
DeleteFacebook: Perspective from Mastodon - bluefreeze
https://medium.com/tootsuite/deletefacebook-fafdc4090307
======
nothrabannosir
For the life of me I can't remember where I originally read this quote, but it
forever changed my perspective of FB. Paraphrased: "Facebook is 3 things: the
wall, the messaging, and an automatically updating rolodex." Many apps fill 1
and/or 2, but nothing satisfies #3. There is no alternative.

For better or for worse: I want to stay in touch with people I've met in the
oddest places. In the middle of bumsquash Uruguay, people who had barely ever
heard of Europe, but they had Facebook. All of them. The only place on earth
where this wasn't true was China, in my experience.

So, no, I won't #deletefacebook. I've stopped using it meaningfully a long
time ago, but until something becomes a reliable, multi-decade spanning auto-
updating rolodex, I'll have to stay here.

Mastodon will never, ever, not in a billion years fill that gap. And I don't
need more alternatives for #1 and #2, so there dies that dream for me.

~~~
SkyMarshal
For #3 why not just email? There may be some marginal convenience features to
FB, but email has served that purpose reliably since it was invented.

~~~
WorldMaker
I've known several people that have changed email addresses several times in
the last decade, but their FB profile has been stable and always shown the
most current email address.

Some of them are less technically proficient that rely on whomever their
current ISP or employer is for email. Some of them are more technically
proficient and use changing email addresses as an Inbox Zero technique or as a
nuclear option in spam fighting.

------
ld00d
Mastodon is cool technology. The problem is Facebook fills a hole that
Mastodon does not. Facebook connects people in real life. Folks from varying
distances are able to keep up with their friends and family. There's a built-
in desire to monitor their conversations. They're rewarded with "reactions".
Facebook provides value for a very large group of people.

A relatively small group of people saw a problem with Facebook. Of course they
have to have some underlying goal to make money. So they set out to create a
federated system anyone can host that doesn't depend on some central company
that's just out to make a buck. It's a noble goal, but it solves a problem
that most users of Facebook simply don't care about. It doesn't do the thing
that Facebook does, so it's a non-starter.

I'd also add that Mastodon is more of a Twitter replacement than a Facebook
replacement. Facebook is better at isolating your feed into your group of
"friends". Mastodon is more of a river of information from folks you follow
(many of whom you will never meet in real life.)

If you want to replace Facebook, first figure out what people value about
Facebook and expand on that. You'll need to be better than they are (at least
until people determine they're _that_ awful.) _Then_ look at how you can
federate it or achieving whatever other goal you have.

~~~
Goronmon
_I 'd also add that Mastodon is more of a Twitter replacement than a Facebook
replacement. Facebook is better at isolating your feed into your group of
"friends". Mastodon is more of a river of information from folks you follow
(many of whom you will never meet in real life.)_

I noticed this as well, and it's something I've come across in the past when
checking out Facebook alternatives. Most seem to only be a replacement on a
superficial level.

------
oldsklgdfth
I'm reposting this comment because I would like to open the discussion up
beyond facebook and social media and into the reality that technology has
provided marketing with some pretty ridiculous tools. :

I feel like you used to be able to avoid getting swindled by ignoring the
swindler, ex. close the door to the saleman, or ignore the gypsy pear salesmen
at the market.

Today, marketing is engineered at such a level that it is difficult to
acknowledge it's influence. That, and you are constantly bombarded by ads,
either explicitly or implicitly.

I don't think I am saying anything novel. I guess I am curious what this means
about society and our political systems. People with power and wealth could
still be toppled when you exposed them to the truth. How in the fuck does that
even come close to happening today? How do you overcome marketing that is
engineered to exploit the psychological vulnerabilities you are not even aware
of? How do we patch our society and governing systems from being pwned?

This isn't meant as a rant. I am curious, because to the best i can tell we
don't live in a society where voting matters and we have a say in our
governance.

~~~
nopreserveroot
I do not understand how anyone in 2018 finds the internet remotely usable
without some form of ad blocker. This is how you ignore the modern salesman.

~~~
Goronmon
_I do not understand how anyone in 2018 finds the internet remotely usable
without some form of ad blocker. This is how you ignore the modern salesman._

It's actually pretty simple. You just don't visit sites with ads that bother
you.

~~~
nopreserveroot
EDIT: Ads bother me because they are a security hole, so you're saying I
should only visits sites without them? Please.

~~~
Goronmon
If your point was about security then you should have stated that. It seems
unhelpful to assume that someone responding to your post is a mind-reader.

~~~
nopreserveroot
If the reason the ads bother me is relevant to your point, you should have
stated that.

~~~
Goronmon
Why would the reason ads bother you be relevant to my point. I was responding
to your point about not being able to use the internet without an adblocker,
which is something that's quite easy to do.

Maybe you meant to respond to a different comment thread? You seem to be
confused as to the topic of this one.

~~~
nopreserveroot
Hopefully my edit makes it more clear for you.

------
fluxsauce
I'm using an unfederated node of Madtodon running on a Raspberry pi with Let's
Encrypt certs as a private family social network. Works well and family
response has been massively positive.

You can disconnect while staying connected on your own terms.

~~~
artursapek
That's intriguing. You're just hosting it at your house? How hard was it to
convince your family members to try using it?

~~~
fluxsauce
Yup, it's just lurking next to the router.

Convincing - tried it with just my partner first and smoothed out some rough
edges. I then sent a group email to extended family that included a brief
justification, some screen shots of it in action, a picture of the actual
server, and an offer to create an account for them. Transparency, ease of use,
and privacy were all important factors.

Most live far away and have griped about various facets of Facebook but felt
like it was a necessary evil. This has been a good alternative for daily
communication, discussions about weather and children, and so forth. The
closest to game support is sharing crossword solving times with a hashtag.

------
Mortiffer
I really hope more people join mastodon or one of the other federated social
networks. But it is hard to make the point that it could replace the utility
of facebook (especially messenger, events, search)

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
I think the utility of fb as you describe it is easy to replicate regardless
of your social network structure. However, it is difficult to get past the
enormous network effect advantage that existing social networks already have.
Fb and twitter logos abound in any sports or news broadcast. That’s the hurdle
for any up-and-coming social network.

------
jeffreyrogers
I think the idea that Facebook is putting democracy in peril is a bit
farfetched.

~~~
Mortiffer
while Cambridge Analytica is clearly a horrible company the idea of gathering
data and building some models to better target advertisement to them is
something totally normal happening all over the place. And i don't think we
can really dismantel the core of online advertising because of one shady
company

~~~
Tassels
It's not that CA is just gathering data and using that data to target ads.
That's normal. But they've also been using fake news, spy operations,
honeypots, and other tactics in order to manipulate people. They've even
boasted about their ability to manufacture sex scandals by sending prostitutes
to a political opponent. That goes above and beyond what is "totally normal
happening all over the place".

------
snvzz
Something I can't figure out from Mastodon's website is where and how it uses
cryptography.

I fear it might all be plaintext, despite the insanity of doing that in the
present post-Snowden world, rather than the appropriate end-to-end combined
with point-per-point encryption.

~~~
deft
It's not encrypted afaik at all, besides https but that would be up to the
host of the instance. Where do you want the encryption to happen and how?
Anyone can federate with you.

~~~
egypturnash
Followers-only toots and private toots are a good candidate for encryption.

~~~
snvzz
They're neither "followers-only" nor "private" if there's no encryption.

Even if both me and my followers do run their own Mastodon servers.

This is terrible indeed. How is this any better than twitter? At least, for
private tweets and such, they'd need a court order to get the information from
twitter.

------
tunesmith
I don't care about events, but I'd like my friends and weak ties to easily be
able to keep up with what's going on with me. The only alternatives I can
think of is signing them up all for a mailing list, or starting a
website/blog. But if I don't want my blog to be public, I'm faced with doing
something like setting up a wordpress blog with membership, and asking them
all to register and sign in to see my semi-private blog.

Unless there's a free / open-source blog system with a decentralized federated
SSO system, where everyone can choose to friend up (probably one-way, not two-
way) to follow each other's feeds? I suppose like mastodon, but for long-form
or free-form writing?

~~~
Karrot_Kream
Secure Scuttlebutt is this, but suffers from the same problem every non-
Facebook social network does: critical mass.

~~~
tunesmith
Critical mass is just one of those things that will be a flaw until it isn't.

Facebook has this "decisive competitive edge" in that the fact that it is seen
as the only alternative is what reinforces it being the only alternative. It's
good that these other solutions are free and open source because most
commercial competition would dry up and fail.

But for these things that bump along and grow slowly in a sustainable way,
they might actually approach an inflection point where things will snowball.
At least I hope so!

------
CharlesW
If you're thinking about using Mastodon, the CounterSocial[1] instance is
worth considering. It's run by "The Jester"[2][3], who has experience running
secure/hardened systems, and who takes more of an active role in countering
bad actors.

[1] [https://counter.social/about](https://counter.social/about) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jester_(hacktivist)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jester_\(hacktivist\))
[3] [https://keybase.io/th3j35t3r](https://keybase.io/th3j35t3r)

~~~
AsyncAwait
It's an instance that promotes U.S. hegemony, imperialism and exceptionalism.
It's an instance that i.e. brands Iran as hostile, but doesn't acknowledge our
hostility towards them etc.

No thanks!

------
jdlyga
Facebook is just the tip of the iceberg. If a fully featured app or service is
free, then you are the product. Collecting and selling user information is
pervasive.

~~~
naravara
>If a fully featured app or service is free, then you are the product.

Depends on the business model. Wikipedia, for example, is a non-profit.

You can also theoretically have a public benefit corporation that is
structured to protect data privacy, but I don't know of any.

~~~
leadingthenet
Mozilla?

~~~
naravara
I think Mozilla has some weird structure where it's a non-profit foundation
that happens fully own a for-profit corporation. I'm not an expert on the
topic, though, so maybe that counts? Probably depends on the state where it's
incorporated.

The only big PBCs I've ever heard of were hospitals and private colleges. But
you are right that the way Mozilla is set up, it is focused more on pushing
the technology and mission of the foundation forward rather than on delivering
share price increases or dividends to shareholders.

------
partycoder
Sounds good in principle but how would mastodon scale to billions of accounts
and maintain data centers around the world?

~~~
prophesi
The main Mastodon instance probably can't do that. But then I think you're
missing the point of a distributed social network.

~~~
partycoder
Makes sense. But how can a user validate a mastodon instance is not malicious?

~~~
rainbowmverse
Reputation! And I don't mean some convoluted algorithmic scoring system.

Most people seem to find out about Mastodon from someone, and that someone
suggests the instance they're on. That's why a lot of artists end up on
Mastodon.art, for example. So far, the admin has a good reputation for being
consistent about updates and keeping the community engaged.

People keep trying to find some technological heuristic to establish trust,
like requiring legal names or some kind of scoring system. So far, it's even
worse because people encode all their cognitive biases into it and none of the
mental models or processes people develop for checking those biases.

~~~
partycoder
An instance could have good reputation and still be malicious in terms of
privacy and what is done with your data.

In this sense, trusting a Mastodon instance with your data is the same as
trusting a Bitcoin exchange with your money. Bitcoin is decentralized too,
that doesn't make Bitcoin exchanges trustworthy.

~~~
AsyncAwait
In the end you have to trust somebody. If you can't trust your instance admin,
you can run your own, (even single-user),instance, however that still doesn't
protect you from your host provider being malicious etc.

------
godelski
So I question the sustainability of these platforms? How are they supported
when they have sufficient mass? If they aren't gathering data on users and
selling ads then how are they generating revenue?

~~~
Sir_Cmpwn
Decentralized platforms aren't a business. The decentralized model scales
remarkably well for a very small cost because there are hundreds (or
thousands!) of instances that run at a small scale and communicate with the
broader network. Many volunteers run small instances that cost only a few
dollars a month to maintain and are often supported by donations from the
users of that instance. You can even run your own instance if you want. Even
if one instance fails the network as a whole doesn't even feel it. The
financial model is totally different and very sustainable, much more so than
the proprietary model even.

~~~
jonbarker
If I am reading fb history correctly they had a business (apple and party
poker ads) even when they were distributed (one server and mysql db per
school).

~~~
akkartik
They were never distributed _as a business_ , even if they were distributed as
a product or as a tech stack. Mastodon allows unconnected people and
organizations to make hugely disparate investments in "connection technology"
with potentially very different business models. Server A may require a
monthly subscription from each of its clients, Server B may be getting
micropayments from 0.001% of its clients, server C may be running completely
free just for somebody's close friends. All these financial models can coexist
on the same platform.

------
kolbe
LOL at the popup I get.

"You've read over 3 articles this month. Let's make it official. Log in with
Facebook or Google."

~~~
Slansitartop
Comments like yours are tiring an meaningless.

Facebook and Google have their tentacles in nearly _everything_. If you want
to get a message out, it's going to intersect with their platforms in some
way, even if you're directly criticizing them. AFAIK, there are no purist
corners at this time that attract enough eyeballs.

~~~
kolbe
"Tiring and meaningless" eh? As opposed to your meaningful and engaging
strawman reply?

Even if it were true that an essay or article couldn't be disseminated
effectively without Facebook getting involved at some point, it doesn't mean
that readers must be burdened with a popup that asks them to log in to
Facebook before viewing.

~~~
Slansitartop
It seems nearly _every single post_ where someone suggests people delete their
Facebook accounts always has some comment pointing out that the NYT, or
Medium, or whatever the article was published has a Facebook share widget or
something like that.

IMHO, those comments might as well be "First Post!" for all they add.

> it doesn't mean that readers must be burdened with a popup that asks them to
> log in to Facebook before viewing.

The first step to that world is getting people off Facebook so it's not so
ubiquitous that making a request like that seems reasonable.

~~~
elago
This comment thread is taking place on site with no (obvious or well known)
google or facebook integrations.

Honest question, do you think the same content with same title with a
different domain rather than 'medium.com' could not reach similar popularity
on HN?

Any comment pointing out hypocrisy is valuable and interesting in my opinion.
I prefer to disregard the opinions of hypocrites.

~~~
Slansitartop
> Any comment pointing out hypocrisy is valuable and interesting in my
> opinion. I prefer to disregard the opinions of hypocrites.

That's actually a pretty closed minded position. I don't think there's a
single person who isn't a hypocrite in some small way, even ascetics living
alone in the desert. You'll disregard all of them?

Hypocrisy doesn't logically invalidate anyone's arguments or positions, those
need to be evaluated on their own. If they make good points but fail to live
up to them, it only demonstrates their own personal moral failings.

But I think it's also a mistake to count "publishing something about deleting
Facebook on a website with a Facebook integration" as hypocrisy. Authors
_usually_ aren't the ones making implementation decisions of the platforms the
publish on, and are probably not even aware of most of them.

> Honest question, do you think the same content with same title with a
> different domain rather than 'medium.com' could not reach similar popularity
> on HN?

HN isn't the world.

I think it's a waste of time for an author to make the avoidance of publishing
platforms with Facebook integrations a priority. It would be an act of
foolish, unpragmatic purism, akin to a lot of the stuff Richard Stallman does.
It's more important that they argue persuasively and widely to convince the
implementors to avoid such integrations.

------
personjerry
As far as I've seen, this doesn't provide new information, so it just reads to
me like "Developer of startup social media platform agrees with bandwagon:
please consumers, stop using the product of our biggest competitor"

~~~
AsyncAwait
Mastodon is an open-source, distributed project, there is no commercial
interest to scale in it per se.

~~~
personjerry
Why do I see so much shilling for it on HN?

~~~
AsyncAwait
Perhaps because it's something distinctively different than the typical HN
posts of startup X raising 5 trillion series G funding and Musk going to
Andromeda in 2003?

------
misterbowfinger
Mastodon can't be considered a real alternative unless you have a solution for
all the child porn on some of the most popular instances.

~~~
egypturnash
“Defederate with pawoo”

There you go

~~~
rainbowmverse
I think this was what prompted the finer-grained federation controls. Most
instances at least block its images now and/or mute it.

------
spraak
How do people feel about using Facebook's technology like React in light of
all this controversy? Is there any concern that there is cross over between
the data harvesting and the engineering behind React etc.?

~~~
a_humean
Its a JavaScript library used for providing an abstraction over DOM
manipulation, and is open source. It doesn't phone home to facebook with your
mother's maiden name, and it doesn't have a single line of network code in its
source code. Worse that could happen is facebook stops supporting it for some
reason and a lot of engineering talent dedicated to it evaporates.

------
cornholio
> Mastodon [...] No real name policies

Lacking a very rarefied community capable of self-moderation, like this site
has or some specialized reddits and forums, the no-real-name becomes a major
drawback. A minority of douche-bags will generate a majority of noise and will
come to shape that world in their image.

This is quite visible when browsing Mastodon instances, many of which look
like a crossbreed of 4chan with Myspace. Most accounts don't have a real
picture. The fact people assumed their real identities, cared about what they
said and did, and that you could find real people knowing only their name was
one of the key ingredients to the success of early Facebook.

Furthermore, the whole "no data collected" has any value from the perspective
of the user only when using real names. Otherwise, I really couldn't care less
about data attached to an anonymous account.

~~~
bitumen
The real name policy doesn’t seem to stop duplicate accounts, bots, and
spammers on FaceBook or Twitter, it just ensures they have vaguely human
names.

~~~
cornholio
That's quite a different issue, is it not? The spam bots come because the
social network is successful, as they will come to any other network
regardless of real name policy.

What I'm saying is that anonymous accounts will prevent that success in the
first place, because of the behavior of non-spam users. At least for a mass
market product most regular folk would want to use, like Facebook.

