https://havenweb.org/2022/11/02/facebook-lie.html

Haven Sign Up Features

Haven Blog

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Lie That Facebook Sold You

Nov 02, 2022

A blue-colored jester, with a long nose like pinocchio lying.

What is Facebook?

For a tool that so many people use every day, the answer is
surprisingly difficult to pin-down. It's a social network, which
means it's about connecting you to other people. You have friends on
Facebook, and it helps you keep in touch with those people. You get
to see what they are up to and they get to see what you are up to.
Right?

Wrong.

Facebook should be those things. It used to and it even pretends to
still be those things-but it isn't. That's the lie that gets you in
the door, and then Facebook uses every nasty trick it can to do one
thing: keep you scrolling. As long as you're scrolling you're looking
at Facebook ads. As long as you're scrolling, your likes and even the
pauses while you read something are signaling to Facebook what is
engaging to you and might be engaging to someone else-so that they
will keep scrolling, and looking at ads. Over the last quarter of
2021, Facebook made over $60 per user In the US and Canada^1.

Keeping up-to-date with your friends just doesn't keep you scrolling
long enough to show you that many ads. Once you are on Facebook, it
becomes a game of attention. That means the competitors to Facebook
aren't other (potential) social networks. They are the competitors
for your online time: Youtube, TikTok, Netflix, Twitter, etc. TikTok
is a hit because it has an algorithm that is so well-tuned to feed
people things that will keep them scrolling-and the future of
Facebook looks a lot like TikTok.

This leaves an open question: how do you keep in touch with your
friends online? Can we build a safe space which serves that need
without falling down the rabbit hole of fighting for engagement? For
example, your email doesn't fight for your engagement. You read your
emails and get caught up-and then move on with your day.

In the early web, there was a problem. Lots of people and companies
ran websites and you as a user wanted to see the updates from all of
these sites. You could keep a list of bookmarks, and each day check
every site for new updates, or you could use RSS. RSS was a tool for
aggregating updates from many different websites. RSS was built right
into all of the major browsers, as central a feature as the bookmark.
Unfortunately, RSS wasn't very good at tracking users or delivering
ads so it was slowly removed from all the major browsers. However,
most web sites and blogs still serve RSS, and you can even use it for
private things!

All of this means that RSS is an amazing tool for curating your own
feed of information, and that's why Haven uses RSS as the core means
to connect between Havens. The Haven Reader gives you the power to
build your own feed from all the public websites and blogs you want
to follow, and also follow your friends and family who write on their
own Havens. All without anyone tracking you around the web or serving
your ads. With Haven, you are in control because you run your own
site.

Google used to have a guiding principle, "Don't be evil." As the
company has grown and it has become more ambitious, it dropped that
principle. The incentives for any company are to make money. For a
company that runs a social network, that means exploiting users for
their information and attention. That's why Haven isn't a company and
you can't just sign up in one place. Haven is software which is free,
and which you can run anywhere you want. This keeps the incentives as
pure as possible. Haven uses RSS-an open protocol-which means anyone
else can write their own Haven-alternative and still share with all
the people using Haven. The network is as big as the internet, it
isn't siloed off behind one company.

So take the next step. Explore one of the many ways you can run your
own Haven and give it a try!

 1. https://s21.q4cdn.com/399680738/files/doc_financials/2021/q4/
    Q4-2021_Earnings-Presentation-Final.pdf -

Also from the Haven Blog...

  * What comes after Web 2.0?
  * Podcast
  * Bluesky, Mastodon, SSB, and the Social Networks of New Protocols
  * Private Comments, or Why I'm Down On Webmentions
  * My Initial Thoughts on Bluesky's AT Protocol
  * Haven is now available on PikaPods
  * Some thoughts on 'Some thoughts on walled gardens'
  * Images in Private RSS Feeds
  * Private Blogs Are A Better Social Internet - Video
  * Haven Reader
  * Tips and Tricks - Full Bleed Images

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Also posted on IndieNews
Haven Blog Features FAQ GitHub Screenshots Free Demo Contact Sign Up