“Facebook is bad, but we’re fixing it”, says Facebook. (They weren’t fixing it.)

This is a excellent collection of solid reasons to avoid Facebook. I tend to agree, as I don’t like Facebook and, if I were king I would ban Facebook. (ha ha) But to me it also has the flavor of conspiracy theories. I looked at his page on Uber and realized that he’s just a man with opinions and views and he’s putting a voice to them. Caveat emptor.

Unfortunately there is no privacy once online. Facebook might be a blatant example of intrusion but take a look at this site. Try the ClickClickClick link and see how you can be observed just by your interactions with your screen:

A Buddhist friend mentioned a new Facebook alternative called “scuttlebutt”. It’s also a bit of a Twitter replacement at the same time. It tries to closely model the process of how humans socialize and interact.

It has several good ideas. Watch the video there.

Unfortunately it has no event-scheduling feature.

Edit: it’s still early days for scuttlebutt. I would personally check back in a year or two. The basic functionality seems to be there, but many refinements are still under development.

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@DKervick, That was awesome.

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It seems there’s potentially a grave danger of not leaving Facebook (and suchlike) while you still can. Why did I just say “while you still can”? Well, if you read the above article, you’ll see how in China WeChat is about to become mandatory, not optional:

Now WeChat is poised to become China’s electronic ID system, state-run Xinhua reported in December. WeChat will issue virtual ID cards, which individuals would use in lieu of physical state-issued ID cards. Since WeChat requires users to register with their real names per government policy, it’s not a stretch to imagine that one day, WeChat may fully replace state IDs.

What is to stop your own country from deciding to cement you into similar dependance?

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Even more worrying is that the government will be technically capable of considering the behavior of a Chinese citizen’s friends and family in determining his or her score. For example, it is possible that your friend’s anti-government political post could lower your own score. Thus, the scoring system would isolate dissidents from their friends and the rest of society, rendering them complete pariahs. Your score might even determine your access to certain privileges taken for granted in the U.S., such as a visa to travel abroad or or even the right to travel by train or plane within the country. One internet privacy expert warns: “What China is doing here is selectively breeding its population to select against the trait of critical, independent thinking.”

Moreover, what emerges in China will not stay in China. Its repressive technologies have a pattern of diffusing to other authoritarian regimes around the world.

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Good news! Some of the former tech titans are now teaming up to bring sanity back to our devices:

http://humanetech.com/

(Although the fact that they haven’t encrypted their URL, which is a really basic privacy provision, does not inspire confidence!)

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Back in about 1996 I remember being introduced to Buddhism for the first time by a good friend. I would describe this friend as a cultured intellectual, with good taste in spirituality and art, who had studied much in these topics.

Back in 1996 there was no Facebook to speak of, and the Smartphone was still a decade away. Cellphones existed, but neither of us had one, nor did we want one. We used the telephone mostly, and to a small extent, email.

This friend of mine had a highly interesting peculiarity that I Iook back on now and see the wisdom of. When talking on the phone or emailing, he was highly insistent that we talk absolutely minimally there, saying just enough to make plans to visit in real life: planning out the place and time of our next visit. Our calls lasted all of about 3 minutes.

When we actually visited (once every few weeks), again, neither of us had a cell phone. We’d have these long, epic visits, full of sincere and intense discussion. We virtually never talked of crude or coarse things. We were in high spirits. We walked in quiet, natural surroundings, drank good coffee, and it sure wasn’t at Starbucks, went to art galleries, etc. We even saw Ravi Shankar live in concert once, in a Catholic cathedral.

I personally think social media platforms such as Facebook would be best used in such a manner: saying the bare minimum in order to make appointments to hang out with people who matter IRL (say, using the handy event-scheduling feature). And then don’t bring your smartphone.

In this way, sincere and meaningful adult conversation is best served. It avoids the dumbing-down effect that mass-social-media has. It takes the best and leaves the worst.

IRL, you truly give every ounce of mindfulness to the other person, and it feels great when this gets reciprocated. This made the conversations much more interesting and satisfying.

That’s what that good friend implicitly taught me, and it was through this living example that I was inspired to delve deeper into Buddhism.

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I too have a good friend who does this! His name is Ajahn Brahm. If you talk to him on the phone, get to the point, because he really doesn’t mess around!

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There is also no download button. :wink:

At least with, say, Scuttlebutt, there is something to download and try now. I think Scutlebutt has the best “snowball’s chance in hell” right now, because it “one-ups” Facebook and Twitter: you can use it offline (does anyone remember “Tiddlywiki”?), or within a private LAN (say, directly between friends meeting at a coffee shop with free wifi, a feature which would really matter in countries like the one I mentioned just above).

The likes of Diaspora and Mastadon merely try to play catch-up to Facebook and Twitter (respectively), having nothing new to really offer other than their Open Source appeal (which is a more subtle philosophical virtue lost on most people).

PS: Nextcloud 13 got released today:

Tons of geeks will be majorly freaking out over this. Just saying. :slight_smile:

Well, I think they’re more a lobby group than app makers, unless I am mistaken. We’ll see if anything comes of it. But given the positive moves in the EU, perhaps better governance can help.

The website this links goes to displays, at the top, an invitation to “share” it via Facebook or Twitter!

How ironic (in the context of this topic)!

Apparently some kind of app or javascript is operating from the browser itself, working even when disconnected from the internet.

Credits are found by clicking “Achievement” at the upper right corner, then likewise “Colophon” from there. Apparently a collection of groups in the Netherlands.

Earlier I copied this from that post:
"One might imagine that this typically Chinese direction of development seems distant to the Western world. "
Was it edited in between?

Anyway, re “Seems distant”… see below

Not just “authoritative regimes”. The millions of Chinese that have infiltrated Western countries in recent decades, in close conjunction with the operation of Chinese embassies and consulates, have been working, mostly very quietly, at gaining influence in the political and legal systems – more notably reported being the massive scale hacking of commercial and military data. (Not unlike, incidentally, recent operations by Israel to influence politicians and public opinion throughout Europe and the USA.)

In the last year or two, we see highly organized “protests” against any thing deemed critical of or disadvantageous to Chinese interests. A couple of months ago at UC San Diego such a demonstration made the news – a mob of angry, screaming students and other operatives rallying against some
speaking event on behalf of Tibetan “dissident” interests. I noticed also a recent news item of a similar phenomenon in Australia. A leading political figure there was quoted as emphasizing that “freedom of speech” was an important feature in political life there; we’ll see whether he and others who voice such tend to get re-elected, or others inclined to more “harmonious” attitudes take their places.

Also a short while ago, it was reported a coalition of “Asians” (prominently led by Chinese) was suing Harvard University because for admitting new students according to a mix of criteria which reportedly limits the numbers of Chinese applicants allowed in. Perhaps Harvard, and other private institutions, lean towards avoiding situations like at the flagship campuses of the University of California (Berkeley and UCLA), where Chinese have become nearly or actually the majority of the student body.

Speaking of California, having myself worked closely with Chinese over a couple of decades – recent, immigrants from the PRC, not the Taiwanese who have had a presence here since ca. 70 years, or the Cantonese who’ve been around since the mid 19th-century – I’ve been able to notice how influence is developed. For instance, in working with a Chinese-operated acupuncture school, I met a young man about 15 years ago, a member of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army), over here to observe the State government in Sacramento in some sort of exchange program. There’s a common notion that in their push for modernization, they can learn to appreciate the advantages of our democratic system – a notion that’s increasingly appearing as rather culturally naive. The guy was notably open and likeable; and energetic, as in spending time sweeping-up, cleaning-up the premises, which was a bit unusual.

Since then, in this area the cities of San Fransisco, Oakland, Redwood City, Cupertino, Fremont, perhaps more, have elected Chinese mayors. Several are also in high-level positions in the State government; even one apparently gearing-up to run for governor.

A while ago I also came across some news item / opinion piece that asserted that this kind of infiltration process was actually much further along in Australia than in the USA.

Google isn’t much more innocent. Given the news source, some of you might dismiss this as “fake news” right off the bat though.

What a great way to put brakes on a discussion, especially with buddhists. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t a figment of imagination.

smacks is an interesting verb, with or without an adverb frankly.

Happy to see the Stallman love here. Also it seems like a lot of people share the concerns brought up in this thread:

The number of daily users in the United States and Canada actually fell to 184 million from 185 million a quarter earlier.

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In case of interest:

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