facebook has become such a sinister platform. i've witnessed several members of my family become radicalized by their algorithms pushing conspiratorial rhetoric. the worst part? they refuse to use anything else. there's just something about facebook that has them convinced it's reputable.
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It creates the illusion of socializing while using the Fox News formula of alternating between titillation and fear. That and youtube idiots and podcast bros have ruined so many people's lives.
This..
-
STOP.
-
USING.
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FACEBOOK.
- Promote
- Viable
- Alternatives
The problem is that this isn't like Microsoft Office > LibreOffice/OnlyOffice/whatever. You're not on Facebook for Facebook, you're on Facebook for the people there. It's why I have a lot of issues getting off of YouTube. I'm not on YouTube because their interface is nice, I'm on YouTube because the people I want to watch don't post shit elsewhere. It's a cycle, to get users we need stuff, and for stuff we need creators, and for creators we need users. When it comes to online platforms we don't need an alternative to YouTube, we need an alternative to Markiplier, which is harder to come up with.
If you can get your friends, and family onto Friendica that would help quite a bit. The problem is that using a new server is hard for the end user (I would know, all of my fediverse presence is on servers I host), and telling someone "Use Friendica" is like telling someone to "Use email". Get a Friendica/Mastodon/Whatever server, and keep it in your back pocket. Give them a link to that server, not to Friendica/Mastodon/Whatever as a whole.
Admittedly I don't know how hard it is to stop using Facebook because I stopped using Facebook right after they took away the chronological timeline, and stopped using Messenger a few years ago. But spending some time to get a timeline together that you can boost will help any new users you recruit. Crucially, to promote viable alternatives, you need to be part of the viable alternatives, otherwise you're just someone telling someone to jump into something new with 0 guidance, which is a good way to have them leave.
The viable alternative is nothing.
Because no one gives a shit about you (general you, not specific at BitsAndBites), or about what you say. You use it cause you're addicted to performing for people you dont even talk to or like, because no one can actually maintain hundreds, if not thousands of connections like you collect on facebook, most of whom don't even give a shit about you. its just a mutual masturbation session, only instead of jerking each others dicks off, your jerking eachother off with pointless likes.
All social media is, is a means of generating profit from mental illness, and manufacturing mental illness for profit.
Facebook to Friendica
Twitter/Threads to Mastodon/Euclavd
Instagram to Pixelfed/Vernissage
Tiktok to Loops
YouTube to PeerTube
Anything else?
Reddit to Lemmy / PieFed / PyLova
the problem is people are so addicted to it, at least in my province. They don't want to hear about any alternative that would require the smallest effort. In the 80's, Dead Kennedys made an album called "Give me convenience or give me death". I took me decades to realize how accurate this title was for depicting the world we live in.
Big liZard in my back yard! Heh thanks I haven't thought of them in a while
Did you know, if you use uBlock origin, you can add these to your "My Filters" custom filter list:
||facebook.com^
||instagram.com^
And you'll never accidentally surf to one of those again?
The production in question is an adaptation of “A Room of One’s Own,” a book by the legendary English author and feminist Virginia Woolf. According to the Teatre Raval, planned promotional posts about the show were blocked on both Instagram and Facebook, likely by an automated content moderation system.
After reaching out to Meta about why the promo campaign had been stomped out, the company replied that “any mention of civil rights, feminism or social reform are usually classified as ‘social topics’ by our automatic system,” and therefore rejected.
According to the Guardian, the company then cryptically recommended the Raval remove “key words” related to social activism, so the promo campaign can pass the automated censor — though the company failed to explain what, exactly, its content system objected to.
”We don’t know if the publicity has been rejected because of the name of Virginia Woolf or because of the word feminism, or both,” Clara Sanchis, who stars in the one-woman show told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, per the Guardian, which translated the comments.
“In any case, it’s a way of erasing from the map advances that have taken centuries to achieve,” Sanchis continued. “We have given social media unlimited power and every day we can see how dangerous this is. It’s bias and manipulation.”
It’s not going to stop at Meta just like it did not stop at Roe v Wade being overturned.
I’m sick of men telling me that I’m overreacting about these issues.
I’m sick of men telling me that I’m overreacting about these issues.
The ones telling you that you're over reacting are the ones who have a vested interest in your downfall
There is no over-reaction to actual censorship.
Absolutely. It's not just the censorship though - it's the attack on women's rights that I'm referencing.
I don’t take that shit from no man. They can think whatever the fuck that want of me. I don’t need anyone let alone a fucking little bitch of a man acting as if he’s better than me.
Hell yes.
I’m going to keep telling men that they’re wrong as long as they want to tell me I’m overreacting. I’m not scared of doing so.
I’m just sick of it.
And what is really gross is that they will place it at the level of social/corporate discourse. Continuing the facade that they are a "publisher" and not town square.
Meaning there will be no legal option to prevent groups like meta/FB and Twitter from throttling down real social issues. While turning the volume up on "state approved rebellion".
Meta’s content moderation system stepped in ... on the grounds that it violated a rule on promoting “social topics...”
Advertising is social by its very nature and I can't imagine any sort of serious ad that wouldn't fall under that "social" umbrella.
An ad that suggested "Stay home and do nothing" would still be a case of one human being reaching out to another human being.
I know my reasoning isn't going to make Meta crumble, but I do want to make it clear how dishonest and craven this is.
What kind of Feminism?
it's very easy to find out by reading the article you decided to comment on
what the actual fuck. almost every week I hear about Meta failing to remove scams, child porn or hateful shit from their platforms, and now this..?
enormous amounts of people are hanging in a Nazi bar everyday but they're just too comfortably addicted to do otherwise. it's sick
Oh so they are capable of banning the ones they don't like, just not the ones that are actively harmful and illegal?
Fuck off meta. Really wish more people would stop using their shit. Shun those who work for them while you are at it. You work for the nonce glasses company? Eww
So they can actively steer and/or block ad content. Judges of the world, please take note.
We’ve known this for 20 years, but because money they’re allowed to spread literal child porn
"Stop being political!" say the people running the manufactured hate machine.
"stop saying things we dont like" is what they mean
But hardcore porn is perfectly fine.
hardcore child porn, to be exact.
Meta wants to be the global town square, but apparently Virginia Woolf and feminism are too dangerous for its ad system. Meanwhile the company keeps asking us to trust its algorithms with billions of people’s speech. If Meta can’t distinguish feminist literature from prohibited content, maybe it shouldn’t be the internet’s self appointed censor.
If Meta can’t distinguish feminist literature from prohibited content,
You misunderstand... Feminist literature is the prohibited content. I'm not making a joke here. That's literally their policy!
while promoting or ignoring CSAM, and possibly SA.
I don't get why Instagram is still so incredibly popular in 2026.
They've made it addicting. Its constant dopamine.
instagram has never given me dopamine.
using it just makes me annoyed to see friends post surface level shit to make them look better
Thank GOD! The ONLY Ads I want to see on Meta are Child Porn Apps and Political Ads!
-Facebook users apparently!