Enshittification...

[Pegasus]

An interesting article...

When you are not interested in making a profit from a social media platform (ok, we are a tiny platform but one none the less) there is no enshittification here - thankfully.

'Once upon a time, Facebook and Twitter showed you stuff from your friends and followers; now you get a torrent of things that the platform’s algorithms think might increase your “engagement”. Instagram has become a machine designed to keep you in constant scrolling mode. Ditto TikTok – on steroids. And so on'

Users, advertisers – we are all trapped in the enshittification of the internet | John Naughton

There is a new word for the degradation of the internet, but it’s been happening for years. Why do we tolerate it?

www.theguardian.com

 

[JAshley73]

One of the MASSIVE reasons I love message-boards/discussion-forums, vs. "other" social media. There is usually no other agenda than just community...

Podcasts are dang-near at that point too, where the advertising is close to overwhelming the content.

We are at the point where "pay-to-participate" is a far more rewarding way to engage your media. What's $5 a month, x 2 or 3, if it means getting authentic content that isn't polluted with ads?

(Also in reference to his article - I'm a BIG fan of using eBay over Amazon for items. I don't mind buying "used" and eBay is far more reliable with search criteria, and the user-interface far superior to Amazon's.)

 

[Pegasus]

Never use Amazon, used to work in retail and saw what Besos et al did to the highstreet...

 

[Fulk]

Never use Amazon, used to work in retail and saw what Besos et al did to the highstreet...

And what about their own work-force? (I never use Amazon, either.)

 

[Caver Keith]

I've just fallen foul of the Facebook algorithm!

I posted a trip report to the Dudley Caving Club Blog and then attempted to create a Facebook post linking to the blog post.

The Facebook post was immediately taken down, here's why.

I asked for the removal to be reviewed but the options given by Facebook don't help at all.The only option that was anywhere near close to me wanting to say, "Please explain" was 'It's a joke' which coincidentally neatly summarises my feelings about Facebook.

 

[Pegasus]

....a friend of mine had her facebook account hacked and her identity used to sell second hand cars. She was so upset by the invasion of privacy. I tried to help but NOTHING worked, basically fb didn’t give a toss, no human has looked at our numerous reports and the AI or whatever they use is useless.

 

[mikem]

They are presumably getting 1000s of complaints every minute so can't possibly look at them all

 

[Loki]

I've just fallen foul of the Facebook algorithm!

I posted a trip report to the Dudley Caving Club Blog and then attempted to create a Facebook post linking to the blog post.

The Facebook post was immediately taken down, here's why.

View attachment 20488

I asked for the removal to be reviewed but the options given by Facebook don't help at all.The only option that was anywhere near close to me wanting to say, "Please explain" was 'It's a joke' which coincidentally neatly summarises my feelings about Facebook.

Er - kids go on a trip while ‘chasing the dragon’ . ?

 

[Pegasus]

They closed the UKC page down for 30 days once because I shared a post about 'Cow arse worms'

 

[Space Doubt Caver]

They closed the UKC page down for 30 days once because I shared a post about 'Cow arse worms'

That kinda made me laugh, cows ass worms, but it's true FB Ai/algorithm is crazy, i own 2 big gaming community groups on FB to do with a game called Ghost Recon, to put it in perspective Ghost Recon is a war & combat based game, we get people posting pictures of their gameplay and with it being a combat game some of them have a level of gore but it is only a game.

The FB algorithm flags it before you even see it. next thing you get a notification, saying "x"-post has gone against our community standards, all people post is pictures of their gameplay with funny captions. it still gets flagged then they are like if this happens again we will shut down the group but we try to challenge as many as we can but it's not easy to do.

If you want to see for context here are the links

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ghostreconwildlands1/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/467443727332982/

 

[AR]

Nothing new about censorbots jumping on things they shouldn't, back in the days of the usenet 30 years ago I recall the sci-fi author Charlie Stross had a posting signature that was intended to trigger them, "NSA terrorists eat shittake mushrooms in Scunthorpe". AOL's used to object to mentions of Penistone too...
As for Amazon, the stupid thing is they could shut down the commerce site tomorrow and still make a massive profit off Amazon Web Services. I refuse to shop with them, at least Ebay don't sell stuff themselves so aren't directly and unfairly competing!

 

[JasonC]

I thought this thread was going to be about Link Pot....

 

[Pegasus]

I thought this thread was going to be about Link Pot....

Made me laugh out loud that did

 

[aricooperdavis]

I refuse to shop with them, at least Ebay don't sell stuff themselves so aren't directly and unfairly competing!

Me too, the problem with eBay is there are a fair number of sellers who just drop ship from Amazon, so you end up paying a little more for a middle man to order from Amazon for you, which is deeply frustrating. I find myself avoiding this by primarily buying used items, which is a nice silver lining, as it's usually much cheaper, and it's nice to give stuff a second life.

 

[badger]

I've just fallen foul of the Facebook algorithm!

I posted a trip report to the Dudley Caving Club Blog and then attempted to create a Facebook post linking to the blog post.

The Facebook post was immediately taken down, here's why.

View attachment 20488

I asked for the removal to be reviewed but the options given by Facebook don't help at all.The only option that was anywhere near close to me wanting to say, "Please explain" was 'It's a joke' which coincidentally neatly summarises my feelings about Facebook.

And yet when I brought to the attention an Item about the harassment and clearly designed to create hatred of of someone who admittedly is on the sex offenders register now out of prison it was deem acceptable that this was not harassment or deemed to create hatred. And to be clear I was not sticking up for what he has done. But the way the post was designed to inflame violence.

 

[JAshley73]

But the way the post was designed to inflame violence.

Which is a surefire way to elicit reactions, and therefore set off a firestorm of activity...

Which reinforces their goal to keep you "engaged" in the app/site, and therefore more time to see their force-fed ads...

 

[TheBitterEnd]

Podcasts are dang-near at that point too, where the advertising is close to overwhelming the content.

In the UK we are fortunate to have BBC podcasts, no adverts at all ... imagine that

 

[Tim Pickering]

Nothing new about censorbots jumping on things they shouldn't, back in the days of the usenet 30 years ago I recall the sci-fi author Charlie Stross had a posting signature that was intended to trigger them, "NSA terrorists eat shittake mushrooms in Scunthorpe". AOL's used to object to mentions of Penistone too...
As for Amazon, the stupid thing is they could shut down the commerce site tomorrow and still make a massive profit off Amazon Web Services. I refuse to shop with them, at least Ebay don't sell stuff themselves so aren't directly and unfairly competing!

In the days of yore I was an active member of a forum-based site, and they had a censorbot thingy. It was back in the day when I used to enjoy the odd roll-up. I got a ban warning for hatespeech after I typed 'brb.. just popping out to smoke a fag'.

 

[Pegasus]

My word of 2024 too

‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year

The committee’s honourable mentions went to ‘right to disconnect’ and ‘rawdogging’

www.theguardian.com

 

[Slug]

My word of 2024 too

‘What many of us feel’: why ‘enshittification’ is Macquarie Dictionary’s word of the year

The committee’s honourable mentions went to ‘right to disconnect’ and ‘rawdogging’

www.theguardian.com

Yes, I read that article yesterday, it sums up, for me anyway, the reasons why I gave up on Facebook and other (anti)social media several years ago. Sometimes I miss out on things, like club away trips etc., but the "peace and quiet" outweighs the inconvenience.