We're Fine Without Facebook, German and French Ministers Say (bloomberg.com) 112
Meta Platforms' veiled threat to quit Europe because of blocked talks over privacy rules was more like music to the ears of two top German and French politicians. From a report: "After being hacked I've lived without Facebook and Twitter for four years and life has been fantastic," German Economy Minister Robert Habeck told reporters at an event alongside French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire in Paris on Monday. "I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook," Le Maire added. "Digital giants must understand that the European continent will resist and affirm its sovereignty." The pair were responding to comments in Meta's annual report published Thursday, warning that if it couldn't rely on new or existing agreements to shift data, then it would "likely be unable to offer a number of our most significant products and services, including Facebook and Instagram, in Europe."
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Is the official saying that "how they live their life is good for everyone else" or is he just saying that not having Facebook/Twitter isn't the end of the world that Facebook/Twitter might like you to believe it would be?
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Facebook is one of the largest contributors to the over-confidence that leads to the Dunning–Kruger effect.
At this point, you can be pretty clear that anyone using the phrase "Dunning-Kruger effect" is simply labeling themselves. Hey! Check out my neat forehead tattoo!
Re:Yes, I think so too (Score:5, Interesting)
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Influencers would, literally, be worse off since their entire living is a direct product of the insanity of social medial and one to massively-many communication.
Granted, I could be happy to see them gone anyway.
Re:Yes, I think so too (Score:5, Insightful)
Influencers would, literally, be worse off since their entire living is a direct product of the insanity of social medial and one to massively-many communication.
I would counter that those influencers (I hate that term) would ultimately be better off by filling the void with something productive and rewarding.
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If "influencers" went away, nothing of value would be lost. Let people find another way to get their fifteen minutes.
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and no only would no one be worse off
If social media disappeared overnight a fuckton of people will be worse off for quite a while as society adjusts. E.g. you'll have taken away all marketing and event management from most of the indie music scene, comedy scene, and nightlife scene. You'll have taken away a major source of up to date news, as well as information sharing for government agencies. You'll have taken away classified ads and a communications medium used by people who actually don't spend their lives hiding in one city and move to t
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Meta and their ilk are a shitstain on society, but don't let your hate blind you to the utility they actually provide and how people use them. The overnight loss of social media would be hugely disruptive.
It's IRC with bundled advertising and identity theft in small enough increments that most people won't complain. The amount of utility is negative compared to many other available options. The overnight loss would be hugely disruptive, but a net positive for anyone not employed by Meta.
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The amount of utility is negative compared to many other available options.
You misunderstand. Of course there are other options. But those options takes a while to adapt.
For example: Imagine for a moment you're at work and your house just exploded. All gone. Nothing left. You have options. There are many other houses out there. Are you going to pretend then that it's no big deal and not disruptive because there's another possible house for you to deal with?
We can absolutely do without social media, but unless we migrate away from it in a controlled fashion it becomes hugely disrup
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Nobody misses MySpace
Of course not. No one will miss facebook either. If the question was about missing it then I invite you to re-read my post since you clearly understood none of it.
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You still missed my point. It's just as relevant when focusing exclusively on Facebook.
Hint: The point has nothing to do with if someone misses something, or if it is of value of society, but it entirely related to time. People build their lives around things, industries are built around things. Take that thing away in the "we going to pull out of europe" way is hugely disruptive and would leave many people worse off.
Myspace didn't disappear overnight. It was replaced slowly over a decade with a controlled
Re:Yes, I think so too (Score:4, Interesting)
If Facebook doesn't want to obey the law in those countries then there are plenty of rival services that do. It's not like people won't have any social media.
Is there anything specific about Facebook that people need? Aside from having friends there, who will also be moving to a different platform.
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If Facebook doesn't want to obey the law in those countries then there are plenty of rival services that do. It's not like people won't have any social media.
Is there anything specific about Facebook that people need? Aside from having friends there, who will also be moving to a different platform.
OK .. legitimate question here.
Name a rival service that allows me to stay in touch with extended family all across the world, and also follow a couple of groups in the same manner that FB does, all while avoiding the (lack of) privacy issues that FB has.
Re:Yes, I think so too (Score:5, Informative)
I do not know for your use case, but currently I use Signal for those.
There are quite many groups (family, friends, some interest groups) and private chats with many people.
Like as I am writing this, I am in between the sentences chatting with a family member almost all the way around the world and was just before this listening to a 4 year old singing in one of the family groups, also almost around the world.
Earlier today we were chatting in a hobby group about possible changes to the events we do and so on.
Are there privacy issues: yes, as there is with any service that you do not control yourself, but as bad as Facebook, no. Though those might change in time of course.
Re: Signal (Score:2)
The "Apple device" users seem to struggle with Signal, instead preferring iMessage. Signal seems good enough for the purpose of encrypted comms on smartphones. Matrix is the long game, though outside of gaming and developer communities it's not as accessible for smooth-brained people that are attracted to "Apple devices".
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THIS - hate on facebook all you like but it IS a useful communications tool.
Can you replace it with other tools of course - will your more distant contacts do so as well - probably not.
Several things are true here -
1) Facebook/Instagram and their parent Meta have FAR more to lose abandoning the European market than the European market has to lose by their leaving.
2) The EU would suffer, individuals will probably lose out on a lot of interconnectedness with foreign associates.
2a) the value of facebook is its
Re: Yes, I think so too (Score:1)
Name a rival service that allows me to stay in touch with extended family all across the world,
Don't have to, because Facebook does this today. But when they disappear, someone else will fill the void.
Car anogy?
There were no cars before Ford (and maybe Benz), but once they took off, it doesn't mean that if Ford had gone bankrupt, cars would have been wiped off the face of the earth. Some other brand wouldn've filled that niche, once the business model was clearly validated.
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Email doesn't support comment threads at all. Unless you add some kind of WWW UI to it, and then it still sucks.
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The trouble here is that your requirements list lacks imagination. When you have to state "in the same manner that FB does" you are frankly stating that you don't actually care to investigate alternatives.
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Telegram, Minds, Vero, Twitter, Discord, Diaspora, NextDoor, Minds, MeWe, ello, Xing...
If privacy is important than MeWe might be the best bet. There are a bunch more that are centred around non-English language communities that I'm not familiar with. For example I hear that Trombi and Zingr are popular in France, as well as something called "lebonfil".
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Oh peachy...
So we can go back to the days of talking to some friends on one service, other friends on another, more friends on a third; organizing get-togethers on a fourth; and sharing our dog and cat pictures on a fifth, sixth and seventh. We can also go back to keeping track of which friends are on which services and having to be the middleman passing messages along because no one is paying attention to all of them at all times. Maybe there can even be a third-party application... possibly named after
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I guess you are someone who uses Facebook. I don't because it's shit. To me, anything else is an upgrade.
I use several different forms of communication to talk to friends and family, it's not a problem.
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And I bet you made your decision not to use Facebook yourself, didn't you? I know I made the decision to use it myself as well. Funny how both of us were able to make those decisions on our own, versus the government deciding for us.
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And how do all these alternative platforms make money if not by collecting your data and selling it for ads? Free services have to do that and subscription services will never become ubiquitous.
Re:Yes, I think so too (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a gajillion Facebook clones in Asia that would be happy to expand. If Facebook did pull out of Europe then Google would probably instantly reactivate gFace too.
Facebook itself is a sophisticated consumer profiling platform with an attached text and image database and a React web interface. These days any random joe can spin one of those up in a weekend, minus the profiling.
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Re: Yes, I think so too (Score:2)
I have a feeling a new one will appear. Business responds to demand
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OK .. legitimate question here.
Name a rival service that allows me to stay in touch with extended family all across the world, and also follow a couple of groups in the same manner that FB does, all while avoiding the (lack of) privacy issues that FB has.
SMTP + listserv?
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OK .. legitimate question here.
Name a rival service that allows me to stay in touch with extended family all across the world, and also follow a couple of groups in the same manner that FB does, all while avoiding the (lack of) privacy issues that FB has.
Email. Subscribe to newsletters. Call your friends.
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If Facebook doesn't want to obey the law in those countries then there are plenty of rival services that do. It's not like people won't have any social media.
Is there anything specific about Facebook that people need? Aside from having friends there, who will also be moving to a different platform.
Really, are there?
What part of "the law".
If you want your profile to interact internationally, part of your data must be sent internationally.
It's pretty clear that this is being argued "in the media" with none of the details that explain what the issue actually is.
My impression is Meta is being a bully, and Eu politiicans want to score points by attacking "big US company".
I'm neither American or European
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This is correct.
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I guess there is always MySpace to fall back onto.
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Then of course there are all these small businesses without any other web presence. They can do without it as well, can't they?
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There are literally dozens of website providers they could go to. Why do businesses think they don't need to pay for services they are getting? Like getting it for free is OK, but paying $20/mo. somehow is going to destroy their revenue stream?
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"Then of course there are all these small businesses without any other web presence. They can do without it as well, can't they?"
I guess they'll handle it like they did when moving from AOL.
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It is about ads though - facebooks business model is tracking and gathering a lot of metrics so they can sell ads and ad targeting. That is their revenue stream.
They don't make money showing your cat videos, they make money determining you like cats and telling Proctor and Gamble they are getting more value using facebooks ad services by using them instead of Google or some legacy media to market cat litter premixed with baking soda and cement to you.
facebooks real issue is they can't differentiate themsel
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No your missing the point. It is about ads!
facebook's success in the market place has EVERYTHING to do with at least the perception they are better at, identifying and targeting specific demographics the client wishes to court and show them those ads at a time in place they are likely to interact with them. That is why you spend your money with facebook, and not with Google or someone else or why you pay more for ad impressions on facebook etc.
That is the value proposition. Running the social media platfor
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... So, alas, this won't kill the privacy sapping behemoth, it'll neuter one aspect - notably the ability of the FBI to access Facebook's data on European nationals, but many of us care about that anyway?...
While being monitored by criminal organisations like the FBI, NSA and CIA is certainly something we can all try and limit, the tracking by big US corporations is even more important to make difficult.
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You meant to say wrongthink, not misinformation.
You mean to say lies, not wrongthink.
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And yes, there are statements which, given an axiomatic system, are neither provable right nor provable false in that axiomatic system. But we aren't talking about those statements. We are talking about statements which someone believes to be true despite evidence to the contrary. And if someone else calls that a lie, then from his point of view he is right. And if believing the stateme
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Can dish it out but can't take it, eh?
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No, you're a lying neofascist.
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Yep. And black is white, freedom is slavery, and work makes you free.
All I have to say is, (Score:4, Funny)
Where's the "Like" button for to click on in response to this news? ;-)
Disclaimer: I have never clicked a Like button in my life.
Like button is gone ! (Score:3)
Like button is gone, and that's perfect.
At least everybody agrees: get rid of Facebook.
Facebook agrees.
UE governments agree.
Users agree.
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> Disclaimer: I have never clicked a Like button in my life.
I did once, but turned out it was a "Lick" button on a sleaze site.
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I, too, only click the dislike button.
Facebook - 5 to 10 years from now (Score:1)
Still a force to be reckoned with or another footnote in the history of the internet, joining the likes of GeoCities, AOL, and others that burned brightly for a brief period then descended into technological irrelevancy?
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plus users with a brain dropped them like diseased dung after massive privacy invasions which they have repeated to this day. Drop Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, they're not worth it.
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AOL, and others that burned brightly for a brief period
Unfortunately the burning of AOL left a nasty patch of smoldered black grass on the internet, that still hasn't been overgrown with fresh grass even today. Yes, that infamous September that never ended :-(
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Facebook offers nothing unique. By now people are using it out of habit.
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The difference is that all those others died because something better came along or users just got bored and left. None were banned or crippled by government fiat. I think Zuck is as much a douchebag as anyone else does. But it's not as though anybody has ever been tied down and compelled to create a Facebook account by force. Nor is anyone forced to use a Facebook-built browser that prevents user-controlled management or blocking of javascript, cookies, or tracking pixels. I'm quite capable of decidin
Why I Quit Facebook... (Score:2)
Darbin Orvar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Kind of atmospheric.
I have to admit that I agree with the Germans (Score:3)
EU Walled Garden Ahead (Score:5, Insightful)
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At the most extreme, they'll carve out the EU as a separate compartment with no cross links to the rest of the world, but it ain't going to happen anyway.
If they do that they'll basically admit what we already knew: They could comply with EU laws just fine.
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There's no way Facebook is simply going to walk away from 500 million potential users in one of the richest parts of the world
That raises the question: what do you think would make FB walk away from the EU? There should be a point beyond which despite having 500 million users, they're unable to make any money off of them due to overreaching or conflicting regulations. Or do you think FB should stay for the clout despite losing billions of dollars every year?
They Called Your Bluff Zuckerberg... (Score:3)
Now what are you going to do???
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Nice to see you are not as far down the Rabbit Hol (Score:2)
Go with the flow (Score:2)
Meanwhile.. (Score:2)
"I can confirm that life is very good without Facebook and that we would live very well without Facebook," Le Maire added
Meanwhile, Meta's stock continues it's downward slide (-32% for the week).
Good (Score:1)
Facebook lawyers & execs... (Score:2)
Oh PLEASE don't turn off Facebook! (Score:2)
Br'er Rabbit has entered the chat...
We are fine without Germany and France (Score:2)
Have fun depending on Russian natural gas and Chinese 5g, let us focus on deciding what kind of tech platforms we want to have here in US without interference from any of you. For example there are free speech considerations for platforms that claim to be a digital equivalent of public square. Don't want Meta to build a VR "public" square with mods listening to every word you say and dragging you off from your own friends if it's not to their approval. China might want such a social network though.
Too lazy. (Score:2)
Nice, and I got shares back, comments from people in my network, etc.
But god, suddenly it amounted to a lot of work, to keep the anecdotes coming, steady, like one of those things you have to do, simply because you committed yourself to it, and don't forget the expectations from others.
Dear deity, that was a lot of work. So I googled for the escape and deleted my profile the same year
fuck'm, l
Habeck has NOT been hacked! (Score:1)
Pulled the plug on FB except for Xmas (Score:2)
Literally removed it from everything.
They can harvest my data when I visit my relatives gift wish lists on an anon box, but the rest they're not getting.
Re: Globalists (Score:3)
Isn't protecting regional law, privacy and data the opposite of globalism? Or are you talking about the flat earth?
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They target Facebook? Is that not like saying the police targeted Jeffery Epstein when they made laws against sex with minors? Are you going to defend everyone who was 'targeted' because the state made laws they later fell foul of? Are you a troll or a moron?
Oh, and do you know how much Google have been fined over their lifetime by the EU for various violations? So are they now also targeting Google, or are you just talking absolute fucking mince.
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Good thing you're here to whine about it.