[HN Gopher] Exiled from the Metaverse before it even started: Fa...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Exiled from the Metaverse before it even started: Facebook bans are
       for life
        
       Author : lofties
       Score  : 204 points
       Date   : 2021-12-24 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.brian.jp)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.brian.jp)
        
       | champagnois wrote:
       | My family will never own Oculus products or anything connected to
       | Facebook.
       | 
       | Block and filter anything related to their platforms.
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | Never buy anything that is tethered by the vendor. From
         | Nespresso cups to Apple IDs.
         | 
         | There should be a "no-tether" law.
        
           | voakbasda wrote:
           | What about vendors that add tethering after the fact? That's
           | far worse behavior, but even that has not been enough to
           | change the status quo.
           | 
           | My GoPro camera once worked fine without signing into their
           | service. Then one day they forced me to create an account and
           | log in, just to continue to use the app to control my
           | hardware.
           | 
           | This pissed me off so much that the camera was "accidentally"
           | destroyed not long after, but not before thinking hard about
           | tying it to a brick and returning it via their corporate
           | office window. Now, I tell everyone that will listen to avoid
           | buying their products. Shame on them and any company that
           | does such despicable things to their own customers.
        
       | j_m_b wrote:
       | Metaverse, the next 3D television.
        
         | tjpnz wrote:
         | This is a decent comparison. Metaverse is going to have most of
         | the same issues with eyestrain, even _more_ motion sickness and
         | bulkier headgear. It might be a fun curiosity for some but it
         | won 't gain the mainstream appeal that Facebook has (or at
         | least once had).
        
           | cma wrote:
           | There will be varifocal displays eventually.
        
         | haxiomic wrote:
         | You're wrong on this one, pre-"metaverse" it was just called
         | social vr, and that universe is really something special. The
         | creativity and energy in there is like nothing I've ever seen
         | before and it's very very exciting
         | 
         | Not the vision you'll get from Meta however
        
       | bebna wrote:
        
         | mysterydip wrote:
         | Unfortunately, network effects are in play. Lots of people use
         | facebook for things trivial and important. Local municipalities
         | using it for events, etc. If you're not on it, you don't have a
         | voice.
        
           | CodeGlitch wrote:
           | I'll probably eat my words saying this, but "normal people"
           | ie non techies and non gamers are pretty reluctant to don VR
           | headsets for anything.
           | 
           | I predict meta will be a failure if it requires VR hardware.
           | 
           | Not to mention the cost.
        
             | Closi wrote:
             | Well I guess there are two parts to that:
             | 
             | > 1) I predict meta will be a failure if it requires VR
             | hardware.
             | 
             | Meta is almost certainly a word that gets banded around by
             | (Ex-)Facebook meaning future communication platforms. In
             | their eyes WhatsApp is part of the metaverse, FB is part of
             | the metaverse, Oculus is part of the metaverse e.t.c.
             | 
             | > 2) I predict meta will be a failure if it requires VR
             | hardware. Not to mention the cost.
             | 
             | Well the price of VR hardware has already gone from PS700
             | hardware + a PS1.5k Computer to PS300 for one of the best
             | headsets in 5 years (which does not need a separate
             | computer to run) - so assuming you don't have a gaming
             | computer, the cost is c1/5th of what it was not to long
             | ago.
             | 
             | There is no reason to believe that cost will be a barrier
             | in the western world.
        
             | threeseed wrote:
             | > I predict meta will be a failure if it requires VR
             | hardware.
             | 
             | It doesn't.
             | 
             | The idea behind Meta is that it is a multi-device
             | experience all connected to the same backend.
        
               | CodeGlitch wrote:
               | Fair enough, in that sense we already are experiencing
               | the "metaverse" for many online activities... Except no
               | one refers to it like that.
        
             | falcolas wrote:
             | I've gotten my entire set of inlaws to use VR. They loved
             | it. They were quite annoyed that I didn't bring it for
             | Christmas again this year.
             | 
             | If the experience they start with is entertaining and
             | compelling, they'll use it.
        
             | georgeecollins wrote:
             | I remember having an Apple Newton, which was visionary but
             | sucked. People would always say to me, normal people aren't
             | going to carry a pocket computer around like that. And they
             | wouldn't because it sucked. But also, what would they need
             | it for? Things change.
        
           | kova12 wrote:
           | It is an interesting point. Yes, Facebook is a private firm
           | and can do whatever it wants. But municipality is not. We
           | must either ban public agencies from using such platforms or
           | make them accountable to the sane standard as government
        
             | VLM wrote:
             | If you're banned from the public library its not a big
             | deal.
             | 
             | If your voting site is moved to the library, then it
             | becomes a big deal.
             | 
             | This became an issue in my state (or maybe larger area) WRT
             | convicted pedos and similar convictions being able to vote,
             | being legally barred from being within X feet of schools
             | which are open, and voting sites being at schools.
             | 
             | Solution was the kids get voting day off, which hopefully
             | will increase voter participation if someday everyone gets
             | voting day off.
        
               | pasc1878 wrote:
               | Isn't that normal. How can you have a voting place where
               | normal use is ongoing?
               | 
               | I am from UK and many voting places are schools and the
               | whole school has the day off. I think this has been true
               | for over a hundred years.
        
               | VLM wrote:
               | Utilization of the gym/community room/theater stage is
               | never 100% anyway so on election Tuesday we'd spend a
               | very late in the season gym class playing softball
               | outside instead of field hockey in the gym, or stagecraft
               | class would cohabitate with the wood shop for a day thus
               | leaving the auditorium open.
               | 
               | Because of various long term migration patterns at least
               | in the USA we also have districts that are practically
               | emptied out despite having huge schools so you could give
               | the voters an entire floor if needed, and other districts
               | that are so packed I know personally of two schools that
               | have two gymnasiums so you just dedicate one gym for one
               | day.
               | 
               | School day off has been growing in the USA and I look
               | forward to voting days being a holiday someday. Its a bit
               | tricky because voter participation rates are low in the
               | USA and some voters are uninformed enough to actually
               | think we only have an election every four years, LOL,
               | whereas its more like twice a year plus special elections
               | where I live.
               | 
               | Of course if voting could change anything it would be
               | banned, and we're replacing philosophical politics with
               | identity politics so soon all that'll matter at voting
               | time is the genetics of your parents. Already at that
               | point with some demographics. Still, its interesting.
        
               | kova12 wrote:
               | Well, you can't expect facebook to enable banned accounts
               | for a single day, so that solution is off the table.
               | Also, analogy with pedos is somewhat flawed: there is an
               | actual reason why people don't want them around schools.
               | Nobody justifies to people why some accounts are banned
               | by facebook/google/etc. Most likely because they are no
               | threat to society, but inconvenient to
               | facebook/google/etc and their agenda. That's equivalent
               | to mayor who dislikes you banning you from going to
               | grocery store and giving no recourse or reasoning.
        
               | VLM wrote:
               | > there is an actual reason why people don't want them
               | around schools
               | 
               | Agreed, but the real point is there's a geographic
               | location you can't legally go to for some valid reason
               | that the supreme court insists you must have access to on
               | election day, regardless of the other reasons.
               | 
               | Numerous weird corner cases could be imagined; soon to be
               | ex-wife teaches at your local polling place and your
               | lawyer insists/demands you go no-contact or even worse
               | the judge orders you to no-contact her, now you can't
               | vote.
               | 
               | One novelty that affects my kids is "in the old days" it
               | was a city tradition to visit your old elementary school
               | on the first day of school, but now its time to control
               | people by fear thus terrorists are hiding behind every
               | tree and fences everywhere and lockdowns and you're not
               | allowed on school property without a guest badge and
               | background screen or the cops will get called which does
               | impact voting operations quite a bit compared to the 80s
               | when they'd literally prop the doors open and be friendly
               | if you wandered in.
               | 
               | For a long time they we were just "oh well" you can
               | always vote at city hall or vote by mail, but there was
               | some kind of court case either locally or larger scale
               | and now we shut down the schools entirely so they're not
               | legally schools for one day.
        
           | ericmay wrote:
           | > If you're not on it, you don't have a voice.
           | 
           | Depends on what you're trying to say doesn't it?
           | 
           | But I'd challenge this overall sentiment. I haven't had
           | Facebook since 2010 or so. Nothing bad happened. I have a
           | large and loving family and lots of close friends that I
           | spend time with. I didn't lose my voice. If I'm angry I call
           | my representative or show up at their office. If a company
           | does something I disagree with I don't buy their products and
           | I leave feedback on their website.
           | 
           | It's an illusion that we need Facebook or any other company
           | as a conduit for feedback. We are _choosing_ that path. It's
           | not one we need to take.
        
             | Gualdrapo wrote:
             | > It's an illusion that we need Facebook or any other
             | company as a conduit for feedback. We are choosing that
             | path. It's not one we need to take.
             | 
             | But it's a decision we took as a collective. Same as with
             | many other things - we (people) use
             | Facebook/Whatsapp/etcetera because _others_ are using them,
             | not always because we need to.
             | 
             | If you as an individual decide to pull the plug off that
             | stuff while people, groups or others around you that you're
             | in touch with are still using them, you're risking to
             | become a digital outcast. (I used Facebook from 2012 until
             | 2018 and yes, it became a little harder to get in touch
             | with people or many things that just assume everyone uses
             | Facebook)
        
               | ericmay wrote:
               | I wonder at what point I'll be a digital outcast. What
               | will that look like? Will my wife just sit on the couch
               | and only message me through Facebook? Will my 3 friends
               | I've known since high school not send me a text message
               | to get together to play tennis and organize virtual
               | tennis on Meta and not invite me?
               | 
               | I think more likely is that this concept is overhyped and
               | fragile. Maybe you can think of something I'm missing
               | here that not having Meta is causing ruin in my life for?
        
               | mysterydip wrote:
               | A few close contacts are easy to maintain with
               | traditional means.
               | 
               | Many of the hobby groups I was a part of have moved to
               | either facebook or discord, and old presences like
               | individual forums or websites have disappeared or are
               | shells of their former selves. If you aren't in a lot of
               | groups, maybe this doesn't affect you the same?
        
               | ericmay wrote:
               | Yea for some they moved to Slack but not a part of too
               | many hobby groups or if I am I usually just subscribe to
               | email updates. If they don't do those then yea I'd either
               | get a text message or an invite some other way or just
               | not be part of the group anymore (which goes to show it
               | wasn't that important in the first place). It's kind of a
               | filtering mechanism for important interactions.
        
             | Tenoke wrote:
             | I've survived all my life just fine not being able to
             | drive, doesn't mean it wont inconvenience others to not
             | have a license (though yes, even without that they'd
             | 'survive').
             | 
             | It'd definitely be harder to keep abreast of some events I
             | go to without it and I'd never bother keeping the numbers
             | of a lot of people I have on there without it yet can
             | benefit from being able to reach.
        
               | a9h74j wrote:
               | > I've survived all my life just fine not being able to
               | drive
               | 
               | Interesting. We have _public transportation_ for those
               | who either choose not to drive or cannot drive, or cannot
               | afford a car, etc.
               | 
               | Is Meta starting to act like a government if it can ban
               | you from "driving" in Meta's Metaverse, if Meta's
               | Metaverse becomes a dominant mode? Will there be public
               | funded options with less restrictive access than driving
               | in Meta's Metaverse?
        
               | ericmay wrote:
               | > I've survived all my life just fine not being able to
               | drive, doesn't mean it wont inconvenience others to not
               | have a license (though yes, even without that they'd
               | 'survive').
               | 
               | Don't think these are very equivalent but I don't think
               | we should be designing society around cars either.
               | 
               | > It'd definitely be harder to keep abreast of some
               | events I go to without it and I'd never bother keeping
               | the numbers of a lot of people I have on there without it
               | yet can benefit from being able to reach.
               | 
               | Everyone is different of course but I think for me
               | meditation has helped just let go of people I've met. It
               | makes the at-the-time interaction more interesting and
               | meaningful for me because it's unique and fleeting. It
               | also makes getting someone's phone number a more
               | significant event because the interaction was so good
               | that I think we should meet again. I also try to just
               | stay in touch locally.
               | 
               | Admittedly on the professional side I have LinkedIn for
               | most of that stuff but I've had days where I've been very
               | close to deleting that too but just haven't pulled the
               | trigger. I think I'd be better off without it probably
               | but it's also so useless except as a Rolodex that it's
               | not doing too much harm.
               | 
               | For me when I was at the loneliest and most depressing
               | times in my life I had Facebook. When I met my amazing
               | wife and moved back to Columbus and had a strong social
               | support network and loving family it really made Facebook
               | (or TikTok or w/e) irrelevant.
        
         | arthur6667 wrote:
        
       | helsinki wrote:
       | This reads a bit like a plea to Facebook for account restoration.
        
         | chris_wot wrote:
         | Well, he is pretty open about this, despite his ambivalence to
         | Facebook he even says he realises that it has more a hold of
         | him than he thought it would.
         | 
         | Hang in there. De-Zucking your life is a net positive.
        
       | 29athrowaway wrote:
       | Using a different e-mail or phone number should be enough to
       | evade the ban.
        
       | b0rsuk wrote:
        
       | Yaa101 wrote:
       | Wear it like a badge of honor...
        
       | CommieBobDole wrote:
       | It amazes me that on the one hand, people keep getting banned
       | from Facebook for odd inscrutable reasons, while on the other
       | hand, none of the spammers or scammers I've reported ever get
       | banned, no matter how obvious.
       | 
       | Literally yesterday, I was looking through my ignored friend
       | requests and found some random profile that had thousands of
       | 'friends', and all the posts in his timeline were ads for dodgy
       | weight loss and/or boner pills, with hundreds of people tagged in
       | the photos. Dozens of posts a day, every post title full of
       | punctuation-as-text to avoid triggering spam filters. Reported it
       | as a spam account, got a response a few hours later that they had
       | checked the profile, determined it didn't violate their community
       | standards and that it would not be removed.
       | 
       | I guess it's just fascinating that with all that money and power,
       | they've managed to build a moderation system with such a high
       | rate of both false-positives and false-negatives. You'd think
       | they could at least constrain it to being terrible in one
       | direction.
        
         | sockaddr wrote:
         | On one hand I agree, it is perplexing. But then I realize that
         | profile with a picture of a hot girl with lots of "friends"
         | counts as a user that brings "engagement on the platform" so
         | it's valuable to FB when they're trying to convince
         | shareholders that the platform isn't dying. They're
         | specifically incentivized to ignore those accounts and let them
         | persist.
        
         | lupire wrote:
        
         | lkrubner wrote:
         | Every time I see an article about the advance of AI, with the
         | vague sci-fi theme of "AI is now so good it is about to replace
         | humans" I think of the many, many stories I've heard like
         | yours, where the FAANG seem unable to build even basic
         | statistical systems, nevermind AI. Some articles suggest AI is
         | on the verge of human sentience, meanwhile, in real life, I
         | constantly encounter stupid algorithms, even from big companies
         | with lots of money. The advertising companies are the worst. I
         | bought a guitar and then, for the next 6 months, every ad I saw
         | on every site was about guitars. How many guitars do they
         | really think I'm going to buy in one year? It's really a once-
         | every-two-or-three-years purchase, it doesn't justify the
         | saturation I was exposed to.
         | 
         | Or elevators. I'm in New York City and everyday I go into some
         | building that has a terrible algorithm for its elevators. I
         | don't need advanced AI, my life would be improved with even
         | minor tweaks to most algorithms for elevators.
        
           | visarga wrote:
           | Don't blame the algorithms, blame the people who decide
           | policy. It's perfectly possible to find a ton of spammers in
           | Google, FB and Twitter by manual and/or automated methods.
           | Their continued existence shows they are tolerated.
        
           | mulmen wrote:
           | It's actually very simple. In the era of big data nobody
           | looks at opportunity cost because you can't put a KPI on it.
        
         | tjpnz wrote:
         | Don't forget about Facebook Marketplace. It's absolutely rife
         | with scammers and other assorted criminals.
        
           | georgeecollins wrote:
           | They probably have to have a higher threshold to ban people
           | on a thing like marketplace. It's very hard to sell anything
           | without someone complaining sometimes. Sometimes the
           | complainers are scammers.
           | 
           | And maybe they make money from it, so they don't want to kill
           | the goose. I would also guess that heavy FB users are a
           | terrific concentration of suckers.
        
           | coryrc wrote:
           | My friend keeps getting his posts banned for selling
           | firearms.
           | 
           | Like the Apple Mac tower and a generator... very dangerous
           | weapons.
        
       | numpad0 wrote:
       | One thing I don't get about Facebook's Metaverse push is that
       | Metaverse is just an alternative name for VR, and V stands for
       | virtual.
       | 
       | If you're going to disallow disconnection between meatspace and
       | VR, there's nothing virtual left in it.
        
       | conradfr wrote:
       | Is there any hope besides the EU regulating bans by Big Tech?
        
       | TrevorFSmith wrote:
       | If this headline bothers you then go help the open immersive web
       | become the actual metaverse.
        
         | jillesvangurp wrote:
         | The aptly named Matrix might end up being the perfect OSS
         | Metaverse. It will require people to actually bother to build
         | it though. Identity is going to be key and we should accept no
         | substitute for the federated variety. So, matrix has that and
         | the brand. And conveniently, Facebook has nothing else than a
         | vague idea of what they think they might need to build, which
         | is basically Whatsapp and Instagram but with AR goggles, in
         | their narrow minded heads. Which, is they same as saying that
         | they have no clue whatsoever. That's good news! Whatever, it's
         | going to be, it's not going to be theirs to own in perpetuity.
         | 
         | Matrix is for now one of the few actually federated things (in
         | addition to email) that still has a chance of not failing. As
         | such it's a good basis for people to build a Metaverse on top
         | of. Of course it is going to require people actually showing up
         | and doing that. Email completely destroyed it's competitors by
         | virtue of "you can email everyone instead of just the morons
         | that bought the exact same shit that you bought". Thirty years
         | on, nothing has changed. Whatever it's going to be, Zuck's
         | ffing walled garden ain't it.
         | 
         | Neal Stephenson has been repeatedly answering the question what
         | he thinks about the whole Meta thing as part of his recent book
         | tour for Termination Shock. He'd be the person that coined the
         | whole notion of the Metaverse in Snowcrash in the early 90's.
         | 
         | He does not seem very impressed with this effort by Facebook
         | and nor did Facebook bother to even talk to him about their
         | plans. I think that is probably a tactical mistake by Facebook
         | and it kind of outlines how desperate they are.
        
       | albybisy wrote:
       | I'm banned from Instagram and i can't create new accounts because
       | they banned my phone number. So if i want an instagram account i
       | have to buy another number. No way. I can still live without
       | instagram, but this is the way Facebook inc/Meta do business. For
       | me Meta/Facebook/Instagram/WhatApp have to die!
        
       | aidog wrote:
       | Nevermind FB. We miss you on twitter man.
        
       | gtsop wrote:
       | Wish you get a lift of the ban. Meanwhile, I can't wait to see
       | another episode of "vip complains online about bigtech ban and an
       | insider helps him out while the rest of the plebs struggle with
       | their permabans"
        
         | 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
         | Classic "honest mistake"(tm). Followed by people calling for
         | immediate cease of any critique since "they are very sorry and
         | corrected the error".
         | 
         | In all seriousness though: It's time to find some name for this
         | behaviour where the only chance for support or help is being a
         | VIP or making the news headlines somehow.
        
           | pmontra wrote:
           | Plebanning? The act of banning a John Doe that will never
           | have the connections to revert the ban.
           | 
           | "I'm a VIP, you can't pleban me."
           | 
           | Any other term more fun and memorable?
        
           | bryan0 wrote:
           | How about _frontpaged_?
           | 
           | "Zuck permabanned me but I _frontpaged_ to get back my
           | account"
        
             | a9h74j wrote:
             | ... and it turned out it was just an oops-ban. (?)
        
               | romwell wrote:
               | _Oopsieban_ instead of _permaban_ , I'm loving it.
        
               | barbazoo wrote:
               | Folks, you're on fire :+1:
        
       | sshine wrote:
       | I've made sure to delete or render inactive _all_ social media
       | accounts. Yes, even GitHub. And you know what? Life continues.
        
         | Sebb767 wrote:
         | > Yes, even GitHub
         | 
         | Maybe it's just me, but I never got the hang of the social
         | network part of GitHub. Sure, I interact with issues related to
         | work and I star repos that I might need later, but I never used
         | the feed or had some discussions on it which are not work
         | related.
        
           | 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
           | It's not just you. I always thought this statement ("github
           | is a social media platform") to be a bit of a meme. I've
           | never had any interactions like that, nor have seen anyone
           | else do it. Some users prefer to make their profile a
           | bulletin board of their "achievements" (real achievements
           | speak for themselves without glitz or unicorn symbols), or
           | use it as something of a PR platform. You can easily avoid
           | those types. (For example, these was a pretty funny LGTM from
           | some random guy on the recent multicore OCaml pull request in
           | like 5-10 minutes since it was posted. The PR in question is
           | a giant and very complicated patchset that was in the works
           | for about a decade, I think?)
        
             | 3np wrote:
             | I always took it as that interacting with each others'
             | repos, issues, and PRs effectively makes it a social
             | network. It's just a different kind of dynamic than we see
             | in other kinds of SNS.
        
         | benmarks wrote:
         | Are forums like HN not also a social medium?
        
           | VLM wrote:
           | At some point drift in language will change the definition of
           | "social media" from the former definition of trying to profit
           | off users self-generated content, to the modern "in practice"
           | definition of a for-profit heavily politically censored
           | propaganda channel.
           | 
           | So, no, under the old def HN was never about becoming
           | trillionaires by selling our accts to google or whatever. And
           | under the new definition HN has intense political leanings
           | but is still primarily technical in nature and doesn't censor
           | as much as Reddit or other fundamentalist or inquisition like
           | as sites.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | We should not pretend that message boards are not subject to
           | many of the same pitfalls as more conventional social media.
           | At the same time, we should not be so overbroad as to lump
           | message boards and social media into the same category.
           | 
           | On a message board, 1) I don't have a profile that's rich
           | with personal information, 2) I don't have a dedicated wall
           | for my musings, 3) I don't have an individually-curated
           | timeline, and 4) I don't have first-class social connections
           | embedded in the platform.
           | 
           | Point 1 means that there is much less ability to identify me
           | for the purposes of advertising, which avoids much of the
           | perverse incentive that comes with monetizing social media
           | users.
           | 
           | Point 2 means that I have much less personal attachment to
           | this place as an outlet for creative self-expression, which
           | helps to defuse both a sense of toxic entitlement that I
           | might feel on behalf of the platform providers, as well as
           | the sunk-cost fallacy that might keep me active here even if
           | I no longer experienced pleasure from being here.
           | 
           | Point 3 keeps filter bubbles from fractally proliferating;
           | there is still one bubble, but it's the bubble that everyone
           | else on the platform inhabits.
           | 
           | Point 4 provides a mixture of all of the above benefits.
           | 
           | Again, this isn't to say that message boards are perfect or
           | that social media must be inherently bad, but IMO the
           | differences are important.
        
             | threatofrain wrote:
             | > we should not be so overbroad as to lump message boards
             | and social media into the same category
             | 
             | The details you list seem incidental to the social media of
             | today. Reddit fits much of what you say but most people
             | would classify Reddit as _clearly_ social media even though
             | Reddit is closer to HN than FB by this divvying of
             | conceptual boundaries. Perhaps the social media of tomorrow
             | involves no wall and meetings in Oculus land. Then we would
             | be talking about how social media is psychologically or
             | socially problematic because of 3D immersion.
             | 
             | IMO the easiest bright line between social media and
             | "something else" media is that social media is populated
             | with content by amateurs or indie producers. If FB became
             | 100% business then it would lose its credentials as
             | "social" media and simply become "traditional" media,
             | notwithstanding any timeline, wall, bubble or heuristic
             | curation. If YouTube became all professionals then it would
             | just become HBO, regardless of whether there are
             | subscriptions, notifications, or channels.
        
               | root_axis wrote:
               | I don't agree that reddit is a social media site as it is
               | typically understood. What is your reasoning to suggest
               | it's "clearly" social media?
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | kibwen wrote:
               | In recent history Reddit has added things like profiles
               | and walls in an attempt to pivot towards conventional
               | social media, which serves to illustrate the difference.
               | I'm not saying the line is perfectly clear, but I am
               | saying that using "social media" to encompass both
               | Facebook and HN dilutes the phrase beyond the point of
               | meaning. Different platforms have different advantages
               | and disadvantages, and after a certain point labels cease
               | to have descriptive power if they get applied
               | overbroadly. We should focus on precise features of each
               | platform rather than get bogged down in the usual "is
               | social media bad" -> "is this platform social media" ->
               | "is this platform bad by the transitive property".
               | 
               | As for the "indie producer" aspect, that's certainly one
               | useful property to consider, but I don't think it's
               | sufficient since pre-internet we had things like 'zine
               | culture which were the bastion of indies, and I would
               | find it a stretch to call zines a form of social media,
               | rather than just indie media.
        
               | [deleted]
        
           | chongli wrote:
           | This has been discussed a few times here on hacker news. The
           | argument I prefer (that I can't find anymore, sorry) is that
           | hacker news is different from social media because it gives
           | every user the same feed. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc
           | give each user a custom feed based on perceived preferences.
           | This has been argued to lead to users being isolated within
           | their own echo chambers. Hacker news seems to suffer less
           | from that problem because it continually exposes users to new
           | topics and points of view they might not have sought out.
        
             | krapp wrote:
             | If Twitter and Facebook were exactly the same, minus the
             | algorithmic feeds, would they no longer be social media?
             | 
             | If not, what would they be?
        
           | indigochill wrote:
           | HN is a specialty forum. Facebook in some cases is where
           | everyday life is negotiated. In Iceland, for instance, all
           | the unofficial rent/"garage sale" sort of economy lives on
           | Facebook as far as I'm aware. It's not quite WeChat levels
           | (you could still rent through official channels and buy stuff
           | from retailers instead of other individuals), but it's
           | uncomfortably close.
           | 
           | Like HN bans, Facebook/Google bans wouldn't really be too
           | much of a problem if they weren't _the_ platform in their
           | respective domains. As much as I advocate for alternative
           | platforms like Mastodon and PeerTube, them being a viable
           | alternative is a future I hope to see, not the present
           | reality.
        
           | kerneloftruth wrote:
           | HN is like a party in a big room, where there are clusters of
           | people having conversations. People mingle between the
           | groups, dipping into and out of the conversations. There are
           | no "connections" between people, and the site (thank God)
           | doesn't "suggest" or promote anything to you based on some
           | algorithmic analysis of your past expressions.
           | 
           | So long as the site acts only as the big room in which the
           | party happens, it's benign. Once the room becomes an active
           | participant and manipulator it becomes what is now a modern
           | "social networking" site, and should be regarded as poison.
           | At that point, leave for your own sake.
        
             | krapp wrote:
             | > Once the room becomes an active participant and
             | manipulator it becomes what is now a modern "social
             | networking" site, and should be regarded as poison.
             | 
             | Hacker News is one of the most aggressively moderated
             | forums you'll ever come across, the room is very much an
             | active participant and always has been.
             | 
             | And the entire purpose of the karma system (particularly
             | the censorship of downvoted items) is to suggest and
             | promote some content over others. That HN doesn't use
             | machine learning is just a quibble about complexity.
        
               | kerneloftruth wrote:
               | You're right -- I failed to mention the indeed biased
               | bouncers. There was a real purge it seems, in fact, over
               | the past few months, as a lot of names are now silent;
               | and, the tone is now much more 'consistent' (echo
               | chamber-ish).
               | 
               | Flagging/purging content is to me more acceptable than
               | manipulation via suggesting/promoting, though, especially
               | if the moderators are members. Maybe making this
               | distinction is hair-splitting, though.
               | 
               | Shadow banning, on the other hand, is a disgusting
               | technique. That seems like more a childish prank than a
               | means of moderation, and only invites negativity (which
               | is what was trying to be avoided, right?).
               | 
               | Overall, it's a pretty reliable source of links to good
               | articles -- and some discussions.
        
               | root_axis wrote:
               | Shadow banning is a very useful tool for moderation. It
               | is extremely frustrating as a moderator dealing with
               | users that persistently shit up the place and crank out
               | new accounts to continue the abuse as soon as you ban
               | them. Shadowbans greatly relieve the moderation workload
               | in cases like this because the abusive users keep
               | themselves occupied, potentially for weeks. As someone
               | who has previously moderated a large phpbb, I don't lose
               | any sleep over wasting the time of abusive users since
               | they are happy to waste my time as a moderator by
               | deliberately and repeatedly breaking the rules.
        
               | drunkpotato wrote:
               | Now that you mention it, things have been more pleasant
               | recently!
        
             | kriberg wrote:
             | I never really thought about it, but your description made
             | me fear some well-meaning persons will "revamp" HN and turn
             | it into something "fresh and modern" and introduce new
             | features that allow us to "engage".
        
       | varelse wrote:
       | And that's why you probably should have had a separate account
       | for running your business. I don't use Facebook for anything
       | except some of the groups that remain there and which are
       | relevant to my hobbies. Strong opinions get you suspended because
       | there will always be someone offended by what you say.
        
         | pcthrowaway wrote:
         | I think business accounts have to be linked with personal
         | accounts, and Facebook requires users to use their legal name.
         | They also do phone verification for signups now so it's not
         | trivial to get around their requirements
        
           | lofties wrote:
           | You're 100% right. A few years back you could sign up for
           | business accounts which were seperate from your personal
           | identity, but 2 or 3 years back this practice was cancelled
           | and you had to start linking your business account to your
           | personal account.
           | 
           | Also having two facebook accounts is not allowed by their
           | TOS. That's the first thing our partner manager asked me: "do
           | you have multiple accounts by any chance? That often gets
           | people banned".
        
       | mwattsun wrote:
       | I bought an Oculus headset before it required a Facebook login. I
       | haven't used it since that requirement was added. The metaverse I
       | envisioned comes from William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, not a
       | sanitized and sexless universe where Code of Conducts written by
       | Home Owners Associations are strictly enforced and LinkedIn type
       | interactions are the norm. Bill Gates recently said all business
       | meetings would be on it in three years. I don't like to criticize
       | people personally, but billionaires have so much power I think
       | it's ok: Bill G is not exactly a tech visionary, famously having
       | to rewrite his book "The Road Ahead" because he missed the
       | internet happening. I'm sure Mark Zuckerberg loves it because his
       | personality already seems blank and smoothed over like an avatar.
       | Do I want to live inside a sappy television commercial where Coke
       | teaches the world to sing and everyone smiles and expresses only
       | approved virtuous thoughts? Nope.
        
         | mindcrash wrote:
         | > I bought an Oculus headset before it required a Facebook
         | login. I haven't used it since that requirement was added.
         | 
         | They recently reversed this decision. Facebook is no longer
         | required, and your Oculus account is your primary way to sign
         | in again.
        
       | rvz wrote:
       | Sorry for your banishment. Now you're a lifetime member of the
       | lost and banned.
        
       | sys_64738 wrote:
       | Being FB free, forever, is to be celebrated.
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | lil_dispaches wrote:
       | Calling facebook "meta" is the ultimate in marketing people their
       | own conceptual understanding of things back to them. Truly FB is
       | trying to ZUCK the internet. This meme takeover is the worst
       | part, speaking as a mostly non-user of FACEBOOK products.
       | 
       | I dreamed of a OS filter that lets you turn "meta" back to
       | "facebook" where appropriate. We can't bring AI to the OS fast
       | enough.
        
       | account-5 wrote:
       | This is one of the reasons I don't have any FB (or FB owned)
       | account. You're at their mercy, with all your eggs in their
       | basket you have to hope they don't decide you're not allowed your
       | eggs.
       | 
       | It's not the only reason. Not even at the top on my list for
       | reasons. But if there is going to be a metaverse, Facebook cannot
       | be the gatekeeper, or any other US tech company that randomly and
       | for no given reason permabans you _cough_ Google.
        
       | Overtonwindow wrote:
       | I don't understand Facebook bans. A lot of people I know have
       | multiple Facebook accounts. Why don't you just create another
       | account?
        
         | lofties wrote:
         | I've done and created a second account, which was reduced to a
         | limited account the minute I linked my secondary phone number.
         | Probably used that number on my old account already, so they
         | were quick to strike it down.
         | 
         | I could not link a phone, but I need to link my phone number if
         | I want to get access to more advanced functionality such as
         | running ads, pages, et cetera.
         | 
         | Surely there are a thousand other ways I could sign up again --
         | but to be honest I don't want to jump through those hoops. I
         | just want my account back. And since that isn't happening, I
         | hope my tale serves as a warning for people never to rely on
         | Facebook as they can take your access away if their bots think
         | you're suspicious.
        
           | yosito wrote:
           | Seems like going to the local corner store and picking up a
           | prepaid SIM is an easy enough solution.
        
           | Overtonwindow wrote:
           | You give Facebook your phone number? Why? Is this a new
           | requirement for an account?
        
             | frabcus wrote:
             | In my experience, yes.
             | 
             | Also a few weeks into using an account I made for testing a
             | product that uses their signin system, it asked me to scan
             | in and upload my passport.
             | 
             | Luckily it wasn't a core part of my job so I just gave up
             | having any kind of Facebook account.
             | 
             | They really care that you have exactly one account in your
             | real name.
        
               | chris_wot wrote:
               | If you screw up your personal details, you won't be able
               | to get back in. No matter how you try.
               | 
               | It's one of the best things that can happen to you, to be
               | honest. Facebook is a cancer on society.
        
       | joeman1000 wrote:
       | I was unfairly (and unprofessionally) pressured into using fb for
       | a group project chat at uni this year. I tried to create an
       | account about 5 times but was completely unable. Each time I
       | logged in or created an account, I was shown to have 'violated
       | community standards' and promptly kicked off. This was on brand-
       | spanking-new accounts. I must have really pissed someone off at
       | fb over the years.
        
         | InGoodFaith wrote:
         | By any chance did you have an initial picture without your
         | face?
         | 
         | Over recent years Facebook has been clamping down with those
         | same sort of messages (sometimes it will appear after a few
         | days or weeks for people I know) and for better or worse the
         | main fix was having a picture with a face on a brand new
         | account.
         | 
         | Older accounts don't have this problem though.
         | 
         | It's a similar tactic to how in recent years twitter lets you
         | sign up without a mobile number but after some time you will
         | suspiciously get your account locked until you "verify" with a
         | mobile number.
        
       | superkuh wrote:
       | Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. This person chose to get
       | into a business run entirely on someone else's property and now
       | they're paying the price for that bad decision. They lampshade
       | this in the first couple paragraphs but that doesn't change the
       | relevance.
        
       | slightwinder wrote:
       | Let's see whether this will remain legal. It seems EU has some
       | laws impacting these cases, according to rumors. There recently
       | was a case of someone who went to court and successfully revoked
       | his lifetime-ban on a certain platform. This was for a business-
       | account and nothing is really public yet regarding the case and
       | laws involved. So I'm not entirely sure whether it was settled
       | outside of court at the end or whether a law forced the judgment.
       | But this case gives me some hope that we do move in the direction
       | where we limit the power of platforms in favor of the customers.
        
       | kafkaIncarnate wrote:
       | I found out recently that I'm "pre-banned" from Facebook. I don't
       | know why, nor do I care. I stayed off of Facebook for a long
       | time, because I figured it was a stupid idea. In a moment of
       | drunk weakness I decided to sign up because I was bored and
       | curious (~2019?).
       | 
       | Nope, not allowed to sign up. No idea why, no reason given. The
       | email address and my real life identity is never used in any
       | offensive way (or really in any way at all). I don't have some
       | weird name that sounds offensive either.
       | 
       | They didn't offer any way to remedy, no way to contact, no way to
       | do anything about it. I just said screw it, I probably shouldn't
       | be on there anyway.
       | 
       | Yet what I know about it and what I've seen of it, people I've
       | known are perfectly acceptable posting hate speech, violent
       | threats, spreading misinformation about people for lulz
       | deliberately, etc.
       | 
       | Why is this company not considered the same as 8chan? I don't
       | really care if it exists, just why culturally is it considered
       | some sort of bastion of existence and 8chan is demonized when I
       | see them as equals?
        
       | robg wrote:
       | Maybe my age (finished grad school in 2004) but I never created a
       | Facebook account. Seemed like a waste of time and energy. And
       | now? I'd gladly buy an Occulus but nope, need a Facebook account.
       | Seems like a horrid company and where the cigarettes analogy
       | seems apt and I used to smoke Marlboros as a kid. A lot of kids
       | are now addicted to a product that actively harms them, Instaspam
       | especially. Frankly love that FB makes it so hard to read stuff
       | posted. Every time I'm linked to something there and it requires
       | an account, I nope right out. I've banned Facebook from my life.
       | Highly recommend not what you've lost, but what you'll find
       | instead.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | doopy1 wrote:
         | I think they're removing the requirement to have an oculus
         | tethered to an fb account if they haven't done so already.
        
           | throwanem wrote:
           | No, it's the other way around. You can already no longer
           | create a non-Facebook Oculus account, and some time next year
           | they'll require Oculus accounts be "upgraded" to Facebook in
           | order to use the devices at all.
        
         | skylanh wrote:
         | This is a similar issue I have with Twitter.
         | 
         | Direct link to the material--I can see it, if I'm trying to
         | find additional material, nope.
         | 
         | The negative patterns are too bold.
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | > too bold
           | 
           | Well, they work as long as the company is powerful. And push
           | people away as soon as the power reduces.
           | 
           | It's one of those policies that provide metastability, but
           | increase the rate of change once the stability is lost.
           | Powerful people normally like them, as they care much less
           | about rate of change than about conserving power.
        
           | lvncelot wrote:
           | I'm using Nitter redirect[1] for Firefox, so that any Twitter
           | link automatically links me to the nitter.net frontend for
           | that reason.
           | 
           | [1]https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nitter-
           | redire...
        
           | dreen wrote:
           | Tbf its hard to find specific things/tweets you're looking
           | for on Twitter even if you do have an account.
           | 
           | At least that's how it was until I stopped logging in about a
           | year ago. But I can still access linked content. On mobile, I
           | just have to paste the url into the browser address bar and
           | it works.
        
             | masklinn wrote:
             | > But I can still access linked content.
             | 
             | Yeah but it feels like navigating around gets weird if
             | you're not logged, because any link from the direct-linked
             | content (original tweet for RTs, comments, etc...) will
             | navigate then immediately hide the information behind a big
             | popup, and if you close that popup... it sends you back
             | where you came from.
        
               | kittywav wrote:
               | It's a recent anti-pattern they added. Possible solution:
               | replace the "twitter.com" portion of the URL by
               | "nitter.net" and you won't be nagged by things like that.
        
               | jkaplowitz wrote:
               | It's definitely a weird and (anonymous-)user-hostile
               | design, but here's a trick: reloading the page instead of
               | closing the popup does load the content without the
               | popup. (Until you navigate to the next link, of course,
               | after which you'll need another reload.)
        
             | yborg wrote:
             | Most Nitter instances end up rate-limited and are unusable
             | at least half of the time in my experience, this isn't
             | really a practical solution.
        
             | tata71 wrote:
             | Try a Nitter instance.
        
         | webdoodle wrote:
         | Same here. I just didn't get why I'd want to broadcast every
         | shit I took, or everything I ate. Low on substance, high on
         | drama.
         | 
         | Fast forward to today, and we now know that Facebook and other
         | social media are encouraging narcissistic behavior, because
         | narcissists are easy to manipulate: They are highly likely to
         | have multiple addictions, they are easy to emotionally provoke,
         | have nearly no ability to moderate there own behavior, and they
         | take any attack on there beliefs as a persona attack, and will
         | hate there attacker forever, becoming flying monkeys.
         | 
         | I highly encourage everyone to watch the documovie: The Social
         | Dilemma.
        
         | B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
         | > Maybe my age (finished grad school in 2004) but I never
         | created a Facebook account.
         | 
         | Me neither. The "dumb fucks trusted me" vibe rubbed me the
         | wrong way right out of the gate.
         | 
         | Wish someone had stopped them grabbing Whatsapp, etc., deleted
         | my account there too.
        
         | exdsq wrote:
         | Interestingly those born in 2004 don't necessarily have them
         | either - my neighbour was born then and mentioned that their
         | year group don't use FB at all.
        
           | mattmanser wrote:
           | You'll probably find they use Instagram instead, which is why
           | they should never have been allowed to pruchase it.
        
           | netizen-936824 wrote:
           | It seems like its mostly old people on Facebook now, at least
           | that's my perception as a millennial who interacts with
           | mostly other millennials
        
             | Grakel wrote:
             | Facebook is LinkedIn for families. Basically useless,
             | mostly performative, but worth checking once a month just
             | for connections.
        
               | netizen-936824 wrote:
               | Is it really worth it? I'm not sure what benefit people
               | get out of either LinkedIn or Facebook. They seem like
               | not only a time suck, but also a great way for presenting
               | your personal information for people and corporations to
               | harvest. Personally I value my privacy and data over
               | whatever miniscule (if any) tangible benefit I would see
               | from using such a service.
               | 
               | This isn't even mentioning the rampant misinformation and
               | divisive bullshit permeating the platforms (yes both of
               | them)
        
               | tetraca wrote:
               | I use LinkedIn to passively trawl offers from recruiters
               | and ask for references. Most offers aren't particularly
               | good but a few random recruiting recruiting connections I
               | made ended up being important. The data I give LinkedIn
               | effectively matches my resume which I have to be
               | comfortable to send to random people in the first place,
               | so I'm not particularly worried about the data provided.
               | I do not browse the feed or post anything publically. I
               | only privately message people I'm connected with, or
               | those who provided a job posting I was willing to apply
               | to.
               | 
               | The more socially competent you are, the less useful this
               | probably is. Many people probably have some useful
               | network of friends they built in college. I have little
               | to draw on aside from a handful of people I worked with
               | which I had professional rapport with which I never
               | developed a personal connection. So thus, I am stuck on
               | LinkedIn on the off chance I need a new job and a
               | reference.
        
         | leros wrote:
         | I don't use Facebook either. Part of the problem is that other
         | people treat it as if everyone is on Facebook.
         | 
         | People will only invite you to events on Facebook. Restaurants
         | will only post updates to Facebook. Businesses have support
         | forums in Facebook groups. Etc.
         | 
         | You do miss out on a portion of the internet by not being on
         | Facebook. But I think that's because people rely too much on
         | it.
        
           | Baeocystin wrote:
           | I keep a Facebook account for the sole reason that I don't
           | want some derplganger with the same name causing me
           | employment trouble in the future.
           | 
           | It may sound like a dumb reason, but I have seen the pattern
           | of some eponymous innocent suffering because lazy HR didn't
           | verify waaaaaaay too many times to not take the threat
           | seriously.
        
             | dvtrn wrote:
             | I go through this frequently and it's not even due to
             | Facebook, it's just due to having a stupidly common western
             | name.
             | 
             | To the point of I have folders, digital and physical full
             | of sworn statements I've had to make, and official court
             | documents from six different states attesting "no the John
             | Doe before you applying for this job is not the one who
             | came up in your background check database for grand
             | larceny, no he's not the one who came up for involuntary
             | manslaughter either." and I'm always ready for that
             | conversation later in the interview when I get an email
             | from the recruiter/HR "hey, we have a question about
             | something that came up in your background check"
        
               | paulryanrogers wrote:
               | This can cause a problem when dating as background checks
               | become involved. Thankfully my SO realized it was a
               | different person with the same name.
               | 
               | Even at a small town library there was another patron
               | with my name.
        
             | cmeacham98 wrote:
             | I keep a (deactivated) Facebook account just to prevent
             | Facebook leaking my acquaintances to any random with my
             | name and email.
             | 
             | That's right - in 2021, Facebook doesn't make you
             | immediately verify your email when you sign up! They
             | eventually close the account if you don't verify but by
             | that point whoever signed up with your name and email
             | already has access to parts of your shadow profile Facebook
             | leaks (ex through 'suggested friends').
        
               | jondwillis wrote:
               | cool. i have some experimenting to do in my name now.
        
             | itronitron wrote:
             | You would need to have a very unique name for that to be
             | necessary and you are also putting a lot of confidence in
             | HR's ability to disambiguate the profiles if you indeed
             | have a doppelganger.
        
               | Baeocystin wrote:
               | On the contrary, I have an exceedingly common name, which
               | is why I need to have my own account to point to, as
               | compared to the other several dozen same-name folks who
               | have the potential to cause me trouble. There's no
               | trusting HR here, it's a matter of being ready up front.
        
             | ipaddr wrote:
             | You realize by making an account and adding a picture you
             | greatly increase the chance someone will clone your profile
             | vs someone creating a profile with photos they have sourced
             | from somewhere else. If the latter happens it is probably
             | from your friend group.
        
               | Baeocystin wrote:
               | Who said I had a picture of myself? I can post something
               | proving it's me as necessary, which is what I use it for.
               | Zero personal pictures, though.
        
               | chaostheory wrote:
               | Just keep the profile private and limit friends on FB. I
               | try to keep the number of FB friends at Dunbars number.
        
           | itronitron wrote:
           | >> You do miss out...
           | 
           | I'm not confident that is true in any meaningful sense as it
           | seems to align too nicely with what Facebook would like
           | people to think.
        
             | npteljes wrote:
             | There's lots of info on FB, behind soft walls. Lots of
             | businesses don't have homepages, for example. Or people
             | organize their events there. And the general network effect
             | - by its nature, you miss out of everything that happens
             | there.
        
               | oezi wrote:
               | I haven't stumbled on anything in the last 10 years that
               | would even tempt me to go back on FB/Insta.
        
             | Hammershaft wrote:
             | I have a fb purely for tracking local events & with none of
             | my friends attached to it. It makes a difference
        
         | 29athrowaway wrote:
         | And Reels, the TikTok competitor. TikTok is even worse than
         | Facebook.
        
           | frank_nitti wrote:
           | Is Tiktok worse than FB because of the way the platform is
           | designed, or because of the way people are using it (trends
           | etc), or something I'm not seeing?
        
             | 29athrowaway wrote:
             | I would say TikTok is even more addictive than Facebook,
             | considering its larger market share at this moment.
             | 
             | TikTok is a maximizer of wasted attention.
        
             | ok123456 wrote:
             | Tiktok actually shows you content you'd like to see. So in
             | that sense it's "addictive." It shows me weird local
             | commercials, retro computing stuff, and clips from old
             | industrial films.
             | 
             | 'Reels' is a lot worse. It shows you generic stuff that's
             | slightly personalized by things you "liked" over a decade
             | ago. No reason to use it.
        
             | Nbox9 wrote:
             | From my perspective TikTok is worse because it's algorithm
             | is better at holding human addition, and it's headquarters
             | is located in an authoritative country. I don't have any
             | evidence to defend these statements, and it's quite
             | possible propaganda has influenced by opinion here. I'd
             | love to hear from the experts.
        
               | Mezzie wrote:
               | It's interesting because they're both bad but in
               | different ways. Facebook's addictive nature is in
               | interacting with other people: FB wants you to start
               | flame wars in the comments, share things around with
               | people, etc. FB tries to connect you with other people to
               | hate them. Facebook distorts a person's idea of OTHER
               | PEOPLE. Facebook is like meeting the Duggers and assuming
               | they're representative of all Americans. Facebook makes
               | people angry and aggressive.
               | 
               | TT's addictive nature is more insidious because it's more
               | internal: Humans are pattern-matching machines and TikTok
               | will show you a LOT of very niche content to the point
               | where your brain thinks it's important and true (think
               | TV/movie product placement; they wouldn't do it if it
               | didn't work). Because of TT's form, it's harder for the
               | average person (non-creator) to be drawn into a social
               | group, but it's easier for them to be firehosed into
               | accepting false narratives through sheer repetition. TT
               | distorts a person's idea of HOW PEOPLE LIVE; imagine if
               | your main idea of how Americans live was USSR propaganda.
               | TT makes people apathetic and prone to hug-boxes.
               | 
               | They're both taking advantage of the fight-or-flight
               | mechanism, FB just wants you to fight and TT wants you to
               | 'flee' (into its loving escapist arms, of course).
               | 
               | There are healthy use cases for both FB and TT (and even
               | Twitter), but they're directly at odds with the
               | incentives of the platforms themselves + we have a
               | society full of unhealthy and traumatized people, so
               | instead you get these evil clone versions.
               | 
               | I'd also say that both the US and China are authoritarian
               | countries. China more so, but the mental health/addictive
               | problems with TT are inherent to its design and medium
               | decisions, not which nationality made it.
        
               | Dma54rhs wrote:
               | It's algo is actually showing me what I'm interested at
               | not some reddit-tier meaningless political fighting.
               | Despite headquartered in authoritative country I'm the
               | user experience is better with less drama. Go figure.
        
             | Spooky23 wrote:
             | TikTok seems like a more casual/fun experience to me. I
             | suppose it depends on how you use it. My son and I have a
             | great time watching animal videos, jokes and some other
             | stuff.
             | 
             | I never got into instagram, but Facebook is always trying
             | to lure me in with suggestive "interviews" of college girls
             | and weird mom videos on the Facebook feed, which is
             | otherwise very curated.
        
         | tchalla wrote:
         | > I'd gladly buy an Occulus but nope, need a Facebook account
         | 
         | Facebook says that Oculus won't require a Facebook sign in
         | anymore.
         | 
         | https://www.facebook.com/boz/posts/10114026973983491
        
           | bla3 wrote:
           | "landing some time next year"
        
           | Gunax wrote:
           | I am thinking FB doesn't care about us if we don't have a FB
           | account.
           | 
           | We are not contributing to the metaverse, why would they? The
           | value of selling a handful of games for approximately $100 of
           | revenue is peanuts compared to their metaverse idea.
           | 
           | Given that FB probably loses money on each quest sold, I
           | think it's likely they are happy every time one of us grumpy
           | loners declines to purchase their device
        
           | exdsq wrote:
           | I bought an Occulus Quest 2 last week and had to sign in with
           | Facebook
        
             | mycall wrote:
             | You can bypass Facebook if you want to jump through some
             | hoops.
             | 
             | https://uploadvr.com/how-to-play-pc-vr-oculus-quest-2/
        
             | syntheticnature wrote:
             | It sounds like "they're working on it", which is only a
             | promise at best.
        
           | anonymousab wrote:
           | It ain't much different if it ends up requiring a 'meta'
           | account instead.
        
             | vanilla_nut wrote:
             | Precisely. Sort of like someone telling you they've given
             | up cigarettes, then lighting up a cigar...
        
           | rrdharan wrote:
           | Where in that statement are you getting that interpretation?
           | Is it buried in the comments or something?
           | 
           | I just read and reread the Boz words and don't see how any of
           | it translates into "no Meta (Facebook) account needed"?
        
             | syntheticnature wrote:
             | About two-thirds of the way down I see "we're working on
             | new ways to log into Quest that won't require a Facebook
             | account" -- which, of course, makes no promises that it
             | will see the light of day.
             | 
             | (Would've bought an Oculus by now if it wasn't for that
             | requirement.)
        
           | cloogshicer wrote:
           | Until they backpaddle on it again.
           | 
           | When they bought Oculus they made a definitive statement
           | saying that Oculus devices will never need an FB account to
           | use.
           | 
           | To me they lost all credibility. Not just because of this
           | instance but many other instances of lying and deceit.
        
         | georgeecollins wrote:
         | You can create an account that has none of your personal
         | information. I understand why people don't have an FB account.
         | I don't, and I use an Oculus . But the downside of having an FB
         | account is they plant cookies on your browser or track you in
         | their app.
         | 
         | If you are only using the FB account on your Oculus, its an
         | Oculus account that calls itself an FB account. You need an
         | account for most game devices these days and for Steam. I am
         | not saying its perfect, I am saying that not using an Oculus
         | because you are off FB doesn't make that much sense to me. I do
         | exactly that.
        
           | ThalesX wrote:
           | One thing I can think of that might complicate this is that
           | Facebook has a policy of not allowing nicknames if I
           | understand correctly. Which is why they can also verify you
           | with national ID and others if something happens (and it
           | does).
           | 
           | How would I remain as anonymous as I am on Steam for the
           | community and still work within Facebook's terms of service?
        
             | icedchai wrote:
             | I know plenty of people with nicknames (generally, fake
             | last names) on Facebook. They just have to "look" real.
             | Perhaps use your middle name as your last name.
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | I did that back when I had an account about a decade ago,
               | and some do gooder got into an argument with me, didn't
               | like my opinion and reported my account. It got locked
               | and they asked for a government issued ID. Fuck that. I
               | never went to the site again. Good riddance.
        
           | warning26 wrote:
           | _> You can create an account that has none of your personal
           | information_
           | 
           | Facebook pretends this is the case, but they use some dirty
           | tricks to require personal information without explicitly
           | requiring it.
           | 
           | In particular, if you create an account without a phone
           | number, you'll find that within a day or two your account
           | will inevitably be flagged for "suspicious" behavior, and
           | you'll be required to enable two-factor-authentication with a
           | valid phone number. (I assume the "suspicious" behavior here
           | is your account existing without a phone number.)
        
       | nickdothutton wrote:
       | In the early 90s I ran a BBS and was a USENET user and
       | administrator (ISP) for years. The SnR of major social media
       | platforms is so poor now. I find it hard to even explain to the
       | young how much better such forums can be.
        
       | comeonseriously wrote:
       | How can I get banned? This sounds great!
        
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