I have deeply conflicting feelings about Facebook, which I joined last year. One the one hand it allows me simple and frequent communication with friends, classmates, neighbors, relatives. On the other hand it is loaded with utter crap, including extraordinarily realistic AI creations and misleading clickbait. Of course on the third hand it reassures me by feeding me more and more material I agree with because its algorithm is designed to do just that.
Intermixed with all that is a potential abundance of "ordinary" (nonpolitical, nonpersonal) postings from history groups, science and technology groups, scholarly institutions, and reputable news sources. It's sometimes hard to tell which is which.
Take for example the screencap embedded above. Interesting, certainly. And makes sense. If you are already fucking up the ecosystem of the abyssal plane of the world's oceans by harvesting manganese nodules, it makes sense to add the capability to do a little snip-snip on a rival's undersea cables.
I don't have time to chase down primary sources all the time. I made a screencap of that item, but did not go to the South China Morning Post to confirm that the article exists.
Going forward, anything I post in the "from Facebook" category should be viewed with suspicion. And I'm not providing links because I don't want to support clickbait. You can search for relevant info elsewhere.
Wow - I always start my day with you, but you've blown me away today.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been a happy but quiet follower of Tywkiwdbi for many years now and I thought I’d just pipe up to say how much I admire what you post. I live in Australia and I’m 52 and I recognise a kindred spirit in you. I don’t enjoy engaging in the social side of social media (like you I’m conflicted about fb and tend to only use it to find curious gems to read). The only difference between us, it seems, is that it hurts me on numerous levels to read about Trump so I avoid the topic completely. That said, I’m very glad there are people like you who can take on all the news and talk about it to spread awareness.
ReplyDeleteI’ll probably never post on here again but thank you on behalf of all your silent readers who enjoy your writing and your wonderful heart. Here’s hoping goodness prevails in this nutty world.
"The only difference between us, it seems, is that it hurts me on numerous levels to read about Trump so I avoid the topic completely."
DeleteThat's not really a difference between us. I hurt on every level from my cortex to my brainstem, but I have to write about it because he's hurting us so badly (and our children and grandchildren) on so many different levels.
I do not use FB and I do not want to go there because it is 'paywall-ed' - FB wants you to login to see anything. As long as you do not start posting FB links (i.e. to see more about something), that's OK w/ me.
ReplyDeleteFrom your anti-FB rave above, I would think you would not be posting FB links anyway.
Are you hoping to get addicted and win a lawsuit? ;
ReplyDeleteI very much understand your ambiguity about Facebook. In theory it ought to be a great thing, unfortunately I don't think the implementation is very good for the users.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to do just fine at manufacturing money for the company
I did the opposite of what you've done, about a year and a half ago I cut off Facebook but it is a tempting thing.