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How does Facebook trap people? Is it just a social addiction or are there Facebook-only essential services? (infosec.pub)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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cross-posted from: https://infosec.pub/post/9930406

I have never used Facebook. I’m trying to understand the ways in which people are getting trapped in there. Obviously there is an addiction factor, but I’m more interested in how someone who is (hypothetically) immune to addiction might still be forced into #Facebook.

If someone needs Facebook to access something essential like healthcare, that’s what I want to hear about. To inspire a list of things that are “essential” I had a look at human rights law to derive this list:

  • right to life
  • healthcare
  • freedom of expression
  • freedom of assembly and of association
  • right to education
  • right to engage in work and access to placement services
  • fair and just working conditions
  • social security and social assistance
  • consumer protection
  • right to vote
  • right to petition
  • right of access to (government) documents
  • right to a nationality (passport acquisition)
  • right of equal access to public service in his country

I don’t imagine that Facebook has an essential role in supporting people’s human rights. I assume most gov offices have a Facebook presence, but there is always a way to access the same services outside of FB, correct?

I can think of a couple situations where FB access is important to reaching something essential. E.g.

  • A police department recovered stolen bicycles and announced that theft victims could visit the FB page of the police dept. to see if their bicycle appears in the photos. Non-FB users were blocked from the page and there was no other means to reach the photos. Effectively, non-FB users were denied equal access to public services.

  • A Danish university has a Facebook page as well as just about every single student. Facebook was used exclusively to announce campus social events and even some optional classes. Students without FB were excluded. In a sense, they were being excluded from some aspects to public education, although strictly speaking the FB exclusive events were not required to obtain a degree.

  • Regarding freedom of assembly, there is an activist group in my local area fighting for the right to be offline. I wanted to join the group, but their sole presence is on Facebook, ironically. So my freedom of assembly in this case is conditioned on being trapped in Facebook.

In any case, I would like to hear more examples of what essential information or services is compromised by leaving or neglecting to join Facebook.

#askFedi #Meta #walledGarden

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[-] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago

No one is "trapped" using FB.

That's like saying someone is "trapped" watching TV.

People use FB because it provides entertainment, because it was first to gain a population wide acceptance many of their friends and family are on it so it makes a convenient way to keep in touch with others you may never see.

[-] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Do you consider Facebook a walled garden? One of the essential attributes to a walled garden is trapping people and making it hard to exit the garden. (see oppression 2 in this walled garden definition)

What you say about FB was certainly true in 2004. In 2022, a police dept. exclusively used FB in a way that denied theft victims from police protection unless they have a Facebook account. How is that not a trap? You can be outside the walled garden, but then you must give up police protection in that instance. Having to give up something essential (e.g. a human right) in order to escape is a trap IMO.

Otherwise, what is a trap to you? When a rat is trapped in a snap trap, you might argue that the rat has the option to chew its limb off to escape. But I still call the rat trapped because exiting the trap requires an unreasonable sacrifice.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Do you consider Facebook a walled garden? One of the essential attributes to a walled garden is trapping people and making it hard to exit the garden.

I think Facebook is becoming more of a walled garden - they are actively trying to make people stay as long as they can on the platform, making it difficult to leave, etc. Some details below:

They were famous for acquiring Instagram purely on the basis of threat to Facebook:

The emails revealed that Zuckerberg wanted to buy Instagram as it was becoming a threat to Facebook.
"Facebook, by its own admission saw Instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from Facebook," Nadler said during the hearing on Wednesday.
"So rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition the antitrust laws were designed to prevent," Nadler added.

Source: https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/mark-zuckerberg-bought-instagram-as-it-was-a-threat-to-facebook-120073000324_1.html

They continued this practice of acquisitions - WhatsApp, Oculus, etc. All to corner the markets they see as threats rather than expanding the functionality of the core platform of Facebook.

They trap people by obfuscating the deletion process, tying everything into a Meta account manager. This creates the impression that if you delete one account, you'll delete all of them. The FOMO is strong on this.

They have prioritised engagement over connection - the 'Newsfeed' is utter garbage now, friends posts rarely show up in between the sponsored posts, the random "you might like this" and the reels, which only show just enough to try and hook you in to watching them, keeping you on the platform as much as possible.

You cannot block pages on the phone apps, only on the web/desktop is another example, as they know full well people are using the apps more than web.

They have changed the way news articles are shared in many countries - meaning you have to view the comments to get the link to the article.you could organise your feed chronologically. No more. There is an option to view "recent posts", but you have to make a search to get that option, and even then the results aren't properly listed.

You cannot easily customise any of the features they have any more. There was a time when organise the tabs to suit your preferences - removed. You could save your feed viewing preferences - removed. And so on.

Try finding good, popular and currently maintained third-party apps. There's few, if any.

All this is designed to keep you locked in to Facebook.

It may not have started out as a walled garden, but it's certainly changed into one.

this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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