On balance, has social media been a net positive to the human race.

[Duxnutz]

With Facebook meddling in all the alcohol, tobacco etc groups and removing many of them there just may be a swing away from Facebook. 

Personally, living in Hawaii it’s amazing watching many folks on hikes and at the beach just posing for an instagram photo and then walking off. People don’t seem to live in the moment and enjoy things anymore. Kinda sad, and as the clock to bringing a new life into this world counts down I worry about what life will be like in 15 years when my offspring is a teenager. 

 

[SmokyFontaine]

I think the "trendy" answer will be no, because it's easy to view FB, Twitter, Instagram as these technology monoliths who edit free speech to be in compliance with their platform rules, spread hoaxes like wildfire, work to use technology to reduce human interaction, and become a vast time drain. While all of these may be true, you can also look to it for facilitating activities and information share that we never could before. 

In tragedies or breaking local, national, world, or sporting news, I can see a single message posted by a news-worthy individual, and read it seconds away from real-time. That's amazing. Twitter breaks credible stories before even 24hr news networks. 

It has been a tool to let oppressed populations under dictatorial regimes get word out about the severity of their oppression. In State-run media territories we never had the ability to monitor human rights around the world with levels of transparency we do now. 

If I want to see 8 pictures of Salma Hayek eating a sandwich through a series of selfies, by golly I can...and just maybe I have. And would gladly see 8 more.... 

...OK, moving on. All things considered, which is the nature of this question - the propagation of real-time information-share, the ability to connect people geographically separated or isolated, and the near auto-biographical documentation that social media serves, makes me feel that (even though there are some truly despicable parts) it is a net gain for society. 

[NSXCIGAR]

4 hours ago, Nekhyludov said:

Here's a piece that I found particularly persuasive. It's written by a co-founder of Facebook, Chris Hughes, and argues in detail why the company needs to be broken up. @NSXCIGAR @Fuzz @Philc2001

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/09/opinion/sunday/chris-hughes-facebook-zuckerberg.html

There are very good arguments for breaking up companies like this from an economic perspective but I've never been a believer that governments forcing breakups results in objectively positive outcomes.

By the time the government intervenes the companies in question are usually in decline. Classic case is Standard Oil. Even Microsoft had only a couple years left before the massive decline after releasing ME and Vista which they never really recovered from. Oddly enough, they seem to pretty much be a video game company now. 

As I said, in 10 years FB will be as relevant as MySpace. I think YouTube and Twitter are heading towards disaster as well. They are not evenly applying their TOS and eventually people will find alternatives.

BTW, the best book on antitrust ever written is Antitrust: A Case For Repeal by Dominick Armentano. 

 

[Fuzz AI]

Whilst Microsoft was not forced to break up, more than a decade of constant court action stymied Microsoft. And their anti-trust settlement gave the likes of Google the space to expand and grow. Google would not be where they are today if Microsoft had managed to hold the monopoly on browsers, operating systems and major applications.

[Lotusguy]

There are very good arguments for breaking up companies like this from an economic perspective but I've never been a believer that governments forcing breakups results in objectively positive outcomes.
By the time the government intervenes the companies in question are usually in decline. Classic case is Standard Oil. Even Microsoft had only a couple years left before the massive decline after releasing ME and Vista which they never really recovered from. Oddly enough, they seem to pretty much be a video game company now. 
As I said, in 10 years FB will be as relevant as MySpace. I think YouTube and Twitter are heading towards disaster as well. They are not evenly applying their TOS and eventually people will find alternatives.
BTW, the best book on antitrust ever written is Antitrust: A Case For Repeal by Dominick Armentano. 
 

Last time I checked, Microsoft was the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. Over $1T. I’d say they recovered just fine from Vista

[Grateful13]

Facebook is a cancer on society. 

[Grateful13]

18 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

There are very good arguments for breaking up companies like this from an economic perspective but I've never been a believer that governments forcing breakups results in objectively positive outcomes.

By the time the government intervenes the companies in question are usually in decline. Classic case is Standard Oil. Even Microsoft had only a couple years left before the massive decline after releasing ME and Vista which they never really recovered from. Oddly enough, they seem to pretty much be a video game company now. 

As I said, in 10 years FB will be as relevant as MySpace. I think YouTube and Twitter are heading towards disaster as well. They are not evenly applying their TOS and eventually people will find alternatives.

BTW, the best book on antitrust ever written is Antitrust: A Case For Repeal by Dominick Armentano. 

 

 

I don’t really disagree but it’s important to point out that these tech companies only exist in their current form as a result of government intervention and protection.  Specifically, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act grants “platforms” immunity for content posted by users. However, we all know in reality Facebook and others are publishers, as their censorship proves beyond any doubt they are making publishing decisions daily.  It’s beyond time for that to be repealed so big tech has to play by the same rules as everyone else.  

 

Also, the recent $5b fine is a total joke. The amount is a drop in the bucket for them and most importantly, it lets Facebook off the hook for all of their prior privacy violations with full immunity - even those the public or anyone else is not aware of!

 

 

 

 

[bpm32]

8 hours ago, FatherOfPugs said:

Big NO. Just spend some time as a middle school or high school teacher. Kids are more interested in chatting on Snapchat than having actual conversations with the person across the table. They are NOT connecting or actually socially networking with anyone outside of their area. They are addicted, worse than meth addicts to it. 

I would get rid of all of it. Got rid of Twitter almost a year ago and haven't looked back. Getting close to scrapping FB as well as it is becoming a bastion of censorship. 

To be fair they might be Snapchatting the person across the table....

Damn kids!

[cmbarton]

Social networking is just a symptom of the illness.

[Philc2001]

1 hour ago, Grateful13 said:

Also, the recent $5b fine is a total joke. The amount is a drop in the bucket for them and most importantly, it lets Facebook off the hook for all of their prior privacy violations with full immunity - even those the public or anyone else is not aware of!

I'm not really concerned about Facebook or LinkedIn or other social media sites, there isn't really anything there I consider private - if someone wants to see my work history or my vacation pictures they can have at it.

But what really bothers me are the multiple breach notifications I've received in the past 3 years at several other institutions that have my sensitive information, including financial institutions, email providers, online commerce, and so on. We really have little or no protection against harm caused by these breaches. Companies that have our personal emails, banking, credit card and SSN data don't seem to really give much of a care that they lost millions of people's data.

IMPO this is what government should look at because consumer protections here really suck, and we need government to at least set some standards and establish some stiff penalties, rather that political grandstanding on social media. The privacy breaches at Facebook and other social media platforms should be way down on their list, in fact I think they're way overblown, and IMPO the Facebook fine was disproportionate and unwarranted compared to other more egregious breaches like Equifax, which allowed the financial details of over 150 million people to be taken. Equifax got a really, really light tap on the wrist compared to what FB has to pay. Look at  Yahoo, Marriott, Target, Heartland Payments, eBay, etc. Those are far more serious IMPO and they should be punished far more severely, but they get off virtually for free.  

Breaches can happen, I get that. Even the CIA and the FBI have been hacked, and sensitive information about employees was compromised, which is a real joke that little became of these very serious crimes. But breaches that can really damage your credit, your finances and other very important aspects of our lives should have a higher priority than FB, Google, SnapChat or other free social media services. Just my $0.02. 

[Hammer Smokin']

I heard a crazy statistic that less than 10% of population exposed to Facebook have never created an identity - ever.

I never jumped on the social media craze, so I never started a FB account. Because I never started, it was easy to live without.

But in my semi close circle of friends, I'm not aware of another person who never started an account. Certainly people have faded their use of FB, but it is amazing how many people joined that platform.

I agree that FB will likely fade into the dark completely, but the empire that FB created will not. They money will just move, growing the entire time.

[NSXCIGAR]

On 7/26/2019 at 1:01 PM, Grateful13 said:

but it’s important to point out that these tech companies only exist in their current form as a result of government intervention and protection. 

Yes, that was what I was intimating as well. We haven't arrived where we are due to pure free market forces. 

There's a reason why these tech bigwigs like Zuckerberg are not objecting that vociferously about being broken up. They'd rather be broken up where control can still be mostly maintained or advantageously divided but keep their special privileges.

As I'm fundamentally apprehensive about even more gov't intervention I would simply suggest revoking whatever special privileges these companies have been granted until now and see how they do on a level playing field. My guess is not too good.

These companies have not been principled and responsible with the special privileges they've been granted. Time to end this experiment.

[CaptainQuintero]

  I think there needs to be a line drawn between the internet and social media, I believe the days of forums are solidly in the internet bracket, there was obviously a social side to it but it was more along the lines of pen pals or email communication.

  When social media as we know it arrived, MySpace, FB, Instagram, SC etc that's a while different world. Sadly it's a world that reflects current humanity in its purest form; you have the good but also the bad. It will always reflect current state of humanity. 

  I think at the moment are just seeing the results of the fact that, effectively (Bare with me), we have killed God in the last century. For good or bad the western world and all its influence, has lost it's moral compass and while it wascertainly needed, there hasn't been a replacement for religion being that cornerstone of society. Science is clearly the way forward but it hasn't filled the community/societal void. For the most part on the surface religion knitted society together, when you dig deeper you saw the horrific corruption and abuse. Rightly it's been killed, but there needs to be some kind a replacement. At the moment social media is the replacement for religion. I don't think it's a good swap. I'm not saying y'all need Jesus etc (Although Fuzz you definitely do) just that society at the month seems to be acting like the teacher is out of the room 

  Remember kids are just a mirror of how they have been treated.

  For the most part, parents spend too much time chasing money instead of family, or say that dedicating their time to the first means a healthy second. Grandparents are shipped off to care homes when they become inform or too much hassle. And we say the young people are the throwaway generation. Screens are turned on to shut kids up, kids see their parents glued to screens. Family are begrudgingly visited as a chore. Community has gone from the street and neighborhood, doors are locked and bolted. Kids are villified for hanging out at parks or told it's too dangerous to go out and explore. Where else are kids going to get interaction these days?

  Until there's a great rebalancing in society then life will continue to get more insular, more polarised and more self obsessed. We have all seen how vicious the way people communicate on social media, could it be because people have simply forgotten how to actually talk to each other and meet new people? Like someone mentioned above, social media is the symptom not the illness 

What about that for an early morning breakfast rant 

[La_Tigre]

On 7/24/2019 at 7:34 PM, Rupe said:

On the positive side, cigar forums have allowed me to develop some wonderful friendships and meet people with a common interest. This has led to spending time with some truly wonderful people in the real world and has created deep friendships that never would have developed otherwise.

My bank account is a net negative due to this....I’m going with net negative.? 

For all of the commentary about the random long lost cousins or connecting with family that would otherwise not be seen:

1) I have some long lost relatives I’ll gladly give you. 

2) These did exist before the interweb: