In my last post, I wrote about owning my data on platforms that I control. The core point I made is about how “I prefer to be on platforms that aren't at the whim of someone else”, for a variety of reasons. For example, I can get shut down for any reason elsewhere, without warning, and I don't want my work to go to waste. This is all based on what-if scenarios, of course...

... until Facebook went and shut down the Creeper's Lab page without any explanation, just a few days ago. We've apparently violated the “community guidelines”, without any extra details provided. Facebook being what it is, there's no human involvement. I filed for an appeal, which simply consisted of pressing an “Appeal” button without a chance to ask or add information. This was denied, so the page is now permanently marked as closed after 12 years of serving the community.

I'm not sure yet what to do with this. Try again and relaunch a new page? Swear off the platform entirely? I don't know. I'm not doing this for me, as I don't especially like most social media platforms; I'm doing it to reach people where they are and share updates where they have a chance to see them. Anyone reading this has suggestions on the next step? Maybe you're affected and want to share something!

If anything, this just motivates me on not depending on any single platform. Being too involved with a single place risks losing so much more if something like this happens.

Side note, I spent a good amount posting ads on Facebook in the past few years to attract more players to the Creeper's Lab. They were more than happy to take my money then, without pesky community guidelines getting in the way...

#facebook #socialmedia #creeperslab

– Doctacosa

I spoke up against this before, but it’s worth repeating again as the current trend doesn’t go in the right direction.

I dislike sites that integrate Facebook so tightly that I can’t do much without being logged in to that platform. I have a Facebook account. I don’t use much, and I don’t want to use it on other sites. The risk of loss of privacy is too great. If a website, media or company is offering a special promotion for Facebook users, or allows commenting on articles using Facebook only, then I won’t participate. When I register on a given community, I make a conscious action to associate my identity with them, for better or for worse. I want to commit to what I do, not leave a throwaway comment never to look back.

On another note, still related, I hate how Facebook doesn’t have a “dislike” option to match it’s “like” option. I can understand how they might be aiming to preserve a positive vibe to everything, but life doesn’t work that way. Sometimes, you feel strongly about an issue and would like to disagree with it, but there’s no option to do so as you’re facing only a “like” button. YouTube’s strategy on this is more interesting: allow people to rate videos “up” or “down”, then show the relative score. Installing a browser plugin to have a magical “dislike” button appearing everywhere is NOT the answer, as it’s not visible to everyone.

Some news sites have been removing their own, custom commenting scripts to only keep Facebook comments. As a result, not only do you lose the ability to downrate comments (the “dislike” option), you also lose the ability to order the comments as “oldest first”, “latest first”, or “most active”. I especially like that last one as it quickly highlights the general opinion on a given topic. Why existing systems would be replaced by the more simple Facebook integration, with a global loss of functionality, is beyond me.

Besides, what happens if Facebook shuts down, or another social network becomes much more popular? Rip the integration apart and start anew, losing all existing comments in the process? It’s a shame when news outlets lose their archive, both articles and comments, as the latter can give great insights on how an issue was perceived at some period in time.

#internet #facebook

– Doctacosa