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In reply to the discussion: Yes, Facebook is every bit as bad as you thought. [View all]Sympthsical
(9,071 posts)My entire family lives across country, so I'll keep using FB. During Covid, it's how I've kept up with friends.
I see no politics nor ads, because I use an ad-blocker and don't subscribe to groups that promote politics. If a friend or family starts posting wacky stuff, I just shadow block them from the feed I see.
YouTube has crazy crap on it. Reddit has crazy crap on it. Twitter is absolutely a shitfest of misinformation. If you think DU is 100% factual and doesn't contain lots of stuff to reinforce narratives that are not . . . objectively accurate, not sure what to tell you about that one.
People are 100% responsible for their online experiences. It takes a little bit of effort, but it is completely doable.
Once you realize the algorithms are designed to show you things it thinks will get you to engage more and click more, you'll quickly learn not to click on things.
As for selling information, that's every website ever. If you're using something for free, you are the product. And I do mean every website.
People aren't going to scold me out of using tools I find perfectly useful for my purposes.