Facebook strikes again

[BadgerMom]

Last edited Mon Oct 9, 2017, 12:52 AM - Edit history (1)

I admit to being less than thorough in researching whether this news broke earlier here and I missed it or whether it’s worth bringing to your attention. I decided duplicate information is better than lack of information, so here we go.

https://dianeravitch.net/2017/10/08/facebook-teams-up-with-conservative-weekly-standard-for-fact-checking/

https://qz.com/1095509/facebooks-latest-solution-to-its-fake-news-problem-sign-on-a-right-wing-fact-checker/

Facebook has signed to use The Weekly Standard, a right wing publication, to fact check news. This rag can shut down a valid story. This boggles my mind. I’ve closed my Facebook account because of their past treachery. If I hadn’t done that already, this would ice the cake. Facebook accepted payment for ads in rubles, sent their employees to work hand-in-glove with the Trump campaign and downplayed the company’s impact on voters. Now this. Facebook is vile.

The first link is to Diane Ravitch’s blog. Dr. Ravitch is well-known in the field of education. She has been a Columbia professor. Currently, she also blogs in defense of public education. I follow her. The second link came from her blog. I had not seen the article previously. It is from Quartz Media, a source with which I’m unfamiliar. Ravitch notes there are several sources for the story, but Quartz is her link on the blog.

Time for a Facebook boycott yet?

[Glorfindel]

1. I have been boycotting it for several years.

I was on it less than a month when I realized it was not for me. A couple of my relatives asked if I had disappeared from the face of the earth, but all I did was close my Facebook account.

[BadgerMom]

3. I used it almost exclusively

for staying in touch with my far flung family and friends. I thought I’d miss it terribly. Wrong. I’m fine.

[sarcasmo]

10. Live is easier without Facebook.

[milestogo]

2. Nothing annoys me more than "we're all on facebook, right?"

No, we are not all on facebook. Some of us never joined and have no intention of ever joining.

Screw you, Zuckerberg.

[BadgerMom]

4. And especially since their duplicity has been revealed.

[Dave Starsky]

14. My family is literally angry at me for not being on it.

They give me relentless shit about it on the rare occasions we see each other. I call them all the time, so I don't know what they're griping about. It's really weird.

I feel like Wesley Crusher in that Star Trek episode where everyone on the Enterprise got addicted to a video game, and he wouldn't do it. It actually turned out to be an alien mind-control tool.

[milestogo]

16. Turns out to be a good analogy.

[Dave Starsky]

17. Indeed.

Too bad we don't have a benevolent robot on hand to save us from this.

[onecaliberal]

5. It was posted. I deleted my account upon hearing about their role in helping Russia elect dump

[BadgerMom]

6. Thanks. Im sorry I didnt see it.

I was visiting family this weekend. Most of the time I find Ravitch’s non-educational updates lag behind breaking news by a day or two. I hadn’t seen this.

[onecaliberal]

7. No worries. It definitely needs that be repeated.

[brush]

8. If Zuckerberg is hiring the Weekly Standard, that repug rag, he must have ambitions as a repug

Sad. I think he just showed his political hand, or did he do it already with helping the Russians hack the election?

[BadgerMom]

9. I hope some standards are forced on him and other social media.

It won’t be by this Congress. But I hope we prevail in 2018 and right some wrongs. Silicon Valley needs to learn some manners.

[defacto7]

11. Zuckerberg goes wherever the money leads.. repeats

whatever all the other boys in his league are saying. He's a follower and a thug.
Never had facebook and never will for those reasons among others.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

12. While I'm aware of certain issues with Facebook,

were it not for FB, there would have been no way to inform relatives and friends of a death in the family in anything remotely resembling a timely manner.

I do not want to go into specifics, but suffice to say that when that death happened, there were many family and friends who would have had no way of finding out about it other than by FB. That was how I learned of the death.

People live such far-flung lives any more, and that was in the case of this person who died. He'd moved some 1500 miles from the place he'd grown up in, established a new life with a good circle of friends, most of whom were not in touch with his friends from high school or college. One and only one of his friends was in touch with a family member. That was me. But when he passed, the news quickly made it to FB and within a couple of days everyone who needed to know, did know. Without FB people would still be finding out. As in, "OMG! Are you telling me he died four months ago?!?"

I am not about to suggest that those of you who manage quite nicely without FB ought to join. I don't happen to do Twitter, so I understand that no one social media is indispensable. But no, I'm not going to drop FB since it, for me, works.

[raven mad]

13. I would but have 3 kids spread out everywhere.

And it's where they are.

[moda253]

15. You aren't going to hurt facebook in the slightest

You aren't going to hurt facebook in the slightest and you are just ceding the battleground. Post politically on facebook and make sure your political postings are PUBLIC. Not being a voice on FB is just letting them win and that's sad.

I post on many forms of social media because voices are important. The key is to just not become an echo chamber only posting in liberal friendly threads. I used to be on FB for family and friends. That all changed Nov9th. Almost 100% politically challenging everything. Nonstop. Even if you aren't changing minds you are strengthening the resistance and affirming that we are not taking the bullshit.