The problem I have with this is there are something like 70m Americans and somewhere up to 52% of the UK population that have been unable to establish what is BS and what is not.
If that doesn’t ring alarm bells that this isn’t a problem then I’m not sure what would?
All I’m saying is that there is most definitely a problem associated with it. The fix is an entirely different matter.
How did they invent it???
Humans brains just aren’t equipped to deal with all this shit. The sooner we realise that, the better imo. I’ve seen something on the internet about that.
You haven’t seen The Social Dilemma, haven’t you? Take the time to watch it, it’s worth it.
For what it’s worth, no government on earth, no association, no judge has the power to break up the likes of Google or facebook. They are far too powerful for that now.
What I meant with shutting them off is for people to realise that in the longer run, their ‘services’ are harmful for our society, for their children, for their future. So, they need to be shut off indeed, by everyone of us.
As I already wrote, there are other discussion platforms and searching motors offering the exact same services, but without the harmful aspects.
@Klopptimist’s argument is that social media represents the latest manifestation of advertising and it’s not much different. I completely disagree with this.
What Facebook does is very different. Facebook doesn’t build a profile of what kind of person it thinks you are and then targets ads at you. It responds to how you feel at any one time, and then cultivates those feeling in you according to what generates the best responses, manipulating your emotions and mental state to push you keep you on the platform and make you more responsive to ads.
I took a break from Facebook a couple of years ago, and I never went back. It was just making me angrier and angrier. I realise now that the Facebook algorithms had picked up that social justice issues and progressive political content was keeping me on the site longer and engaging more deeply, and the whole thing became a vicious circle.
I’m absolutely convinced that the degradation of society, the polarisation, the blurring of facts and the rise of conspiracies and fake news are mainly down to social media. Christ, as a society we’ve allowed ourselves into the position where we’re letting amoral AI algorithms decide what news we see. This is a very big problem indeed.
Haven’t seen The Great Hack mentioned in this convo…also a very important doco.
I have a Facebook account, which I use strictly for family and close friends. No friends of friends, don’t follow many groups or businesses. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is the local crosscountry ski trail system, that updates their conditions on Facebook. I think about 60 contacts or so. My wife has an absurd number of contacts, by contrast.
The result is pretty striking. I get a disproportionate number of advertisements for winter gear and clothing, and if I have used the PC to search for any goods, the response is almost immediate - I can virtually guarantee I will see Facebook ads for it and similar, often for weeks. But, no politics to speak of, except when a direct contact has linked something. My wife’s account, on the other hand, gets a much broader range - including a great deal of political content (largely moderate enviro-lefty).
What’s the difference between this more targeted advertising and the fact that most of the population used to read newspapers? TV advertising (that live thing we used to watch) targeted certain areas according to the demographic. Just new uses of old tricks.
Laptops…
Wrong sorry, they’re just a collection of switches and a tft screen, tech for them was discovered in the 1800s.
There is one thing you couldn’t buy in the 1970s, only one I’ve ever thought of. Wonder who can get it?
I get ads from the labour party 
I took a break from Facebook a couple of years ago, and I never went back. It was just making me angrier and angrier
That could possibly say more about you than the platform. I argue with people on FB at length but never get angry about it.
Maybe that’s just me.
Is it a really life-like sex doll?
Is that evidence similar to the evidence Blue Loon members were convinced they had on us over the hacking episode?
That’s the silliest argument for something being invented I have ever heard.
Then look up the word silly as you’re using it incorrectly.
A laptop is an assemballence of components that reduces the size of a computer for portability. The first commercially available one was in 1975. The IBM 5100.
Next?
Or you could look up the word technology.
Interesting. Personally I don’t think the IBM meets the definition of laptop. Common consensus from memory is that the Osborne 1 is the one.
Been working with it and in it and under it and over it every day for 30 years.
You don’t get angry because that’s not in your nature apparently. However, some of your traits might be enhanced without noticing it yourself. For instance, being more and more entrenched within your political opinions? That seems to be the case of a lot of people who are on these platforms.
The USA especially is a worthy case to be studied, because MAGAM have started over there, and are the most advanced there in terms of exploiting the private life of people. Look at how entrenched people are compared to, say, 20 years ago. That has to come from somewhere.