Hacker News is even worse. Here literally everything you say is rated by everyone else, just like Black Mirror. Even worse than Black Mirror, there are overlords who will remove you from the system if you say something they don't like.

Oh my God! Big Brother! Control! Black Mirror Is Real!

Maybe, but I can see why people would care a lot less when it involves a pseudonym instead of your real name.

And that's why I've never used a real name of facebook.

> Oh my God! Big Brother! Control! Black Mirror Is Real!

Frogs and boiling water...

Heavily discussed yesterday, with this submission adding nothing new: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17809916

Sorry I follow the link but I do not see it?

This is straight clickbait and a repost of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17809916, which is more level-headed than this post.

"[tech thing is happening] Black Mirror Style" -- evergreen title.

Black Mirror got it right about Prime Minster David Cameron having sex with a pig, so it's not a big surprise some of the other episodes are coming true, too.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/downing-stree...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggate

Well didn't that happen before Black Mirror was made?

No, that episode was broadcast in December 2011: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_National_Anthem_(Black_Mir...

The pig thing wasn't until 2015. Well, the allegations weren't made until 2015 - I guess technically the event, if it occurred, took place earlier.

You only need to stick your dick in a pig once, and from then on you're always pig fucker.

Just stop using it. Its really not that hard. A few years back when it was hard to share content or easily get good feeds of what your friends were doing, sure it made some sense. At this point, why?

People say this constantly, and it baffles me. Facebook has grown to the point that it's hard to avoid. Sure, don't use it, or do, but it's become a fixture in most people's lives and has to be reckoned with as such. Sure, I guess you could opt out of it, just like you could not use Amazon, or Wal-Mart, but it doesn't change the value of the ranking system, or their shitty data collection. "Just go somewhere else" is a deflection, and a poor one at that. If they're doing it, other companies are doing it. In addition to being a conversation about Facebook in particular, this is also a conversation about whether or not it's right for anyone to do it, and where it might get adopted elsewhere. Finally, it's impossible to ignore the fact that Facebook is a massively influential media presence, and "just go somewhere else" has nothing to do with it.

> People say this constantly, and it baffles me. Facebook has grown to the point that it's hard to avoid.

I guess it depends on your definition of "hard" or perhaps your friend group. But for me and many of the people I know, it's easy to avoid and not use it. You just don't go to the site or use the app. No problem.

like he says it's really not that hard. Also real human contact is so much more enjoyable than a couple of characters with zero intonation or facial expression (emoji nonsense is way too low bitrate)

Hacker News karma system anyone? Except Facebook gives the up and down votes.

I'd rather Reddit and Hacker News upvoting to sentiment harvesting ("reactions") on Facebook any day.

Why are people still on this platform?

Because it's where their friends (or something like) are.

There are options, but in order to have uptake, they have to prove that they are better in most ways by getting people to switch. It's the credit problem all over again.

I'd switch in a heartbeat if 1) I had a pressing need (I don't) or 2) if I knew anyone on one of the other networks (I don't).

That doesn't even cover the technical issues in switching. Hosting your own Mastodon instance (for example) is pure arcane witchery for most people and if they just want to join a pre-made instance, well, see above. That's not to mention the additional load of actually using the thing.

People have had a lot of time to get used to FB. Its not like the old days when all of them were in their infancy and not many people were joined up. You could switch then without any major repercussions and all of them sucked from a usability standpoint.

FB won by just outlasting everyone else.

They feel secure in the knowledge that the records coming from banks and hospitals will be anonymized for their protection.

I think Amazon will do better than Facebook in healthcare, Google over Apple as well here.

Facebook will have a hard time when consumers flee its ecosystem.

serotonin hit

Much needed for the place I work at, some people shouldn’t be allowed to enter /s

It’s the lack of transparency that bothers people. If each user’s truthiness score was displayed alongside every post or comment and you could up or down vote it in real time, users would be satisfied

I don't see that as a viable alternative. You can't fight platform abuse (fake profiles, etc.) by giving the bad actors access to the information you're using to fight them.

For example, one form of abuse is creating fake profiles to sell to others who want to buy influence. If Facebook makes this info public, it gives sellers the ability to say, "Buy these! They're guaranteed excellent quality by Facebook themselves!" It also gives them valuable feedback in developing better fake profiles so that they're no longer flying blind.

There was once this startup called Peeple, users exploded in rage because it had to do with rating people.

I remember, but this case is different because FB is already doing it on the sly

There’s another app that ranks people that should also be banned. It’s called Credit Karma.

Are you talking about credit scores because if that's the case you have completely misunderstood credit karma's product

Credit Karma is actually quite helpful: it sheds light on the shadowy practices of credit rating agencies. It's true that consumer credit rating should be burned down with extreme prejudice, but Credit Karma the app is probably the one thing that doesn't suck.

I'm a bit confused by this comment. Are you talking about Equifax and Transunion credit scores or is Credit Karma going above and beyond that in a way that i'm not aware of?

To be technical, CK doesn’t rate you, it just shows you your ratings from 2 credit agencies