iyo did facebook ruin the internet?

or was it just an inevitable by-product of a # of long-running processes that were/are changing the way people live on the internet?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/Facebook_like_thumb.png

no, you did

One thing I've noticed from being friends with a lot of ilxors is that a lot of the conversations that used to happen on ILX now just happen in people's facebook posts

Which is fine except facebook is so clunky that it's just such a chore to Show More Comments and it also makes me realize that that stuff wasn't really adding to my life anyway because I don't miss it here either

im gonna risk not having a nuanced opinion on this and simply state that having constant access/exposure to the lives//opinions/inner-most-thoughs/dinners/vacations/etc of other people--and what's more the narcissistically attended curation of those things--is a "bad thing."

nothing ruined anything

everything ruined everything

it is kind of the logical endgame of the internet though; the limitless access to information essentially and necessarily leads to learning what so-and-so thinks about obama's self stick.

i really have no idea, but i wonder what effect the widespread adoption of smartphones had on the typical content that's created and shared. seems like the kind of article/website/onlinething that you would create for the perusal of someone glancing down at their phone while waiting for an elevator would be different than what you would create for someone assumed to be sitting at a desktop and with a little more time

My biggest problem with relying on facebook for what-to-read-on-the-internet is that it's the same 3 people contributing 95% of my thread at the times I happen to look, and also there's just such an avalanche of stuff to read that I feel overwhelmed and shut down. OTOH it does seem to have replaced people forwarding things around or making threads about them to some extent. I still prefer finding content through ILX. I suppose I could open one of those tweeter accounts hand just have things twitted at me.

i guess the answer to this question depends on what you think is wrong with the internet, too. like, for me, an argument on the 'inevitable byproduct of long-running process side' is that the internet is now way more streamlined and standardized now. and of course standardizing things makes sense, and it's inevitable. but i miss the glory days of proto-blogs that each looked totally unique and were detached from the rest of the internet, or existed as part of Rings or whatever. now everything has wordpress over the top, or a generic Tumblr theme, whatever. bleh

Though I am an avowed Facebook hater, I don't think Facebook ruined the internet mostly because I don't think of the internet as a static thing that can be ruined by the presence (or absence) of one website (even a really big one). It's more that the internet is a constantly evolving thing made up of whatever it is that people use it for. Plus I mean, Facebook is going to change, and its reach will be diminished, and the internet will continue to exist.

One thing I've noticed from being friends with a lot of ilxors is that a lot of the conversations that used to happen on ILX now just happen in people's facebook posts

realizing i could do this was a big breakthrough for me. instead of arguing w/ the void i could argue w/ ppl who i chose to friend on fb. also they have better killfile + blocking mechanics.

no, you did

this seems really hostile

i feel like in my head im using facebook as a proxy for a bunch of things but mostly involves 'the internet' being less separate from 'irl'. like i dont think the internet is any less awful than it was in 2003 but it feels less anonymous and interestingly weird a lot of the time. also i do think that 'internet culture' doesnt exist as much anymore? idk

Twitter's way worse

Of course there's also the whole narrative now of the kids not even taking to facebook, using all kinds of ephemeral, non-verbal communicative devices instead.

facebook is so boring and mundane and most people i'm very close with don't really use it. yet deleting my account seems like more effort than not deleting it. for some reason i still browse my newsfeed pretty regularly, just as a general "let me escape this present moment" thing (not dissimilar to ILX, but ILX generally has funnier or more insightful shit to say) but not because i find any great worth in it. in general "let me escape this present moment" is a net negative in my life so i can't say i gain anything worthwhile from facebook.

otmfm

I also use it for, "let me get a quick hit of attention and gratification by posting something funny my toddler said/something witty I thought of," which has a pretty big overlap with "let me escape this present moment"

facebook ruined books

Facebook didn't ruin the internet, but it did some significant damage to the way that Facebook users (in general) manage expectations within their interpersonal relationships.

facebook ruined faces

one of the biggest effects facebook's had is replacing screen names/aliases with real names/identities as the default for presenting & identifying yourself on the web. like usernames obviously still exist but even on a site like twitter where ppl use usernames they generally have their real name/pic as their display name & avatar, whereas pre-facebook internet interaction happened on message boards where everyone was ShadowDragonX and had a pic of sonic the hedgehog

The whole thing of having to "log in" to comment, which includes facebook but is not limited to it, has definitely pretty much halted me from commenting on news/blog sites.

like i was always taught that revealing any personal info on the internet was A Bad Idea but facebook was the first major site to encourage it because of its origins as a college-level thing where that actually made more sense bc you were only interacting w/ people in your irl english lit class

fb is one thing the internet had to become as it mainstreamed into the "real world" i.e. the economy. i think it's a point along this continuum of claiming the reality of social interaction for the market, through a syntax of desire created from the forms of representation that networked machines allow. the fb effect i've noticed the most irl is people it would seem increasingly turning their lives into a bunch of discrete performed categories in this ongoing game for visibility, sort of the same for all social media it's true but fb was there first. not pretending to be an expert or anything, just cobbling stuff together from a limited pov

and fb being there first prob why it's the most boring lamestream version of it now i guess

xp 'log in to comment' is a necessary evil now because spambot technology has gotten too good

fb effect i've noticed the most irl is people it would seem increasingly turning their lives into a bunch of discrete performed categories in this ongoing game for visibility, sort of the same for all social media it's true but fb was there first.

and not like this is super new or bad or anything, just a thing people do that is aided by fb imo

people definitely did things for the sole purpose of bragging rights long before they could take selfies and post them to their news feeds, although facebook tends to elevate that aspect of social experience.

more like: did millennials ruin the internet or did the internet ruin millennials

my wife's news feed seems way more annoying than mine but that's because people actually share personal information whereas my friends are pretty laconic. something related to gender going on there.

realizing i could do this was a big breakthrough for me. instead of arguing w/ the void i could argue w/ ppl who i chose to friend on fb. also they have better killfile + blocking mechanics.

― Mordy, Monday, February 23, 2015 12:31 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark

You moving a lot of this to FB has definitley made ILX a much more pleasant reading experience, ty

xps definitely, it makes that process very easy and "liquid".

don't mean to march into the convo, just "sharing" some "thoughts" in a box. i feel like there were visions for the internet, flawed geek visions with totalitarian flavor maybe, that posited it as something outside/above "the hustle" or w/e but that was not to be the case lol, and that sort of thing is definitely being pushed against because it isn't really compatible with "we have to turn everything into a possible revenue stream", see for example why ISPs in the US are actually worse for free and clear access rn.

Twitter's problem is that people can hide behind seemingly endless fake profiles and numerous accounts. Facebook is way stricter on this and pretty much always has been so it's harder to post evil shit on there, or if you do it's under your own name. still happens like but even Twitter's head honcho did some major mea culpa last week about how useless they are at dealing with trolls/ spambots and how he personally Will Sort It. god knows how.

i mean i have my suspicions about why ISPs really want to throttle service but nothing solid at all, that info isn't exactly the first thing that pops up on google (lol) for a lazy researcher like me.

There's also kind of an interesting, unspoken sadness to my facebook feed when I look at whose posts make up 50% of it -- the divorced mom who quit her job to start an ill-advised business and seems a bit adrift, the "older cool guy" from my college town who I generally like as a person but never seems to have found his way in life, the middle-aged poet my wife knows from some discussion group -- also a very nice and intelligent person, lost her non-profit job a couple years ago and hasn't been able to get back on her feet, the perpetually single, the trapped-in-bad-relationships. And then also just a bunch of random parents and show-offs.

re what euler was saying, there are definitely gendered versions of the sharing / liking economy.

fb def. makes it easier to judge it's true

I find Facebook more depressing than Twitter because with FB you learn that some people, no matter how much they claim to care about you, think you want to read their repugnant political views. Twitter is a more appropriate place for that - I think FB should be like a set of concurring reunions.

xp - you know you can unfollow these people and your feed will change?

The interesting thing with fb, how it feels "different" from past internet experience, is the ongoing chess game with the algorithm -- how what fb presents you with is responsive to your behavior, but you aren't entirely sure how. Like if you are promoting an event, do more people see your post if you link to the event page, or if you game the system and post the event flyer as a photo, because "people prefer to look at photos"?

Trick question: The internet was never good.

twitter ruined ilx, facebook ruined the internet

xp - you know you can unfollow these people and your feed will change?

This is seriously the magic bullet right here

unfollow is so crucial

people show up more in your feed if they've been clicking on you / scoping you out - y/n? paranoid?

i still don't really get pages or events, seems like there are pros out there, i just want to make a thing for my thing and not think about anything, y can't i do that.

p. interesting to me how earnest this thread is -- like, there's a joke or two but this feels like a q that is important to people. I think about it too - feel like fb didn't ruin shit until the upworthy style of presentation got perfected but once that happened, fuckin A. if you don't curate the shit out of your fb feed it's just garbage clickbait forever and it feels like it's getting worse daily, but at some point even your ex-coworkers will get sick of that too and stuff will change a little...maybe? if upworthy headlines are the terminal point of social media that's kind of hilarious and horrible

One Shocking Truth About Social Media

think-pieces ruined the internet

wow i never get upworthy shit just constant deejay / electronic music / albums by bands news and social justice axes / snarky stuff from brit ilx zing crew ("look at that over dere!") but then i'm pretty strict about unfollow, if you post one annoying thing u r gone from the safe space of my feed immediately.

mordy otm about killfiling on facebook, pruning your feed for annoying people is so necessary. but i keep some in there just to keep me in check even though they are basically spamming my life.

i moved away from the city i had lived in my entire life this year and fb is an okay way to feel connected to my friends back home, so i appreciate it for that. i'll occasionally argue with someone in the comments but i don't find it's a great platform for that, better to have some distance than like arguing with a random dude u went to hs with over whether bill maher is islamophobic

i know this is a set up for a knee-slappingly self-deprecating comeback but communities like ilx or sa at their best is the best form of the internet imo. unless you're a celeb or "work" for it (lol) twitter is just too much shouting into the void (the only non-spam followers i have on twitter are irls and ilxors) and fb is too personal so u can't go full sociopath. like u get good writing, you can outsource a lot of 'content' mining to ppl you "trust", get enough feedback to not make u feel like a shrimpy voyeur, perfect anonymity

mords is always a welcome sighting, i don't get why everyone's always so seemingly annoyed @ u tbr. xps

that sounds more like instagram action than FB

You used to be able to 'unfollow' people. I have done this several times...

yeah i'm not on facebook anymore but i think i had about 80% of my friends unfollowed

is there a trashy horror film called 'Unfollow'? or did I make that up

nevermind

https://musicart.xboxlive.com/7/75711700-0000-0000-0000-000000000002/504/image.jpg

Is “unfollowing” still considered a huge diss? (Was it ever or was that my imagination)

two more from person a in the meantime.

i found the snooze option - you have to open a post and it's on the menu there, you can't do it from your main feed.

i thought the other person couldn't see that you've unfollowed them?

i'm on a facebook rampage, getting like 80 new friend requests a day from the gays because i posted a thirsty profile photo. it's been fun!

The fucking thumb...I've probably whined about it before on this thread. About a third of the time, they don't even make sense. We have an informal group that sometimes gets a 30-45 minute head start on tennis. Two people are away right now; I said in a message that if three more people (out of the four or five still here) don't respond, I'd just show up at the regular time tonight. Three hours later, one of them messages the thumb. What am I supposed to make out of that?

Are you talking about a thumbs-up emoji? I frequently use that as "message received / sounds good" when I have nothing to add but want the other person to know "message received / sounds good."

The thumbs-up, yes...In this instance, what does the thumb mean? "I can play"? "I can't play"? If it just means "I agree that you need three more players for a foursome," that doesn't help at all.

What am I supposed to make out of that?

"I'm currently alive."

i remember hearing a couple months ago that zoomers use the thumbs-up emoji to mean "ok boomer"

current timeline on desktop

Rolling Stone AU/NZ
the horrors of reels, looks like two standup comedians and some Mormons
NYT Cooking (I actually follow that page!)
The Tab (?) about a horrific yacht murder
"The Real Christopher Titus" about writing and shooting a finale 30 years later for his sitcom?
Old Friends Senior Dog Sanctuary (also follow, success #2)
more reels

I'm not scrolling too far up to see if this has been mentioned, but to view only content from pages you've followed, you have to go to Feeds. On mobile, click on your face in the top right corner, then select Feeds. On desktop, click on the 9-dot waffle menu at top right, then click on Feeds.

Further annoyance: I was asked to set up a new PIN this week for viewing message history (not a login PIN, but something just for messages). Someone told me this is not new, but it's the first time I've ever had to do so.

jfc: https://www.advocate.com/news/meta-robby-starbuck-ai-bias

The man Meta has appointed to help address "ideological and political bias" in artificial intelligence is a conservative influencer who believes that pesticide turns children LGBTQ+ and that the COVID-19 vaccine caused Matthew Perry's death.

Robby Starbuck, a failed filmmaker turned failed congressional candidate, has been appointed as an AI bias advisor at Meta with the goal of making the company's chat bot less "woke." The appointment is part of a defamation lawsuit settlement, first obtained by the Wall Street Journal, that the company reached with Starbuck after Meta AI incorrectly stated that he was involved in the January 6 insurrection and a believer of QAnon.

"Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” Meta and Starbuck said in a joint statement to the outlet.

wait can i get a high-paying job with alarming power over AI if an AI spits out something defamatory about me? is this how we're all going to remain employed after this all shakes out?

sorry Doc, I think this only applies if you're a conservative activist with a large following of gullible assholes on social media

like so many of our best job opportunities. darn it!

while I'm here might as well share more terrible news about this sociopath company: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/meta-ai-chatbot-guidelines/

Meta’s AI rules have let bots hold ‘sensual’ chats with kids, offer false medical info

WOW at every single example in that article

all the people involved in this should lose their jobs and be shunned from society forever imo

yeah the examples are genuinely disturbing. I should probably post this on the genAI thread too

At Neil Young's request, we are no longer using Facebook for any Neil Young related activities. Meta's use of chatbots with children is unconscionable. Mr. Young does not want a further connection with FACEBOOK.

A Facebook man don't need him around anyhow

https://i.imgur.com/4G0DONO.png

at this point i don’t even know

Are you interested in this post?

Yes, you're my daddy. No, I'm your guinea pig.

that image could fit in with that Jon Bois football story from some years back

pretty sure craig robinson of flipflopflying did that a while back

can't really find proof but so it goes these days

never not the sleaziest cesspool around: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/20/parents-outraged-meta-uses-photos-schoolgirls-ads-man

Meta, the $2tn (£1.5tn) company based in Menlo Park, California, said the images did not violate its policies

still sleazy one day later

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/21/meta-expose-author-sarah-wynn-williams-faces-bankruptcy-after-ban-on-criticising-company

with Charlie Kirk shit taking over the entire internet it feels like a lot of conservative slop has been leaking and I'm starting to see posts like this on my feed

Mourners in shock watched as something no one expected rolled quietly into view: an entire fleet of Tesla vehicles, headlights glowing like a solemn candlelight procession. Elon Musk himself had ordered his cars to accompany Charlie Kirk on his final journey — a symbolic gesture that turned a private farewell into a historic moment. The sleek electric cars moved in silence, their presence both futuristic and deeply human, capturing the weight of loss and the power of tribute. For many, it wasn’t just about technology or fame — it was about respect, legacy, and one man’s emotional decision to honor another in the grandest way possible. People along the route stood frozen, some with tears streaming, realizing they were witnessing history in motion.
FULL STORY HERE: (lol not linking this)
👉 More details below in the comments 👇👇

this has 35k likes and has been shared nearly 3k times, far more than any of the lefty shit I see (granted I am sure there's a lot of blue slop out there too). and I'm sure there are thousands of pages like this full of insane AI-generated shit for conservatives, all this shit just piling on their brain, anyway I am starting to think there are a lot of people out there who legitimately believe these stories, or at least think "well maybe that's exaggerated but the core of it is true"

I for one expect at least twenty thousand robots to show up to my funeral. I’ve spent my whole career tackling stupid software bugs, the least I merit is some respect from you fucking dimbulb machines

Burying a fleet of teslas would be a good way to unload some excess stock...

Someone on another forum shared an AI slop story he had gotten because FB discovered he is a Springsteen fan: it was Bruce Springsteen pretending to be a pizza delivery guy in order to surprise Steven Van Zandt for his birthday. Had a picture of the two of them with Bruce in full pizza delivery regalia, too (also AI ofc). The prose style exactly identical to what frogbs posted.

A more wholesome fake than the Charlie Kirk thing obviously but still unnerving to think of info-excluded ppl being fed this fan fiction slop 24/7 on there.

I am starting to think there are a lot of people out there who legitimately believe these stories,

My dad thinks Mossad are deleting his Facebook posts. Why not believe some teslas are dancing down the street?

Y'all what you call AI slop, some call ~the metaverse~...

and hey, here's some dorky glasses for you.

have a nice rapture!

xxp - there was a ton of that stuff when Ozzy died. Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger seem to be referenced in all of them

definitely something unnerving about that, I mean that kind of fanfic has been around since the internet started but with AI generating kinda-real looking images and older generations spending a ton of time online it does feel pretty sinister.

real question is what % of the likes/shares/comments are from people actually believing it? for all I know they could be 95% bots as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fbY0VXYahs

I adhere to the dead internet theory that it’s just bots talking to bots, maybe even me.

I am Botacus!

I am Botacus!

We are all Botacus.

this has 35k likes and has been shared nearly 3k times, far more than any of the lefty shit I see (granted I am sure there's a lot of blue slop out there too). and I'm sure there are thousands of pages like this full of insane AI-generated shit for conservatives, all this shit just piling on their brain, anyway I am starting to think there are a lot of people out there who legitimately believe these stories, or at least think "well maybe that's exaggerated but the core of it is true"

― frogbs

so when are we allowed to treat this shit like the doomsday cult it is? i mean, my god. anvil's dad is just one example. millions upon millions of americans, and it's not just americans, are, like, delusionally psychotic

ok i understand that i am, like, basically a healthy person, and like, at the same time, i'm also a transgender witch. how fucked up is it that i'm the voice of reason here?

People along the route stood frozen, they know how bad Teslas are at self driving.

never not the sleaziest cesspool around: https://indicator.media/p/explicit-ads-for-nudifiers-and-ai-girlfriend-apps-continue-to-plague-meta

I used to lightly roll my eyes at people who would always bring up FB starting as a hot-or-not site for Zuck's classmates, but they were 100% right about the rot at the core

did they take away the "Snooze Friend" function?

oh guess not whew

i find it strange that you have to open a message in order to block the sender, you can't just do it from the main feed.

one day i will unfollow the two people who i snooze for 30 days every single 30 days.

big day for our guy:

https://www.reuters.com/investigations/meta-is-earning-fortune-deluge-fraudulent-ads-documents-show-2025-11-06/

https://www.wired.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-school-palo-alto-shut-down/

They’ve rolled out AI suggestions for groups I guess?

I’m a member of a four USPS/union groups and a Fuji X100 owners group.

Now showing posts from UPS Community, FedEx Community, an Air Force recruit group, Hyundai Sonata Owners and a revolving cast of Army base related groups.