Ask HN: Why does there seem to be a widespread disdain for Facebook among HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16536672

by Nuance • 8 years ago

11 11 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Two major reasons that made me quit FB:

1) No control of what posts you see. Ideally it should be everything sorted by date, with some optional filters. Instead FB decides on its own what I should see.

2) It's designed to create echo chambers, to divide people, and propagate identity politics. I had otherwise reasonable people to get offended because I said we should listen to the other side and address their arguments, not call people "nazis". Guess what, I got immediately labeled as a nazi.

Less important reason is tracking, though that can be defeated by browser extensions.

In the end, HN and Reddit are far superior to FB.

psyc• 8 years ago

I like my friends very much IRL. The FB personas they present tend to bother me, a lot. When an interaction occurs on FB, I feel it only half-happened, or wasn't quite real. Probably a generational thing, since I'm older. I'm fine with Messenger. The FB feed is completely useless to me - haven't seen a thing worth seeing on it in years.

agitator• 8 years ago

For me, the things that bother me are:

The company: Taking great engineers that could be working on something to better our world, but employing them to work on what is essentially a huge waste of time.

The product: It's essentially a way to show off, and exclaim your opinions without having a two sided conversation. And because it takes up people's free time, and it's easier than having legitimate conversations with others, people are less likely to converse with eachother. Also the feed isn't honest. A constant bias in information I'm being fed, will eventually result in a bias of my own opinions, and I don't care for being manipulated. Third, I don't want to see everyones filtered, ideal representations of themselves. It's weird, and not psychologically healthy for everyone else to have a skewed image of everyone else's lives.

mabynogy• 8 years ago

IMHO FB bashing is more or less encouraged by Google because it's its main competitor.

muzani2• 8 years ago

But logically, my life would be a lot worse without Google, but roughly the same without Facebook.

geordee• 8 years ago

This is true in my case. I quit Facebook (and WhatsApp) and life became a bit better.

tyingq• 8 years ago

Because they have made slow changes over time to drive you to things that make revenue for them, versus what you actually want...like keeping up with friends and family. They are now actively suppressing your closest circles’ posts in favor of crap that might make you click an ad or otherwise monetize you.

Same reason Google has fallen a bit out of favor here. All decisions revenue driven versus customer focused.

Bait and switch basically. Not a new trick.

goblins• 8 years ago

I don't have anything against Facebook I just have no use for it. I have no use for any social media platform. They are a waste of my time.

27182818284• 8 years ago

I'm not sure that it is more widespread on HN than other places.I cannot think of anyone in my life that is very enthusiastic about Facebook--the people I know have either quit it or just tolerate it.

muzani2• 8 years ago

I've seen friends on Facebook have a lot more disdain for Facebook. HN is tame by comparison. There are movements of digital detoxing, the first of which people want to get rid of is Facebook. Society views it as an addiction, like TV before that.

andrei_says_• 8 years ago

Off the top of my head:

It is designed to promote and exploit addiction, egocentrism and antisocial behavior. Its use is linked to depression. It is intentionally used for manipulation and political gain. It is intentionally used to spy on its users and invent new ways to violate privacy.

It monetizes on people’s attention and so tries to extract as much of it as possible. This is disastrous, especially for kids.

Ask HN: Why does there seem to be a widespread disdain for Facebook among HN?

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