Facebook (Be a cat)

I’ve been on Facebook for 13 years. It has become an important tool for me to communicate with friends and family during the Pandemic. However during the 2020 election season I find that I am arguing with people and blindly scrolling posts for some validation of my personal point of view. I recognize that the scrolling is an addictive behavior and I have an idea why that is.

A while back I watched an excellent documentary on Netflix called The Social Dilemma which explored the algorithms that determine what we see on Facebook. Not surprisingly posts that trigger the greatest response are given preference. I wanted to explore this further so I ordered the book Ten Arguments of Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.

When I read Lanier’s comments about why we should be cats I knew I had to get this book.

“Cats have done the seemingly impossible: They’ve integrated themselves into the modern high-tech world without giving themselves up. They are still in charge. There is no worry that some stealthy meme crafted by algorithms and paid for a by a creep, hidden oligarch has taken over your cat; not you, not anyone.” 

Confessions of a Facebook Administrator

Eight years ago I was having a discussion with a local resident while working at our local recycling center. He mention how useful it would be to have a town Facebook group. I had some experience with groups after setting one up for the family so after I went home I started Life in New Ipswich.  I had to add an abbreviation for New Hampshire after getting requests from England and New Zealand.  Membership grew rapidly and currently there are 4,823 members.

There have been some headaches with administering the site and I added a team of administrators and moderators to keep it it civil.  During the 2020 election season some of the comments and threads began to take a toll on me. The lines became blurred between moderation and censorship.  We even drafted a statement for the members:

We, the admins of LINI, would like to address the challenges of the past few weeks. There have been many hot button issues that have been debated, discussed and argued about. We have tried our united best to be fair and balanced in our moderation of the page. We have come to a joint agreement that it is not serving the community in a productive way to allow the kinds of posts that have been dominating the page recently. Collectively and unanimously, we have decided that certain topics have run their course for this page.

Several splinter Facebook groups were formed in opposition to what some folks considered excessive censorship by Life in New Ipswich (LINI).  These groups provided a platform for folks to grouse about their treatment. It was not a pretty scene. Thankfully it has calmed a bit with each group in their collective corners The LINI administrators that I assigned continue to do an excellent job with the site but i was tired of being an administrator. I think of it as my eight year term limit. Now that I understand how Facebook is designed I can see how controversy is rewarded. I decided to explore other types of social media.

MeWe the Next-Gen Social network

Mark Weinstein created the MeWe social media web site in 2012 after hearing Mark Zuckerberg say that “privacy is a social norm of the past”.

I learned of it as a former user of Google+ (which is now called Currents) which was shut down in 2019. I used it to create a comprehensive infrastructure to share family photos and documents, I had several photo communities and a few pages. It was so much better than Facebook but it was a a ghost town with a small but loyal fan base.

As Google+  ended many of the users went looking for an alternative and a large number of them found a home at MeWe. I was pleased to see some of the old groups reappear on the new platform such as Astonishing Abandonment, and Bluegrass Sound.

I recreated my private friends and family group and a photo group for New Hampshire photos. However I only got a few family members to join, most were perfectly okay with Facebook.

YouMe Social

YouMe.Social is another social networking site which purports to protect your privacy. It was offered by Jamez Frondeskias, a former users of Google+. Jamez has a hands on approach, he becomes your friend when you sign up and he has a lot to say. If you need an interesting friend sign up.

I don’t see a compelling reason to use this as a platform since it is so similar to MeWe. However you do have the option of sharing what is posted here to Facebook. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

WT.Social

WT.Social was founded in October 2019 by Jimmy Wales. Apparently this has a wait list, yet I was able to signup for an account. It is also known as Wiki Tribune Social which gives a hint on what Wales is thinking of doing, producing a social network with links and clear sources like Wikipedia. It is a noble effort but I notice a donate button which make me think my time here will not last long. It only has about a half million users which is dwarfed by the other behemoths.

The postings on WT.Social can be shared directly to Facebook which is convenient.

I do throw some money to Wikipedia because it is so useful but not sure about donating to a social media site. Facebook makes money by selling information about you, MeWe and YouMe make money selling additional services and custom emojis and WT.Social wants donations.

Which is best for me?

I’ll read the 10 arguments for deleting my social media accounts when the book arrives on Monday. However I’m not sure I can delete these accounts. After a long protracted online fruitless discussion with a Trump supporter on Facebook yesterday I declared  “John M Poltrack has left the building”. I was growing weary. I intend to be more like a cat, integrating myself into the technology without giving myself up. I decided at that low point that I need to spend my online energy posting pictures and writing blog postings.

I’ll post this blog entry on all the platforms I describe. It will be interesting to see the reaction or lack of reaction. Thanks for reading  this long-winded posting.