga. Some people that can't figure out how to register on an Amiga forum, but did figure out to register on the Facespaces-somehow, might feel less weird about talking about Amiga stuff there than it would posting on some Amiga forum like this one.

There is one Amiga related Facetube that provides regular entertainment and some amount of existential dread that I do enjoy.

[nexus]

yeah phake5 page is funny

[nexus]

Originally Posted by Akira

Well bubbling people up is the whole deal about these "Social" networks.
But the problem is not exactly people being unaware of these problems, it's more that people are aware but don't care.

It's like whenever online privacy conversation pops up, for example about VPNs, and a lot people are like "I don't care if anyone watches, I have nothing to hide". That attitude is to me impossible to understand, it's totally not about having something to hide, it's about people nosing around your stuff and using it against you and to make profits of which you receive zero.

Imagine someone going into your house without your permission, going through your stuff, taking your photo albums of your kids, sell some off to make money off it, and being fine with that.

why i told my girl/family dont post pics of my kids on it EVER. keep my life out of your FB

if later on in life when they are older and decide to make a presence online then that is there choice but till then not happenin

on another note i just had a online school hack which my kids use as we home school luckily was found out that they just missed me but they are giving out lifelock for a year to everyone effected which itself is dumb as the hacker knows that now

[nexus]

here is another reason i hate facebook cause of that site me and my father got into a fight cause he did what i asked him not to do with my kids then we didnt talk for months then he just died so we never made up