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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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About six years ago I joined Facebook to see some car pictures someone posted. Within 24 hours of joining, I got dozens of "so-and-so is trying to contact you. click here to connect with so-and-so". I discovered that FB often scans users' email lists, to find possible connections. So ... I quickly closed my account.

If anyone here uses FB, how does FB news actually work? Is there something like a FB "news" page? Do you get "feeds" that FB chooses, based on what you've already seen on FB? Or, for example, do you use FB's Fox news page, or FB's Yahoo News page, or FB's BBC news page, or ...?

Many folks I know say they get their news from FB, and not from print or TV etc. They tell me some "interesting" stories which I can't read without using FB.

So ... how does FB news work?

Thanks.
Tom M.
 
After looking it up it appears the FB delivers news to the user based on some sort of algorithm. Determines what news you see by considering what areas of interest you are engaging in on FB.
I am not on any social media, except BCF and X marks the scott, so I found the explanation tedious to wade through. I don't think it's random and is targeted to the end user. There is probably
more to this, but that is my basic understanding.
 
Tom, I experienced the same situation as you and eventually dropped facebook all together. I personally don't need the aggravation. I even changed my email address, then changed my server and another email address. I now stay away from any sites that constantly bug me with ads and weird people trying to dig into your personal life for their benefit. There are some really sick people out there and facebook plus others seems to be a magnet. No matter how nice a program is originally set up, if it is not strictly monitored, the creeps and dregs will invade and destroy it. PJ
 
Thanks gentlemen. I've always tried to weigh the "fun versus sense" factors, and usually go toward sense. (But driving a 50+ year old car from coast to coast was an exception!)

Sounds like FB "guides" its users to the news they prefer. I'm interested in hearing other BCF users' thoughts on FB (and other social media) "guided" news issues.

T.
 
NutmegCT said:
Sounds like FB "guides" its users to the news they prefer. I'm interested in hearing other BCF users' thoughts on FB (and other social media) "guided" news issues.
Click to expand...

Indeed it does. I use FB in a very limited way - mostly to keep track of friends' birthdays. I could care less what they had for supper. That said, they do funnel content they believe users want. If this is advertizing content, no big deal, but, as recent events may have demonstrated, if all we (and by we I mean everybody) do is read/listen to what supports our point of view, we are in deep trouble.

Pre Facebook example. I always knew my late Father in Law as a reasonable thoughtful guy. In the last years of his life he started reading the British Rags and became a very narrow, fearful, bigoted individual - it was sad to watch.

Like much else on the interweb, it has its place - but not the place many give it.
 
BTW many car clubs are moving onto Facebook - particularly as an alternative to Yahoo groups - I am not a fan at all of Yahoo groups - I find it awkward and annoying but, I cannot get my head around FB being better alternative.
 
View attachment 45757

Not surprised.
Among the older generation FB is considered repugnant, anti private, and tedious.
Among the younger generation it is the wave of their future and how they interact and socialize.
you do not need to embrace their ways as I am sure they could care less about us older folks and they know we will die off eventually
 
I've been using FB for several years, mostly to stay in touch w/ grandkids. (Caution: This can be disturbing at times) One car related group I follow recently moved from Yahoo to FB and it appears to be a much better platform so far.

Re news - if I didn't read about FB delivering news I wouldn't have been aware they do - I don't see much there. When I signed up, I used a throwaway e-mail address and I think that helped. I don't get any notices/friend requests etc via e-mail. I also keep on top of the FB privacy options, use GreaseMonkey etc, so my "feed" is pretty much limited to what I want to see. My biggest complaint is that several friends/relatives go overboard with the political re-posts and cat pictures but there's an option to keep them as "friends" without seeing their stuff.
 
Like so much of the on-line world, FB just needs to be "managed" (ignored, controlled, used to one's own advantage).
I do not like it for political crap (as one just ends up seeing one's own world view supported over and over again). I also avoid becoming "friends" with anyone that I judge to be collecting friends (i.e., people with hundreds of friends). Generally, I keep it to family or old dear friends.
 
I'm not a social media type myself. Like others, I don't care about the minutiae of everyday life, including my own. Don't know why anyone would care when I got up, how long the drive to work was and so on. But today's younger generations have totally different concepts of private v public information. perhaps as they grow older they'll figure out that those photos of being passed out at that party or mooning a crowd don't really help their public image.. Only thing I do belong to, outside a couple LBC forums, is linked in to keep connected with old college and retired friends who aren't in the local area anymore.
 
I starred with FacePlant as a lead up to the first HS Reunion I was ever going to attend. I ended up being the go-to guy to find lost folks...and to some extent, 5 or 6 years ago, FB was a totally different animal.
I despise the tracking, the channeling of content...the requirement for everyone under 30 to share what they had for breakfast and how their laser hair removal went that morning.

I use it only for birthdays, and grandkids pictures (ages 5 next month and 2-1/2, so no shocking surprises).

I have Ghostery which blocks most of the trackers. I have AdBlockPlus, which is usable to kill off features...but they keep changing, so you need to sometimes re-block.
I have FB Purity, which really does a job. I haven't seen one advertisement, not one, since one week after they started the advertisements.

When I get a call from SWMBO to go to FB and see the pictures the daughter just put up....there is usually a pile of FB BS top of the page. I just click the top corner "don't show me any more of these", and as long as you understand they probably will anyway, three or four trips like that and they almost don't come back.

Any other website that has the FB Connect icon, or google+ (who in their right mind would think the second is better than the first?) well, those icons get eliminated from my view. Again, AdBlockPlus.

I never have to see the ads, the icons, the news feeds......one of the first orders of business for FB Purity was removing the right column news feeds. Which are still gone.


Another thing I do is to go back through my history on FB periodically and delete, delete, delete. Some stuff you can just "hide", but no reason ever to leave a highly visible trail.

You get political stuff from one person that drives you nuts...you can select to not see any of their posts again. I have a handful I have so set, because I don't need it.

If all you want is grandkids, family, club, and maybe birthdays, that works with the add-ons listed above.
 
And can we put a stop to the banality of photographing and posting shots of one's latest meal? Sheeesh.
 
DNK said:
View attachment 45757

Not surprised.
Among the older generation FB is considered repugnant, anti private, and tedious.
Among the younger generation it is the wave of their future and how they interact and socialize.
you do not need to embrace their ways as I am sure they could care less about us older folks and they know we will die off eventually
Click to expand...

Not quite true - though you are a dinosaur, that part is spot on :grin:

Older generation is on Facebook - younger generation is abandoning it droves - who wants their mom on facebook! My wife uses it more than my daughter and my son doesn't use it at all. Snapchat and Instagram is the preferred venue of the youngins' and I have no idea what either of those things are.
 
JPSmit said:
Instagram is the preferred venue of the youngins' and I have no idea what either of those things are.
Click to expand...
I use Instagram. I go to about 4 photo shows a year, some are really big (I live in Los Angeles area). The photos I see daily on Instagram blow the show photos away on technique and beauty.
 
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I'm not sure I even "get" Instragram (though I created an account some time ago).
 
I remember how excited my grandma was, back in the early '60's, when she got off the "party line" phone service & got a private line.......times have changed.
 
Guy - consider the irony. She was happy to gain her privacy. But these days, folks post *way* too much private stuff on the web, then worry about their privacy.
 
I use FB to keep track of kids, grandkids and a few friends. I've rarely noticed ads in my feed and ignore the suggestions to friend someone.
 
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