Social Media's Effects On Our Minds & Lives

WATMM doesn't push content. No intrusive ads or suggested posts really. You're not bound to the algorithm as much here except for when cern posts some stupid video and the family gets together to deprogram the fella. Yesterday I was watching the SpaceX launch and they switched over to Elon talking during the break and I just turned it off. Here if I don't want to concern myself with far-away politics for a day I can just not open the politics thread. Social media in my opinion usually takes away this choice 

another obvious huge difference between forums and the stereotypical social media places like FB/twitter, is on forums we are all largely anonymous usernames and avatar pictures to each other. my face picture and real name are not blasted out on here, intertwining my IRL life with an online version of myself. when stuff you post on social media where everyone knows who you are starts affecting your IRL interactions with other people, then to me this is a big problem (e.g. teens + suicide/depression that get linked to online bullying or things they post on social media that can potentially blow back on them in the real world). I've never wanted to mix the 2 things, which is why I prefer the anonymity of forums. 

I remember when FB first blew up back in 2007 thinking that this is nothing more than a giant popularity contest. who can have the most online connections. who can have as many pictures of themselves showing themselves at parties and all smiling and happy like. to me it came off as totally fake and against the grain as to how I am IRL. I try and stay out of the spotlight and not broadcast every little thing I do to everyone, why would I want to do this now on a site like FB? plus I hung around with some paranoid dudes back in the late '90s when internet started going nuts, who ingrained in me never to share anything about yourself online that could get linked to your person because of the omniscient big brother thing. that sorta stuck with me to a degree, and thankfully kept me away from the social media world. 

yeah its an interesting time capsule. back when Facebook started they all abandoned the forums but even all these years ago I was wondering if this was actually a good idea

turns out we really did a good job preserving these. Some people tell me reddit is the same but its not as all they care is to make it more profitable.

  On 11/20/2024 at 6:50 PM, o00o said:

yeah its an interesting time capsule. back when Facebook started they all abandoned the forums but even all these years ago I was wondering if this was actually a good idea

turns out we really did a good job preserving these. Some people tell me reddit is the same but its not as all they care is to make it more profitable.

em411.com took a big nosedive when facebook came on line. everyone left and went to facebork. 

  On 11/20/2024 at 5:40 PM, zero said:

another obvious huge difference between forums and the stereotypical social media places like FB/twitter, is on forums we are all largely anonymous usernames and avatar pictures to each other. my face picture and real name are not blasted out on here, intertwining my IRL life with an online version of myself. when stuff you post on social media where everyone knows who you are starts affecting your IRL interactions with other people, then to me this is a big problem (e.g. teens + suicide/depression that get linked to online bullying or things they post on social media that can potentially blow back on them in the real world). I've never wanted to mix the 2 things, which is why I prefer the anonymity of forums. 

I remember when FB first blew up back in 2007 thinking that this is nothing more than a giant popularity contest. who can have the most online connections. who can have as many pictures of themselves showing themselves at parties and all smiling and happy like. to me it came off as totally fake and against the grain as to how I am IRL. I try and stay out of the spotlight and not broadcast every little thing I do to everyone, why would I want to do this now on a site like FB? plus I hung around with some paranoid dudes back in the late '90s when internet started going nuts, who ingrained in me never to share anything about yourself online that could get linked to your person because of the omniscient big brother thing. that sorta stuck with me to a degree, and thankfully kept me away from the social media world. 

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the psuedonymousness of forums like this is a good happy medium i think. the flipside to something like facebook is a chan board like 4chan, in which 99% of the posters are genuinely anonymous which means you can just post anything with very little accountability, so it becomes a cesspool. here you can at least remember "mushroom said he didn't think nazis were so bad, in retrospect, so we should call him an idiot and tell him to gtfo whenever he posts", but that doesn't necessarily mean my job is going to find my posts and fire me over them. uhhh this was purely hypothetical btw.

  On 11/20/2024 at 7:03 PM, ignatius said:

em411.com took a big nosedive when facebook came on line. everyone left and went to facebork. 

Damn forgot all about this one

  On 11/20/2024 at 7:13 PM, Alcofribas said:

Damn forgot all about this one

bogdan was on to something there. i made a ton of friends irl because of that site. 

  On 11/20/2024 at 2:38 PM, chronical said:

WATMM doesn't push content. No intrusive ads or suggested posts really. You're not bound to the algorithm as much here except for when cern posts some stupid video and the family gets together to deprogram the fella. Yesterday I was watching the SpaceX launch and they switched over to Elon talking during the break and I just turned it off. Here if I don't want to concern myself with far-away politics for a day I can just not open the politics thread. Social media in my opinion usually takes away this choice 

no intrusive ads? 

  On 11/20/2024 at 9:29 PM, Rubin Farr said:

 

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Fuck both.

  On 11/20/2024 at 9:28 PM, colunga said:

no intrusive ads? 

 

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I use uBlock Origin everywhere. Refuse to browse the internet with ads, it weirds me out so much nowadays I just close whatever I'm looking at..  I meant like on Facebook/Instagram where you're scrolling through posts and one every five posts is an ad

[USER HAS BEEN BANNED FOR THIS POST]

  On 11/21/2024 at 12:10 AM, chronical said:

I use uBlock Origin everywhere. Refuse to browse the internet with ads, it weirds me out so much nowadays I just close whatever I'm looking at..  I meant like on Facebook/Instagram where you're scrolling through posts and one every five posts is an ad

[USER HAS BEEN BANNED FOR THIS POST]

It's crazy to me that people browse the web with no adblock (I also use uBlock Origin now, used ABP for a long previously as well). I've also considered adding the SponsorBlock extension, but I usually just hit the forward arrow a few times until the sponsored content in the video is over, cause the people making the video should get paid somehow I guess?

More amazing Facebook findings

ive seen a couple of youtube channels that have scores of bizarre algorithmically generated videos that are like "TRAGIC! 5 MINUTES AGO [CELEBRITY] FOUND DEAD" or some variation thereof, like just pumped out one after the other hours apart. i honestly can't think of a clearer dystopian artifact

  On 11/22/2024 at 6:47 AM, Squee said:

More amazing Facebook findings

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What?

  On 11/27/2024 at 9:36 PM, Rubin Farr said:

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third parties are now scraping Bluesky to train AI models tho, even if Bluesky themselves are saying they won’t, for now

  On 11/27/2024 at 9:48 PM, auxien said:

third parties are now scraping Bluesky to train AI models tho, even if Bluesky themselves are saying they won’t, for now

In the thread they state they are trying to address that.

  On 11/27/2024 at 9:59 PM, Rubin Farr said:

In the thread they state they are trying to address that.

nigh impossible with relatively open APIs like they have.

lots of other places are also being scraped for AI, not saying it's just Bluesky or anything, just stating that it's a known target for this now, and it's likely to remain so.

  On 11/22/2024 at 6:47 AM, Squee said:

More amazing Facebook findings

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There was a prominent one of these in Canada recently all over most social media platforms, something about Jagmeet Singh being killed. Any idea what it linked to if you clicked on it?

  On 11/27/2024 at 11:49 PM, Walter Ostanek said:

There was a prominent one of these in Canada recently all over most social media platforms, something about Jagmeet Singh being killed. Any idea what it linked to if you clicked on it?

Good god no, I'm not clicking on any links on a sponsored post on Facebook.

  On 11/28/2024 at 9:32 AM, Squee said:

Good god no, I'm not clicking on any links on a sponsored post on Facebook.

Yeah obviously no sentient human would do so, just wondered if there had been any reporting into it, and it turns out there has been!

Seems like Bluesky is blowing tf up lately. No doubt it's because of Musk and the subsequent Twitter exodus.

And here I thought I was done with social media. Guess I've made a very recent exception.