2018.01.02 – A New Year of Facebook Woes

Happy New Year everyone. I know I have not been posting as much recently. Partly that has been due to finding a new outlet to let my mind reset. But as part of my goals for the year, I want to write more again. So my goal is to do two to three posts a week since that seems like a cadence that will work well. I will be posting about my road trip sometime over the next few days.

But I really want to talk about something that has been bugging me a lot. Lately a lot of my friends have been getting harassed on Facebook through post reviews. In the past, it was always hit and miss since there was a human involved. But now, it looks like Facebook’s algorithms are better than ever and they are relying on them more. Over the last few months, I have had nearly 10 friends put into Facebook Jail over images that would have passed through before.

In essence – Facebook is the new AOL. They are doing everything possible to keep you in their walls. When being placed in Facebook Jail is akin to losing your identity, we have a major problem. Over the last year, I have been trying to get more of my identity over to my blog here. And it is a challenge since even my mind has been reprogrammed to be addicted to likes and comments. And even former Facebook execs think so: Link to Gizmodo Article

There is a solution – Facebook should not be your only social media outlet. If you are going to post images that might hit this – I really recommend setting up your own site (like I have done), Tumblr (and even then I have reservations about Tumblr since they are now owned by Verizon), Twitter, or just something and then link to it. The cost to host your own site with a decent provider is maybe 10 bucks a month (and that includes my SSL cert).

I am going to be preaching this more over the year. As long as you let someone else own the means of distribution, you will always be at their whim. You will be subject to the psychological tricks they use to keep you roped in. I feel that you have no right to complain when the change the rules of the service you are using for free. When many of the people effected by it do have the means to pay for hosting somewhere, I don’t feel like I am out of line. Remember, you are the product to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, et. al. The Internet was founded by many people with their own simple sites sharing information, and we can get there again.