
Steve Wozniak Says People Should Get Off Facebook Permanently - realshadow
https://gizmodo.com/apple-cofounder-steve-wozniak-says-most-people-should-g-1836178238
======
dbingham
The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square for my
local community. It's where people go to discuss the community's political
challenges. So many important dialogs about local issues happen on Facebook,
and it's the only real way to be a part of those conversations. Things like
zoning, planning, city and county budgeting, ordinances, and so on.

If I leave, not only do I lose the ability to participate in those
conversations in a significant way - I lose awareness that they're even
happening. The newspaper (what's left of it) certainly doesn't cover them. I
have many friends who I see on a regular basis in person, but we don't always
talk about all of them. And when we do, it's often inspired by conversations
that were already happening on Facebook and a continuation of the
conversations happening there.

We need a good replacement for this piece of it. Having an accessible, local
town square where all the local activists, citizens, and officials can
interact and dialog about local issues is really invaluable.

~~~
jadbox
>The thing that holds me to Facebook is that it's become the town square

Yep, but most social platforms are not really tuned to being a town square,
and instead are optimized for feeds and stirring emotions. They often
rewarding behavior that's counterproductive to finding common ground. We need
platforms like DinnerTable.chat [1] that is built around the idea of bringing
people together across the spectrum and localities. DTC is an open community-
driven live discussion platform that matches you one-on-one with others to
playfully challenge perspectives, while unlocking achievements. It's been my
passion project for the last two years, and since beta, we've been growing
steadily.

[1] [https://dinnertable.chat/about](https://dinnertable.chat/about)

~~~
spurmboy
I say this with respect and for your benefit: this is the most cringe inducing
product description I’ve ever read.

~~~
jadbox
Ah, thanks for that feedback. Would you like to try your hand of writing a
better summary here? It would be appreciated, as it's hard to improve from
just a single word criticism (cringe).

~~~
subpixel
"Product abc.xyz is like Facebook, without the suck."

~~~
BioMeditate
"A cure for the common platform"

------
cols
I just passed my two year anniversary with no FB, Twitter, Instagram, or
Snapchat and I've never been happier. I convinced my wife to cut the cord
about a year ago and she completely agrees. For me it was an addiction. I was
compulsively checking FB many times an hour to stay caught up with people.
This was after culling my friends list multiple times. Turns out, life goes on
just fine without a constant water hose of relationship/political drama.

Ultimately, it is no more difficult to stay in touch with my real friends than
it was with FB. I rely on text, phone calls, and emails. Occasionally, I will
use LinkedIn to touch base with people, but primarily, I just text/call. And
honestly, it's great.

I highly recommend cutting the cord.

~~~
grahamburger
This is great for you! Keep in mind though that some of us never fell in to
the trap of compulsively checking FB constantly. I am quite certain that
dropping FB wouldn't move my happiness barometer in either direction, it's
just not a big enough part of my life to matter. I would lose touch with some
people that I'm not keeping very closely in touch with anyway, and that's
about it. This is like a recovering alcoholic recommending that everyone who
drinks at all should stop immediately and entirely - it's not that it's bad
advice, but not everyone is in the same situation.

~~~
xtracto
Same here, moreover: I've got friends and acquittances in Serbia, Bulgaria,
Germany, UK, US, Spain among other countries, as well as through several
states in my home country. Given that I have lived in 6 different cities
around the world, and have made good relationships on each of those, I really
like maintaining a "thin" contact thread with them.

Facebook does this really well for me. Before Facebook, I would have to
"remember" to send an email, a MSN chat or even a postcard (around Christmas)
to some of them. And the typical conversation through chat went "q: hey,
anything new", "a: no.. no really". With FB I see when this people have had a
noteworthy moment, and I can interact with them on that, even if it is just to
say a quick hello.

------
rococode
To me, Facebook provides enough value that I don't feel the benefits of
deleting it outweigh the benefits of keeping it.

Without it, I have no connection at all to some of my old friends. While I
don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how people
are doing every once in a while.

LinkedIn fulfills this desire in some ways, but I don't typically connect with
my "outside-of-work" friends on LinkedIn. Plus, LinkedIn has its own host of
privacy issues, so it's not really a great replacement in the sense of
improving privacy.

There are also the useful community aspects. I often find out about local
events through Facebook. I suppose Meetup or similar sites could replace that
function. But my friends also use Facebook's events to organize parties and
stuff - I don't know any good alternative that's nearly as convenient.

I'm not convinced that deleting your account helps all that much anyways. You
do make it harder for Facebook to listen in from your phone and things like
that, but I'm sure they still keep a detailed profile on you. And you can get
those benefits just by deleting the mobile app, without deleting your account.

I think the better reason to delete Facebook is the mental health issues with
the whole spotlight effect or whatever that's called (where you only see the
highlights of other people's lives which makes you feel like your life is
boring). As long as you regulate your usage in a healthy way, I think whether
you delete your account or not doesn't make much of a difference.

For now I just throw on a handful of privacy extensions (uBlock Origin,
PrivacyBadger, Decentraleyes, Facebook Container, etc.) and accept that
Facebook is going to know many things about me.

As a point of reference - my age group started using Facebook around middle
school. So I have a lot of "friends" that I would have no way of keeping up
with otherwise, and I'm not used to not having that ability. I suspect the
sentiment is different for older generations who are used to losing touch with
people. My parents, for example, have a couple old friends from whom they
haven't heard anything in many many years. That concept doesn't mesh with the
lifestyle I grew up with. It's not that there are many specific people I want
to keep up with all the time - it's just nice to get random updates on random
people you used to know well.

~~~
shock
> While I don't necessarily need to be connected to them, it's nice to see how
> people are doing every once in a while.

Why do you choose not to call them and ask them how they are doing? I must
admit, I do not really understand this "seeing how they are doing" statement,
it confuses me as to why someone would spend time on facebook to see how
another one is doing, but would not make the call to ask. Maybe I'm misreading
it and the _seeing_ part is the more relevant one.

Edit: anyone care to clarify what was downvote worthy about this comment? did
it not contribute to the discussion in some way? if the answer is yes, I don't
know why it didn't contribute to the discussion.

~~~
rococode
Actually just wrote an edit to address this but I'll repeat here - I think
it's a generational thing. It's not really about keeping up with specific
people - when I want to do that, I just message them like you say (side note -
in my experience people in my age group don't tend to have many people's phone
numbers). Basically, I grew up using Facebook, which meant I've always had
these constant life updates from people I know. So I've gotten used to it, and
feel like I'd be losing something without it. Objectively, I think my life
would be unaffected if I really were to delete Facebook, but I enjoy having
those updates nonetheless. To be clear: these updates are usually information
I wouldn't bother to find out otherwise.

It's sort of like watching the news - realistically a lot of news doesn't
affect our day to day, but it's just interesting to see things happen. Like
yesterday USA won the women's world cup. Did that have any impact on my life?
Not at all, but it was nice to hear about. In that sense, Facebook is like a
more personalized feed of news that always features people I at least used to
know. It feels a bit like a mild addiction since it's not totally rational to
care about these tiny updates in the lives of people I'm unlikely to ever meet
again, but at this point I only check Facebook a couple times a week so I
don't worry too much about it.

~~~
weeksie
It's not entirely a generational thing. I'm a lot older than you (Facebook
became available to non uni students when I was 30) however, I've moved around
a lot. Different countries, different US coasts, etc. As a result my friend
group is spread over different continents and across different social
classes—things that make picking up to go visit or reach out for a simple
phone call pretty difficult.

FB has been a great way to not only maintain contact with people but to
reunite with people I knew in childhood and adolescence that would have
otherwise been lost to me. I don't spend much time in the app at all, but I
appreciate being able to reach out or to offer emotional support
(congratulations, condolences) in ways that would be impossible were I working
my way through a phone book every month or so.

------
tzakrajs
Seconded. I found that I didn’t lose anything by leaving Facebook. The “social
network” I thought I had was just a list of names I was familiar with and
begged the question about any real relationship which had manifested. I had
many relationships which were paper thin and folded the moment I left
Facebook.

~~~
jarsin
I subscribe to if you are not willing to contact your friends without facebook
then they probably were not meant to be in your life anyway.

~~~
dymk
That's a weird place to put your goalposts (why isn't it at video calls? or
phones? or cars? or walking barefoot to your house?), but subscribe to
whatever idea lets you feel superior, I guess.

------
mayankkaizen
I deleted FB 4 years back and at that time I had around 1000 'friends' on FB.
Needless to say I didn't miss a thing and life has been only better.

But there was one subtle interesting thing I noticed that nobody missed me on
FB. Nobody was like, "wait, where did that guy disappear".

The people who mattered were always around me and are still around me.

Only after deleting FB I realized what a cancer FB was. I hear it has become
even more cancerous.

The only thing I seriously want to give up is this Whatsapp app, especially
because it is now FB product. Otherwise, the way I use Whatsapp, it doesn't
pose much problem.

~~~
skinnymuch
People might notice but just not saying anything. I notice when occasionally
someone is not on FB anymore. I rarely point it out. Because the reason is
always the same one or two reasons.

------
dpcan
I recently deleted Reddit from my life. That was huge. I can turn off Twitter
and would never know it was gone. But FB won't be that easy.

It's important to me for a number of reasons:

\- Communities use it to communicate with their groups. I'm in business owner
groups, collectives, local theater group, and some gaming/social groups that
aren't as active.

\- For many of these groups, FB is the ONLY way I'll get info about anything
that is going on with them. And honestly, I don't mind. It works well.

\- Businesses use it to send deals to their customers, notify them of events,
post pictures, etc.

\- I manage business Facebook pages as part of my business, so I can't get rid
of my personal account.

\- I also use the Marketplace a lot to sell off stuff from my house and it
works brilliantly.

HOWEVER - I have technically stopped "using" Facebook.

For the last 3 years now, I've made my profile totally private. I haven't
posted photos or shared stupid things. I un-followed (but stayed friends with)
EVERYONE except my wife and parents and a close friend.

My news feed is empty except for posts from the groups I'm a part of and stuff
from close family members.

And there's an added benefit - when I DO post something now, on a rare
occasion, people actually take notice.

If everyone would only post when it's really important, the system would be
useful and interesting. Otherwise, it's full of garbage.

Facebook is not all bad, but certain people ruin it with their constant
garbage posting, and that's too bad.

~~~
grogenaut
If you have a facebook login active then facebook is still tracking you and
able to advertise to you, so you are using facebook for the only things they
care about. You are still generating content (your web traffic via like
buttons) and revenue (via ads).

~~~
jedberg
I use Firefox containers (and before that I used a totally separate browser
for Facebook) so they haven't been tracking me around the web for years.

It's quite easy to avoid their tracking actually.

~~~
icebraining
So you hope. Just because you don't appear as "logged in" doesn't mean they
can't tell you're the same person.

~~~
jedberg
Sure, they can cluster me by IP address, but they can do that whether I delete
my Facebook account or not.

------
vikingcaffiene
I respect Woz and his contributions to computer science. Tbh tho every time I
see an article like this it makes me scratch my head. It’s always something
along the lines of “Woz says you should do something that has been old news
and most anyone who would care is already doing or agrees with”. It’s not that
he’s wrong. It’s just... why is this news? He’s just making a very safe
statement for the audience being targeted.

~~~
resonanttoe
It makes news for a couple of reasons. (and assuming this isn’t a rhetorical
idealistic question about what is and isn’t news…)

1\. He’s a notable technologist (or whatever term you’d prefer to use for
someone who is seen as intrinsically linked with the rise of computation tech)
2\. It’s Gizmodo, they’re not exactly looking for revolutionary stuff here.
3\. It’s your standard confirmation bias as well. Most people who read the
article probably already have fairly strong anti-facebook-usage feelings to
begin with. This reaffirms their stance and belief by presenting someone who
isn’t a dickhead as being on the same side.

All of the above leads to a click and a comment, which is good for the ol’
bottom ad-dollar :D.

~~~
vikingcaffiene
Yeah I guess I just expect more out of the guy (Woz). To be fair, he doesn't
owe me or anyone else shit. It's just a let down to see him never take a firm
stance on anything until it's very very safe to do so.

------
nao360
Left 4 or 5 years ago for employer/work reasons. Had a couple of hundred
friends, and a started few groups that accumulated thousands of members. Not
surprisingly, everyone I mattered to managed to find me and reconnect via
email, sms etc. I don’t miss it at all, and I’m happy I don’t waste time like
that anymore!

Community argument is compelling, but there are so many ways for communities
to stay in touch now. I don’t think it has to come at the cost of so many
Facebook negatives (privacy, addiction, mental health, etc.)

~~~
sdegutis
The community argument isn't actually compelling. It creates "ghost-like"
relationships, where you don't really know someone anymore and haven't for
years, but act like you're still best friends, with occasional empty comments
or likes. It's like eating cotton candy for dinner and acting like you have
the energy a good steak would have given you. Many of them don't have email
though, and phone chats are often difficult to coordinate. I think occasional
visits is probably the best way to keep in touch with people you don't live
near and thus see regularly. And if neither of you can manage to schedule
that, then maybe there's no real connection there after all.

~~~
skinnymuch
How can you do occasional visits if you don’t live nearby? A lot of people I
know live across the country or in the middle of America or outside the US.
Even seeing all of them occasionally would be very difficult. Unless you mean
every few years? But that’s barely anything.

~~~
sdegutis
It seems to me life is meant to be lived most with the people you live near.
No matter how much technology improves the ability to communicate long
distances, it's never the same as being with those people. So maybe it does
mean visiting only every few years, and maybe even less often. It's hard when
those people are family though, because then you have a permanent connection
with them. But sometimes friends drift apart (physically) and you make new
ones (locally) instead, and that's okay.

------
mrkstu
While a great idea the problem of course is there isn’t a ready replacement
for what Facebook provides.

Where would families migrate to for communication/collaboration/community? The
closest free alternative is of course Instagram, owned by Facebook.

Who can build a privacy oriented alternative that charges and also gains a
sufficient network effect?

~~~
bilbo0s
I don't have a Facebook, never have, so take any opinion I give with a grain
of salt. That said, a lot of us really need to come to the realization that
these are social networks. They are not called private networks. So even if
you pay, it is highly unlikely that you would get privacy.

And please everyone, if only for the protection of your own privacy, consider
thoughtfully whether a company promising "Private" "Social" networks makes any
sense? Like dish washing detergents that promise to make your dishes virtually
spotless, there is no promise at all actually being made.

These networks are fundamentally about sharing. Once you share something with
someone, you can't really control what they are going to do with the
screenshot of it. You're at the mercy of the mob.

The only real protection you can get is not from companies, but by having the
government make a HIPAA like law with real teeth in it that punishes personal
information sharing for commercial purposes. No real need for any new
companies, because the new companies will just do the same thing. Pass a law
that starts throwing people in prison for sharing, or receiving illegally
shared personal information for commercial purposes, and you stop all of that
nonsense in its tracks.

~~~
tjr
When I was a Facebook user (closed my account six years ago), I was mindful
about what I shared. The privacy concerns that eventually prompted me to close
my account were not due to the information that I willfully shared, but
rather, due to Facebook's behavior collecting more information about me (and
about others, through me) that I was not intentionally sharing.

E.g., tracking users across the web at large, building shadow profiles of non-
users, trying to obtain information about non-users through users, etc.

In my observation, most Facebook users share way more personal information
than I ever did. Which makes me wonder, given how much information people are
sharing willfully, why does Facebook feel the need to try to secretly collect
even _more_ information?

Scary.

------
want2know
Paying for privacy sound nice but I never had a Facebook account and am 100%
sure I got a profile.

Facebook goes through all the data of Facebook users I know.

So I am sure I am tagged on photos and they might already know a lot about me.

And that's what I think is most evil about Facebook. Even people without an
internet connection might have a profile.

------
andrew_
The aggregation of local events on Facebook is second to none. I tried leaving
that behind and found I was missing out on a litany of events not broadcast
elsewhere. As long as that holds true, I maintain a spartan, unconnected,
minimal account there.

~~~
biql
Maybe that's the next big thing. A few now popular apps started as "that one
thing the FB is used for but as a separate app". Instagram comes to mind.

------
AdmiralAsshat
I imagine a good number of people are like me and would _like_ to close their
Facebook account, but are afraid of losing that circle of friends and family
that they have no other easy way of contacting.

A useful feature (albeit one that Facebook would never, ever implement, as it
would facilitate people leaving their platform) would be to have closure page
with a final statement or forwarding address, e.g.:

"I've decided to close my Facebook account. You can still reach me at:
myname@emailprovider.com"

~~~
maximente
you could just close and not delete. it's very easy (too easy imo) to re-open
a closed facebook account.

or do you mean the people with whom you don't regularly contact but might one
day? i've found this is sort of an unwillingness to close doors type thing,
hanging on to things that cannot be hung on to (especially true of more
vagabond types, travelers, movers etc. who have a lot of these connections in
areas they don't live).

the truly important people you can FB message with contact details, wait until
they ack, then proceed.

------
Gys
> “People think they have a level of privacy they don’t. Why don’t they give
> me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you’ll keep my data more
> secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers.”

I think advertisers are offering more money ;-)

Maybe the taxes should be higher for companies that make money from selling
data.

------
hadsed
Woz admits that there are benefits to FB. What he's talking about is the
privacy angle. So what's the optimal usage pattern here to enjoy the benefits
and still keep your privacy safe?

I think it's actually pretty straightforward with regards to FB.

First of all if you find yourself scrolling through the news feed for anything
that isn't relevant to your daily life, the argument is more about mental
health than privacy here to stop excessive use like that. Same for Instagram,
it's highly addictive, but you'll find you don't really need it in your life.

Secondly, use an alternative messaging platform for the small group of people
you tend to talk to very often and closely with. Preferably encrypted. For
everyone else, it matters a lot less that people might spy on your
conversations so just be careful to not talk about radical or illegal things.
The benefits of FB messenger are pretty nice in terms of convenience, but if
you don't like having to censor yourself get the other person to join
WhatsApp, signal, or iMessage.

Thirdly, if you're using FB in the sort of community oriented way with groups
and the like, continue to do so freely! There's nothing wrong with doing this
on FB, it's a great platform for that and rarely is your privacy going to be
violated in this way. And if you think it might, then there are alternatives
like a group chat on Signal, or an anonymous/private message board. Those are
more sensitive cases which surely exist but I can't think of many situations
where one needs to go to these lengths.

I think the way FB and IG make money incentivizes them to violate your privacy
through clicks tracking. This only works if you're on the platform like a
zombie, clicking for hours on news or influencers or whatever. Maybe some of
that truly is useful to you, for example my girlfriend follows a lot of people
who do physical activity and exercise routines on IG. And from a privacy
perspective maybe it's not even that big of a deal, but I think most people
might find they don't need to waste so much of their time on these apps
anyway.

So at least for the case of FB, it isn't too hard to protect your privacy the
ways it really matters and still get the benefits of FB apps.

------
jokoon
I wonder if reddit and facebook can be compared, because I go on reddit a lot,
even though I only read comments, save wallpapers and articles to read later,
I very rarely upvote.

------
sonnk
Even if you don't have a Facebook account, Facebook still has your browsing
history via the their SDK that is usually used to implement the "login with
facebook" button. The sdk actually injects a iframe on the hosting website,
allowing Facebook to know every time you go to this website.

------
wilsocr88
Wow. What I would do to be a fly on the wall in the impromptu, perhaps
slightly anxious meetings at FB HQ right now. I imagine they're discussing
whether or not they should be worried, what they should do about it, or
whether they should do anything at all.

This has to be an insane position to be in. If you're responsible for the PR
(or anything else) of a company that an ever-growing number of people are
starting to suspect shouldn't exist (at least in its current form), what do
you do? Where you do you even start?

The only other such case I can think of is big tobacco. Facebook is (probably)
not quite that harmful or toxic, but I imagine FB and Philip Morris would have
a few things to talk about over dinner.

------
s3cur3
Question for people who have nuked Facebook: what do you do about a job that
needs you to have Facebook for, e.g., API keys or group moderation? Did you
just create a new, “friend-less” account and transfer the credentials over to
it?

~~~
BozeWolf
Got a fake account for that “benny van gisteren”. Funny to translate in dutch.
It is a saying for “i am not a fool”). Did not use it for years now. Most
companies have a specific account which can be used. Also not into building
that social crap.

------
gexla
People have mentioned in this thread why an FB account might be worth having.
There's also business reasons.

Maybe an alternative would be to setup a dedicated device with no video or
audio for all your dealings with evil empires.

------
vzaliva
Am I the only one who finds this ironic that this discussion is held at TMZ?

------
tracker1
Facebook is really the only place I'm able to connect with most of my extended
family and friends. I'm active on a few FB groups by interest, but also with
old friends from H.S. and a lot of other groups of people it would be
difficult to break or migrate from.

If there were a social network that charged an active fee, that I could say
pay $20-40/year for myself and be able to invite maybe 10-15 others whose fees
are covered by my own, that might get people to move. No ads, no selling
customer data, minimal intrusion.

------
gwbas1c
I recently realized that Facebook is addictive like cigarettes.

Why? Think back 10 years ago when everyone was designing their apps to be
engaging, sticky, ect, and judging success based on how long people stayed on
their app.

Facebook has turned into the internet equivalent of cigarettes.

What's really strange is the way we all make excuses to continue to use it,
kind of like how many smokers make excuses about why they continue smoking.

We're all hooked, even me!

------
duxup
I login here and there to Facebook.

I see usage among my circle of even older folks fading fast. Updates are way
less frequent.

Having said that, I kinda miss it being an option, for some of these folks
I'll probabbly never know what is going on with them again.

------
tonymet
This is one of those cases where you should definitely consult woz on how to
build a hobby computer but take light any advice he gives you on how to live
your life.

------
ryanmercer
The things that hold me to Facebook are:

\- It is how I know what's going on in the lives of all of my friends. While
the bulk of us still live within 20 miles of each other, we might see each
other once a year (if that) because most of them are married with grade school
aged children and when they do have free time, they're using it to take family
vacations or day trips. With Facebook we know what is going on in each other's
lives and still interact just like we did in high school, shooting the shinola
on each others posts just like we used to in the hall between classes.

\- As a strength athlete, it is how we find out about events. Take strongman,
there are 200~ ish of us that are all mutual friends with the bulk of those
being here in the United States. When someone creates a new FB event page for
a competition, you find out about it because you see "friends a, b and c have
expressed the are going/are interested in going" or someone tags you "you
going to this?" or when the person putting the event on creates it, they tag
20-50 people that they know are likely to either compete or volunteer to work
it. And during stuff like Arnold, those that are of the caliber to actually
compete at the Arnold, we get play by play from the people competing and their
coaches/handlers and those of us that aren't competing but went. When Jessica
Fithen won the SHW championship belt in 2017, I was messaging her
congratulations (and getting a reply) from my bedroom in Indiana about a
minute before the online online feed even got to it.

There just isn't a way to replicate either of those things without a social
media platform. I like know what is going on in my friends lives even though
we just don't get to see each other that often. Do we trade some privacy for
that? Sure. Do we waste more time on the platforms than we should, for the
most part yes, but considering I do get to see what is going on in their lives
without having to schedule months in advance an hour where we _might_ get to
cross paths if something doesn't come up, then it is worth it to me. And with
the strength sports thing, we might be in the same location once a year, even
those that are here in Indiana with me we might see each other a few times a
year because we are spread out 120-200 miles but Facebook lets us bust each
other's chops and support each other and carry on just like we do in person on
our phones all day long.

A few weeks ago I was at an event volunteering and had a couple people walking
by me "hey Mercer!" that I've never actually met but have this genuine
friend/camaraderie connection with because we have this digital space where we
are there for each other and do bust each others chops in a fun way.

------
gadders
Do people really care what Steve Wozniak has to say on anything these days? He
did some excellent hardware work in his day, but not sure that carries much
weight on Facebook usage in 2019. He just seems to be a reliable rent-a-quote
for journalists to go to when up against a deadline.

------
grandridge
It's funny watching you all justify your Facebook account

------
FpUser
While I do not care about / immune to FB, Twitter, etc etc, I liked the first
comment I saw on that page: "I really don’t need Woz or anyone else telling me
what I need to do!"

------
jasonvorhe
Why do people still care about his opinion?

------
thorwasdfasdf
it's just fearmongering pointing the finger at facebook. If you're that
worried about eaves dropping then you shouldn't have an apple smartphone or an
android smartphone or any kind of smartphone. I think the chances are pretty
remote that they're recording you.

------
nwah1
Agreed, and they should also ditch all Apple products.

------
spacegod
why not just unfollow everyone?

You can still message people but it isn't addictive because there will be
nowhere to scroll outside of messages.

------
wokawoka
think like the mass or think for yourself. Facebook dorks says...think like a
mass.

