Former Facebook Employee Questions the Social Media Life 171
stevegee58 writes "The Washington Post published an interesting article about Facebook's employee #51, Katherine Losse. As an English major from Johns Hopkins, Losse wasn't the typical Facebook employee. But after starting in customer service, she later became Mark Zuckerberg's personal ghostwriter, penning blog posts in his name. The article traces Losse's growing disillusionment with social networking in general and Facebook in particular. After cashing out some FB stock, Losse resigned and moved to a rural West Texas town to get away from technology and focus on writing."
Sounds like (Score:4, Funny)
A total Losse for the big Z.
Re:Sounds like (Score:4, Insightful)
well, she cashed out and is now social networking in the "big boys" social network: the media.
which she as a writer is going to have to do a lot...
anyhow, her complaints about the online life are not actually facebook specific. people lived that "i'm in a car" online life long before facebook, I remember reading a bit after middle '90s on irc a from a dude "I'm bicycling". and well, that's how our irc chat life went back then but he was one of the very few who had a company paying for gsm data(and a communicator to use that).
It's not about facebook or "social media", it's about being online and sharing what you do, for some people it's security, for some it's just about sharing, taking part. what it makes harder to do is re-inventing yourself on weekly basis, since everybodys a celebrity and the track record is there, but only sort of since there's 900 million so nobodys really a celebrity in the whole context.
Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, and it's easy to look down your nose at the masses when you've already made a boatload of cash and can afford a nice, remote place somewhere to just go unplug, ruminate, and write. :p
I'd like to move to a tropical island and do heady things. But as it turns out, I'm here in my condo, bs'ing about the mars lander on facebook, waiting for monday morning.
Dark Profiles (Score:3)
Read page 2 of tfa if you have the time
There is a mention of "Dark Profiles", and I quote:
"... a team of Facebook engineers was developing what they called dark profiles - "pages for people who had not signed up for the service but who had been identified in posts by Facebook users. The dark profiles were not to be visible to ordinary users, Losse said, but if the person eventually signed up, Facebook would activate those latent links to other users."
Re:Dark Profiles (Score:5, Interesting)
Try to do it without Facebook getting and tracking it. No membership required.
People who think that Apple, Google or Microsoft are evil ought to check out how FB is tracking everyone. It's not just Yahoo, they are just folks I am familiar with.
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"... a team of Facebook engineers was developing what they called dark profiles - "pages for people who had not signed up for the service but who had been identified in posts by Facebook users. The dark profiles were not to be visible to ordinary users, Losse said, but if the person eventually signed up, Facebook would activate those latent links to other users."
LinkedIn did a form of this, apparently just storing invites to my email address from members even though I wasn't a member. After some time, I reg
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It's creepy no matter who is behind it
If I am not a member of a certain organization there are 3 possibilities:
A. I do not know of the existence organization
B. I knew of that organization and decided not to join
C. I applied to join, but that organization decided not to accept me as a member
In the case of option C, since I was the one who took the initiative in applying to join that group (but being rejected) I am in no position to complain if that group keeps a profile of me in their blacklist (or something
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Well, and it's easy to look down your nose at the masses when you've already made a boatload of cash and can afford a nice, remote place somewhere to just go unplug, ruminate, and write. :p
I'd like to move to a tropical island and do heady things. But as it turns out, I'm here in my condo, bs'ing about the mars lander on facebook, waiting for monday morning.
Its the Z man effect.
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Re:Sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
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I had a job where I had to be available on-call all the time, and I ended up opening the notebook and working at home as much as from home. Coding during the day, paperwork like responding to e-mails in the evening.
Add in a healthy dose of berating idiots on slashdot and browsing other negligibly informational news aggregator sites, and I did maybe 9 hours of work a day. But I felt tethered.
I switched jobs, and the expectation to be ever present is gone. We have great user sign-off and the infrastructure
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How does that work ? I mean, I know worker-protections are low in some jurisdictions, but unless you worked in Zimbabwe, surely there are -some- limits ?
If there's a demand for being connected, that'd be -worktime- in my jurisdiction, sure it might be what is known as "on call" i.e. you're not actively doing any work, and probably even at home, but you are available in case something -does- happen, and such forced availability is rewarded with a minimum of 20% of your regular pay.
Thus being available for a
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If he's in the US(like me) you don't get paid anything for being on call. It's just expected of you and if you don't like it, quit.
I've been slowly moving my way out of IT because of this.
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"Do it or you're fired." Conversely, no work, no pay. No health insurance, either. You either eat the shit you're given, die of cancer, or go bankrupt paying for treatment for same. If you don't like it, well, we're at 8%+ unemployment, there are 10 people who could do your job waiting for you to quit. If my choices are either compromising my principles, or losing my house, guess which one I'm going to pick.
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I read it all with no problem. Try disabling javascript.
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The linked article is hidden behind a paywall. You can read 2 pages (out of 5) before you are blocked.
Print article gives full text.
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the problem is more, that slashdot accepts submissions, which are behind a paywall, even when you can trick around it.
A life with no privacy is no life (Score:5, Insightful)
Telling the whole world when, where and what you have taken your lunch, when, where and what you did when you were with your gf/bf is a life with no privacy whatsoever
Absolutely not the kind of life a normal, self-respecting human being would lead
Re:A life with no privacy is no life (Score:5, Funny)
A difference of opinion. I agree with you, but most people I know do not. They want to be connected.
They complain when their phone doesn't allow multiple people on a text message, and they have to copy/paste to send the same thing to different people.
They get together and start talking about that trip they took or that thing they did. When I ask, they ask back, "It was on my facebook, didn't you see the pictures?"
We evolved as social creatures, which allowed us to come together to form an agrarian society, as I have been told. From the users' perspectives, they are not telling the whole world, they are telling whomever they have friended. That Facebook employees can see the data, let alone analyze and make money off it, isn't even in their sphere of consideration. And when you point it out, there are two responses.
People either don't get technology, and therefore don't care who sees the mundane details of their lives, or they see it as a free service that provides what they want, in exchange for personal details. The latter group are no different from the people who have loyalty memberships or agree to the new car insurance monitoring devices.
There are relatively few people in the world who would agree with your statement, despite the disproportionate representation on this particular website. The fact that you have zero replies (not counting the post of someone else's lyrics) and +5 moderation suggests this site's audience is lacking in general sociology education, or has forgotten it.
A normal human would embrace the opportunity to keep in touch with family and friends who do not live in their subdivision. A modern normal human would appreciate keeping up with someone without having to endure the sometimes stifling social conventions involved in making arrangements to meet to talk in person, or IMO the more stifling conventions of a personal phone call.
Facebook is the ultimate social outlet, where you can post what's on your mind, and let people respond or ignore as they wish. No wondering if you are boring someone on the other end of the conversation - they can scroll past. No wondering what everyone else is doing, and if you are fitting in - it is almost telepathy, knowing what your friends are into besides what they talk about when you are together. And then seeing a stranger's comment on your friend's post - and realizing you have something in common.
Again, I agree with you. But I also understand why the 1 billion active users, 1/7 of the world, disagree.
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The only thing Google+ has over Facebook is Circles where you can easily communicate with different groups in different ways, which is what people do in real life
Facebook have a way to do this, but handled badly with the default of publish to everyone ....
Neither is anywhere near perfect, and so I use both but spend much more time on Facebook because that is where most people are....
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And a lot of people that feel disconnected socially have a lack of opportunity to communicate that they cannot easily fix in their own lives. If you work two jobs, you have time to post from your phone but not actually physically meet with friends and family. If your career took you 500 miles away from your previous friends and family, keeping in touch with them through social ne
Fakebook (Score:5, Insightful)
I knew that FB had fake accounts, but apparently it also has fake Zuckerberg and more importantly a fake market valuation and probably a fake business model.
Re:Fakebook (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Fakebook (Score:5, Informative)
You may be dismayed to learn this, but nearly every large company has fake communications from its CEO. You don't think the Delta CEO personally pens the "from the CEO" letter at the front of each month's in-flight magazine, do you? He may read it and suggest (or even make) changes, but I am pretty sure he isn't writing the draft.
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Funny. I had a fake account, but I was kicked off after about three weeks from using it. :(
It's scary that Facebook find suggested friends pretty good. I am trying to figure how it knows that. I assume it is tags, texts mentioning my name, my e-mail address, etc.
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Fake users? Hah! They have Facebook in heaven... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a lot worse than you think! FTFA:
"Celebrities had found Marfa too. The town's beloved food truck, the Food Shark, has nearly 1,700 'Likes' on its Facebook page -- including ones from luminaries such as Bob Dylan, Tammy Wynette, and Willie Nelson."
According to Wikipedia Tammy Wynette died in 1998. Facebook was launched in February 2004.
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Apparently, they have fake security too! From TFA:
In her first days, she was given a master password that she said allowed her to see any information users typed into their Facebook pages. ,,, In one exchange, she noticed the man's password, "Ilovejason," and was startled by the painful irony.
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Yeah, that was the first thing that scared me. Non-hashed passwords. Eek.
What has the Internet become? (Score:5, Insightful)
What a horror. She saw the light, as did I.
After 17 years of building, learning and promoting I now realise just how awful it has now become. I have left the industry entirely.
Facebook is not a product of Zuckerberg, but a reflection of the inevitability that horrendous and highly penetrative technological processes will have on our lives.
People haven't asked for Big Brother, they demanded him.
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd follow her example... if only I had company stock to turn into cash. Unfortunately I'm one of the tech people who got tired of the web without first getting rich from it.
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I'd follow her example... if only I had company stock to turn into cash. Unfortunately I'm one of the tech people who got tired of the web without first getting rich from it.
She didn't leave to just go somewhere and vegetate. She's concentrating on her writing. I presume she'll be getting paid for it, too.
You know, you can start to focus on another passion/interest of yours while still working. If it becomes important enough, you'll eventually make an exit plan and figure out a way to live off it. You don't have to be rich to do it.
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You know, you can start to focus on another passion/interest of yours while still working. If it becomes important enough, you'll eventually make an exit plan and figure out a way to live off it. You don't have to be rich to do it.
This is exactly how I got my career off of the radio and onto the Internet in the 90s.(And recently I've begun thinking that I might well move it off of the Internet again in a few more years.)
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Oh, I'm trying, spending time every day working on a graphic novel. But it'd be a hell of lot easier to build a creative career if I didn't have to spend 40-45 hours/week doing uninteresting crap instead, and had money to invest into it.
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She didn't get rich, she just cashed in enough to live off it for a couple years in some middle of nowhere town.
It'd not hard to follow her example. I'm living on a sailboat right now and saving up so I can take off for a year or so. Anyone can do it.
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:4, Interesting)
Meh, people will adjust. They're in the honeymoon phase now like I was back in the early 80's with BBS's. I remember back in those days spending entire days doing nothing but dialing BBS after BBS just to converse with people and check out what's new. After a few years I realized how much time I was wasting doing nothing productive.
I mean it wasn't all wasted time. I met many friends that became friends in real life. I even met several girlfriends this way (there actually were quite a few normal girls on BBS's even in the 80's, especially the younger/teen set like I was).
When the Internet got popular I noticed new geeks going through the same phases. Now it's being repeated with everyone else (ie. mainstream "normal" people). I think most people will figure it out eventually. They may even temporarily reject technology like this woman is doing. I firmly believe they will eventually reintegrate technology into their lives except with a more controlled attitude. Technology is too beneficial to completely reject.
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Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it started because people wanted other people to know what they were doing. "Look at me, I'm important."
It is an efficient way to communicate, basically a kiosk. But when the host becomes too intrusive the convenience is outweighted by the cost.
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It is an efficient way to communicate
No it isn't, because you cannot count on people who have subscribed to you or people on your friends list who haven't muted your posts actually seeing your content for a number of reasons which vary from censorship to incompetence. That goes for private messages too, except they're less likely to be censored, and more likely to show up very late or not at all or without a notification.
This goes for Google+ too, except there things just show up a little bit late, or get censored.
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You missed the point completely. "Communicate" does not mean making sure the recipient got the message. Especially in the context of gp's post.
"I'm important, look at what I'm doing" and subsequent replies are most of what I remember from facebook. Seldom were there any messages of organization, or any time sensitive data. It's a "status" message, what you're doing now. Not ensuring your message is read.
The closest I have ever seen is "Anyone up for [activity] tonite?" And the people who already know
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You missed the point completely. "Communicate" does not mean making sure the recipient got the message
comÂmuÂniÂcate
â â[kuh-myoo-ni-keyt] verb, comÂmuÂniÂcatÂed, comÂmuÂniÂcatÂing.
verb (used with object)
1. to impart knowledge of; make known: to communicate information; to communicate one's happiness.
2. to give to another; impart; transmit: to communicate a disease.
Especially in the context of gp's post.
You mean the one filled with meaningless assertions and contradicted by his own words in the same post?
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Nah. What others do is important. If anybody but me watched TV 24/7, or slowly unlearned to read or write sentences longer than 140 characters, how would I be able to have a decent conversation about fuck all? To me that's like saying you can swim anywhere you want, where the bucket is poured is not your conc
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You are taking a truly long view of this - essentially an impossibility. Are you suggesting that it is possible for the entire population except you to care about the things you care about?
I was going to leave it there and let you reply, but I rarely return to read replies, leaving my comments in the hands of moderators these days.
It would be nice to be able to guide others to watch less television, or at least certain types of television. It would be nice to be able to encourage better communication skil
Re:What has the Internet become? (Score:5, Interesting)
No, and maybe that was a bad/extreme example. Say, you live under a dictatorship and don't enjoy torture. If the police thinks otherwise, and your fellow citizens don't mind or don't dare to help you, you have no choice. That's also extreme, but much more realistic.
I know I'm dangerously close to say "we can only choose what society offers us as choice", and in a way I mean that, but of course, we all are part of that society, and we can come up with new things as individuals, thereby helping form that society. But a LOT of the ideas we examine, and keep or throw away, have been prepared by others. We are, biologically, not any different than humans 5000-10000 years ago. That means a human from back then could be born today and you might not even notice. Let them have attentive parents and a good school and they might cure cancer. Let a modern baby grow up with cavemen, and it will hunt whatever cavemen hunted. (I don't mean to say any of this as if you don't know that, I'm just rambling ^^) Yes, we can achieve a lot in a lifetime, we can cover a lot of distance, but we always start out where society is currently at.
You see, my problem isn't so much that I'm bored "because people are boring". Only boring people get bored! But I imagine to see continuing trends I don't like, I don't accept them as given, until I know exactly why and how they come to be; that these trends exist does not automatically justify their continued existence. We all sit in little pockets and cliques and classes, feeding the same machinery *we* are building, while pretending it is some kind of anonymous force, and judge ourselves by how well we are adapted to that. I find that nuts, when I stop to think about it, and what you call concerning oneself with the fate of the world, I might also call concerning oneself with the actions of yourself and your contemporaries. Sure, it's a middle class luxury thing to ponder these things, but for me thinking/talking about this stuff is no chore; silently enduring it would be.
And then there is power and its abuses lurking constantly. Maybe we don't get more shallow and driven because "that's just how it goes", maybe it's like hysterical laughter at the dinner table can be connected to the abuse taking place in that family. Man, I suck with analogies, but yeah. Where there is smoke, there is fire?
I don't disagree at all. But still, how much have you learned from books? I learned a big deal. I knew wise people, but the wisest ideas, or the most eloquent ways to put what I "had on the tip of my tongue", came from people I never met, or who were already dead for a long time. You can encourage people you meet AND ramble about it on the interwebs. I don't chat, I always liked forums, and thinking aloud in written form. It ain't literature, but it's what I can do. I've been influenced by others who do that, so I don't think it's presumptuous to say each of us is also having a small effect on some of the people who read it. I try to speak the same way, but of course that's so heavily limited in polite company with strangers, compared to talking to strangers on the net :O
But yes, I'm not responsible for what others do, and of course loosing the plot and fighting windmills is silly. As easily as I forget that, as easily I remember it, it's basic hygiene of the soul I guess. Though when I regained my calm and humour, I still care. I accept that the world is as it is, but I'd still like more justice; and for that I need people to actually think, and I need doublethink and sophistry to be "uncool" - I need to have words for these things, so I can criticize them. By criticizing them, I hope to help preserving those concepts for future generations.
Damn, that sounds quite pompous, even to me. Think o
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Says the Anonymous troll. QED.
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He did, idiot. That's why he left.
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It's not really social (Score:5, Interesting)
So most interactions on facebook aren't really socialising. That patting each other on the back (or blowing each other depending on how far you take it) and to be honest I think the days of geocities were more social. People made websites with interesting content that would spark conversation even if were just between you and the author via email. I'd genuoinely say the vast majority of content I see people posting on FB is no interesting, it's not remotely deep or thoughtful. it's shit like announcements that someone likes amazon. Well good for you, you're like 99% of the population.
I don't really like having an account which is reflected in the fact I don't use my own name or talk about myself. It's there basically to keep in touch with some people which unfortuantely think there is no other way to keep in contact on the internet and since they're family it's a bit more awkward to tell them to suck it up and use email like a normal person. Though I feel that day coming up pretty soon.
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From what I can see, it doesn't matter how many "friends" people have.
It doesn't, it matters what quality their friends are.
I don't really like having an account which is reflected in the fact I don't use my own name or talk about myself. It's there basically to keep in touch with some people which unfortuantely think there is no other way to keep in contact on the internet and since they're family it's a bit more awkward to tell them to suck it up and use email like a normal person.
So in summary, you use facebook as a social network, for socializing.
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So in summary, you use facebook as a social network, for socializing.
Yes, but you see, he's better than all the other lowly facebook users, as everyone else just made a list of 500 people they met once or twice and don't it use properly. He's the worst kind of "I don't even own a TV" snob - the type who does actually watch TV.
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I never said that socialising on the internet is a bad thing. It's one of the main things to do on the internet. So it doesn't require a site specialising in socialising. My point is if all you do is advertise shit you like or where you are then you're not really socialising which, yes, is more or less what I am doin
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older, but always a good read:
http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/11/the_social_graph_is_neither/ [pinboard.in]
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I didn't bother to click the link, but i'll reply to what's there.
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"In other words, the author does not seem to have a clue how to make a persuasive argument, and instead wants to flog a personal agenda's dead horse."
In other words, you're not reypling to anything at all but your own strawman.
"Providers who offer their services for free actually get something in return."
No. It says what it says. You're not able to respond to it, so you say something that could be said about just about anything, to proudly state that this is nothing new.
"In other words" my ass. Look up soph
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I didn't bother to click the link, but i'll reply to what's there.
[...]
In other words, the author does not seem to have a clue how to make a persuasive argument, and instead wants to flog a personal agenda's dead horse. Providers who offer their services for free actually get something in return. This is well known, redundant at this point, and poorly argued.
It sure is easy to rebut an argument you haven't read.
By the way, I'm not sure the interviewee offered an argument at all. She simply pointed out reasons to be concerned about social networks. I didn't see anything that looked like an attempt to persuade others that they should leave Facebook.
But, never mind. You rebutted her argument brilliantly. Who needs to read the article?
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"They often don't chat to each other. They talk about themselves and hopefully get a lot of people telling them how awesome they are "
In other words, they behave pretty much the same way they do face to face.
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I was thinking that after I wrote it - that you're using the word "friend" when I would say "close friend". But why should it matter if a facebook "friend" isn't actually the same as a "friend" in real life? Should they call them "acquaintances"? It's just a name. I think geeks, of all people, should understand that.
It's certainly not the best place to be creative, but that's not the point. It might not be the best for anything, but the value of facebook is that most people you know are on it. I know this i
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In short, Facebook is great for keeping in touch with friends across large distances. Email simply doesn't compare when it comes to sharing & commenting on media/photos & for having real time discussions - all in one place. When I go $home, it's as if I'd never left.
Mostly I've found it's for people trying to get dates with my wife.
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When I go $home, it's as if I'd never left.
So why bother leaving in the first place?
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Please sign in to access this article and other ex (Score:5, Funny)
Sign in
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Login with Facebook
Kids, if you're wondering what this "irony" thing is that we oldsters like to talk about...?
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I knew what irony was before Alanis was even a zygote, thanks very much.
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Sigh .. the worst thing about knee-jerk 'that's not irony' Alanis references is when they are actually irony ... how sadly ironic can you get. FYI, it is actually irony that the 'preferred method' of signing in is Facebook for an article discussing desire to stop using Facebook.
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Sure thing, Son.
BTW, I notice you're on the Internet wayyy after lights-out, so you're grounded from the computer for the next two weeks.
Sums up every bad 'social media expert' (Score:5, Funny)
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Be fair. She's a perfectly qualified douchebag.
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Excuse me, but this woman isn't a douchebag. It takes courage for someone who was so close to Mr. Zuckerberg and his inner circle at Facebook to stand up and ask some of the same serious questions that we outsiders have been shouting, mostly unheard, for years now. Frankly, having an account on Facebook, a website run by a company that's committed to ending all privacy, has always struck me as borderline crazy. Also, did you read the part about the "master password"? The one that allowed her to see everythi
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Registration Sucks Almost as Bad as Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the end of the story because the Washington Post won't let me read the rest.
So, if I understand this correctly, she got rich and decided working wasn't for her and she wanted to chase every writer's dream to lock themselves away in some far off locale to write their lifetime novel?
How is this news? Because it deals with the side of Facebook everyone knows about but ignores so they can post photos of their kids and let other people tell them how cute they are or is there something I missed in the last two pages?
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And that's the end of the story because the Washington Post won't let me read the rest.
Yet, a privacy freak like my self can read the entire article (all four "pages") without a problem.
I use firefox with these add-ons:
RefControl - normally set to spoof, for wapo I set it to always block the referrer.
NoScript
CS Lite - set to block all cookies
There are more, but I think those three are sufficient to get past the wapo paywall.
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And that's the end of the story because the Washington Post won't let me read the rest.
It seems there is a bug. I was able to get the other pages by requesting the ready-to-print version
I don't have a Facebook account (Score:4, Insightful)
and I wish Facebook an accelerated death as is certain as people grow more wise to their feeding of personal details to an ad making machine
but in reality, Losse's words and opinion seem to have more to do with Losse's own life trajectory than with Facebook itself
human beings are social animals. this has powered Facebook's growth. but the Internet is still young, and you can forgive the world for not understanding the nature of the beast it was feeding. as it dawns on them what Facebook really means to their lives and their society, they will continue to be just as social, but on sites that do not exist for the goal that Facebook does
meanwhile, humans are not universally social, or social their entire lives. some are more introspective and seek a more monklike existence in order to plumb the depths of their spirit or their mind. this is 100% fine and I myself have this tendency. but i recognize that this tendency of mine, and as it exists also in Losse, is not an enemy of human sociability, nor should it be, nor should we evangelize that everyone should tune out and drop out, just like we should not evangelize that everyone should plug in and focus in
to each their own. Losse is making the mistake of projecting her own life's trajectory on the story of Facebook and/ or social networking in general. don't make the same mistake as Losse. unless you yourself are equally interested in tuning out and dropping out. in which case, this is fine, power to you. i hope something constructive comes out of it, for Losse, and for you. now unplug the computer
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Full Article here - no registration (Score:5, Informative)
Link HERE [washingtonpost.com]
she wasn't kidding... (Score:2)
blood money (Score:5, Interesting)
Although the title of the article made it seem like she walked away from social media in general, it seems to me that she merely walked away from fakebook (oops) because she didn't drink enough the Zuck's koolaid (claims that zuck said "I don't know if I trust you" to his supposed ghost writer)...
I was once asked to ghost write (in a quasi-technical context), and I politely refused. Didn't cost me too many points with the CEO as there was plenty of other jobs to do in the company. I understand her position was not necessarily the same, but she took that new job and then apparently didn't like it and probably considered it blood money and needed to clean her soul of it.
I submit that the most common outcome of selling your soul for blood money is usually the same for most people. It destroys you from inside until you walk. You usually never really have to take blood money, but the opportuntiy often comes up in a seductive way and challenges you in your weakest moment. The best thing to do is say no, but not everyone does. I'll wager that she didn't have to move in the the position that left her the most disillusioned, but it was likley a most seductive opportunity (to ghost write for the Zuck)...
Hopefully the lesson about blood money doesn't get diluted by polluting it with the equally intriguing, but overdone story about the dangers in the vitualization of real social interaction and trusting your privacy to a bunch of 20-some frat boy wannabes...
Pampered Gen Y quits something (Score:5, Insightful)
Cites "disillusionment"
Stay tuned for more breaking details of this unique event.
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Re:Pampered Gen Y quits something (Score:4, Insightful)
That girl really has no idea of how the world works for 99.999% of its population. She caught a lucky break doing an easy job and got stinking rich from it. Perhaps she should spend some time around Walmart cashiers until she realizes that most people just can't afford to be 'disillusioned' by their jobs.
I think you're mixing generations up (Score:2)
The pampered generation was the one born in the very early 90s onwards; she was born in the mid-70s, and kids were still having 'traditional' childhoods for a good 15 years after that point.
Also, most of the estimates I've seen place people in their mid-30s (ages 34-37, perhaps) either in the overlap between two generations, or outside of both. The childhood technological experiences of Generation X and Generation Y are drastically different thanks to the sudden rise of home computers, microwaves, VCRs, 1s
Rural West Texas Town? (Score:2)
Marfa is where hipsters go to be alone.
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Marfa is where hipsters go to be alone.
So... she's a hipster because she quit Facebook before it was cool to do so?
Easy to say (Score:2)
Communicating is not Caring (Score:2)
Electronic posts can't take the place of physical contacts and personal emotions, yet this isn't discussed, but most people recognize the need for social contacts.
Fame (Score:2)
Passwords in clear text? (Score:2)
In one exchange, she noticed the man’s password, “Ilovejason,” and was startled by the painful irony.
If she could see a users password, doesn't that mean that FB stores passwords in clear text? Or at least did so a few years ago. Is there any other explanation?
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I don't have an account but that doesn't mean FB isn't tracking me somehow. I have facebook's ip blocked in my hosts files, and run several tracker removing tools like privoxy, ghostery and adblock+. However people take photos of me, friends and family, and not being on facebook, I can't keep track of them. I'm sure some of them are "helpfully" tagging my face on their profiles. I tell people I don't like FB when I can, but you can't really be take the initiative without becoming the "man that's proud to no