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Doctor Cringelord

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To be honest, I find Facebook overwhelming, draining, and barely look at it anymore.

When I did use it I would periodically go through and remove likes and unfollow certain people.
 

ceecee

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All my social media is curated by me within an inch of its life. I will mute, block, remove, unfriend and unfollow as I see fit since it's my social media feed. I have no idea why anyone would allow social media to be in control to the level it is. I'm not talking about professional or personal accounts being doxxed/harassed/threatened and so on. I'm talking about the general user.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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If you go into the blocking feature of Facebook through account settings and type in the word "following", you can see all the bots following your page and you can block them. It's been awhile, and I probably have another 50, but I have my account disabled right now so my aunt doesn't get more ideas about forcing me into the company with pretentious, sleazy men. You don't have to be friends to follow someone, so the weird bots tend to just follow your account and not be a 'friend'. However, the fake 'friend' accounts are how your page is hacked and then they send the weird messages to all of your friends that require them to click on a video and get hacked too. I won't accept a new friend account if I don't know the person and they don't have enough friends in common with me to suggest they are a distant professional associate. If they have no friends, I think it's fake. For me demographically the fake accounts tend to be a man in the military who is widowed, he only has one or two pics and no friends. I have no idea why, but that's what I get. I think men probably get a sexy lady pic for hacker accounts.

I did unfriend a bunch of the Trump supporters during all that mess because they were posting lovey-dovey videos of Trump as Jesus. It was a bit much. I can't lose it on FB because I'm connected to too many people professionally.

On instagram the annoying thing is when a random person starts following you that has nothing to do with you. Businesses and performers will follow thousands to try to get people to follow them back and then they go in and unfollow a bunch to look like they have more followers than people they follow. It's a weird measure of social success.

I'm avoiding my normal account there as well right now just for brain relief, but I do have a pet page that is connected to a whole bunch of other pet pages that is fun. I follow a lot of cats, squirrels, turtles, monkeys, a few hamsters and so forth.
 

Siúil a Rúin

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Oh, and if you want to make people stop following you on Instagram, make your account private, then you can delete followers, and then you can go back to public if you want. I've gotten rid of a few strange followers that way.
 

ceecee

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Oh, and if you want to make people stop following you on Instagram, make your account private, then you can delete followers, and then you can go back to public if you want. I've gotten rid of a few strange followers that way.

This is what I did.
 

Lark

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All my social media is curated by me within an inch of its life. I will mute, block, remove, unfriend and unfollow as I see fit since it's my social media feed. I have no idea why anyone would allow social media to be in control to the level it is. I'm not talking about professional or personal accounts being doxxed/harassed/threatened and so on. I'm talking about the general user.

Curating. That's a good way to describe it.

I wish I knew more about it, I get a certain sense at the moment that the whole ad game is carried out in a manner in which they are trying to dupe people or engaging in some sort of clever trickery, instead I think it'd be cool if there was some sort of conscious engagement with people for marketing and ads purposes, for making connections.

I've thought about this before when using Amazon and experiencing their predictive recommendations and stuff, which I would always think about, how they recommend fast moving consumer goods or consumer durables I couldnt use because I did not have the necessary platforms or precursory tech. I used to think it'd be cool if I could provide them with some sort of indepth survey rather than them engage in data mining and guess work on the back of the same.

Its something I've gotten more aware of on other social media platforms over the last couple of days. Like if I knew the algorithms I think I could use them instead of how they behave at the moment. Although maybe if I knew more about them they would not work, like a placebo drug. I do wonder about that.
 

Lark

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This is what I did.

I think that sort of thing is becoming "The Knowledge" for some users and isnt always that well known in cyberspace.

Plus you get a lot of dumbasses moon lighting as hackers who like to try and exploit the first sign of someone being unfamiliar with cyberspace, which I really hate, its a kind of social exclusion a lot of the time whether or not people can navigate cyberspace and its horrible that when people try to make use of what's becoming standard for a lot of people they get burned in the process.
 

Kephalos

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I don't think I follow anyone important enough to be "purged".
 

ceecee

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Curating. That's a good way to describe it.

I wish I knew more about it, I get a certain sense at the moment that the whole ad game is carried out in a manner in which they are trying to dupe people or engaging in some sort of clever trickery, instead I think it'd be cool if there was some sort of conscious engagement with people for marketing and ads purposes, for making connections.

I've thought about this before when using Amazon and experiencing their predictive recommendations and stuff, which I would always think about, how they recommend fast moving consumer goods or consumer durables I couldnt use because I did not have the necessary platforms or precursory tech. I used to think it'd be cool if I could provide them with some sort of indepth survey rather than them engage in data mining and guess work on the back of the same.

Its something I've gotten more aware of on other social media platforms over the last couple of days. Like if I knew the algorithms I think I could use them instead of how they behave at the moment. Although maybe if I knew more about them they would not work, like a placebo drug. I do wonder about that.

Do you use a browser with a VPN? That may help the Amazon issue.
 

Earl Grey

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Do any of you engage in regular unfollowing or purges of social media accounts?

I used to when I was first figuring out social media years ago when I was younger. My preference is to curate my social media such that nothing needs to get purged now. I only add people I actually talk to and would care to see updates from. At my peak, I only had 4 friends on because that was the number of people I actually talked to who had only facebook and nothing else. I myself never posted to my wall (I only used the FBM chat feature). Once they moved on, I deleted my facebook as well. I don't have instagram. I was always more likely to text or outright call than use social media, but that kind of communication is extremely uncommon nowadays and within my generation.

There was peer pressure and so many requests to 'create X account' and follow and whatever back at school, and I'm glad I'm at an age where my peers seem to have aged out of that kind of badgering.

Hobby accounts? I barely follow anyone, too. I bookmark / save the link to the profile or just do searches, and in incognito. (This is also why I completely forget to actually shoot people friend requests when I want to, it's out of habit.)


For a few days I've been unfollowing and changing things to see how it works and it really does transform things. So I wondered if anyone else does this?

Due to my above habits, I have never perceived this, but then again I don't get ads, etc either, so I wouldn't notice the difference.
 

Earl Grey

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Speaking of which, I do use adblockers and the like, and a browser that innately blocks ads and trackers (Brave and duckduckgo). I had recently used a friend's phone recently that is rich in social media presence and had multiple apps, and found that they received ads of their amazon searches in apps that aren't even amazon. I extrapolated and figured that that's likely what most people experience with their devices.

I can't begin to imagine the amount of ads people get bombarded with on a daily basis. Sounds like a headache.
 

Coriolis

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Do any of you engage in regular unfollowing or purges of social media accounts? I'm not thinking of people to be honest, a lot of the settings allow people to connect to others without them ever actually seeing each others content or accessing it, its just a connection and often an easier means to contact someone via a messenger app.

I'm thinking about all the passtimes, hobby or interests accounts, I figure that you can actually see updates from about four at most, with the ads and updates from friends accounts that you do follow, but you may be liking, following or adding more since the time you originally followed those accounts.

For a few days I've been unfollowing and changing things to see how it works and it really does transform things. So I wondered if anyone else does this?

I even know someone who has told me they do this about once every two or three months. This is quite apart from the whole paranoia about the exploits or hacks or tracking of personal disclosures or paranoia about profiling (profilers are more interested in people who have no social media than those that do presently). Even if you like the idea of tailored content etc. the way it can be changed with random likes and shares is pretty surprising.
I don't use social media, outside of a Linkedin account that is strictly limited to work contacts. I don't purge that, since my network changes mostly with the addition of new contacts. As for the Amazon suggestions you referenced in another post, I don't want merchant websites to suggest products to me. I don't want anyone or anything to track my online activity and take note of what I like, use, or purchase, for marketing or any other purpose. I block ads on all sites, so it is irrelevant whether they match my interests or not. I won't see them. I run a host of privacy browser extensions, and make transactions as a guest whenever possible. I don't have a Google account, and don't login to sites like Youtube, so any suggestions come solely from what I have watched in a given browser session. Even with all this, it probably doesn't block all tracking, but it seems to catch most of it and is certainly better than the alternative. Whenever I hear people complain about the nature of ads targeted at them, or the fact that they must endure ads on platforms like Youtube at all, I realize that it does in fact help. I tend to be paranoid, though, especially online.

I do think it is good for people to understand the effects of actions like purging and unfollowing, as you have explored. A big part of the problem here is a lack of transparency, along with a lack of consent (opt-out, if at all, vs. opt-in). It is hard for consumers to take control of this information implement their preferences when they are kept in the dark about how things work.

There was peer pressure and so many requests to 'create X account' and follow and whatever back at school, and I'm glad I'm at an age where my peers seem to have aged out of that kind of badgering.

Hobby accounts? I barely follow anyone, too. I bookmark / save the link to the profile or just do searches, and in incognito. (This is also why I completely forget to actually shoot people friend requests when I want to, it's out of habit.)
I do the same - save the links rather than sign into anything, and stay as anonymous as possible when searching. Perhaps it is because I am older, but I have not been subject to too much peer pressure to join social media or create online accounts. The few people I know who communicate primarily via facebook know to reach me by email or text. If younger folks are figuring out that social media are not all they were cracked up to be, so much the better.
 

Earl Grey

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I do the same - save the links rather than sign into anything, and stay as anonymous as possible when searching. Perhaps it is because I am older, but I have not been subject to too much peer pressure to join social media or create online accounts. The few people I know who communicate primarily via facebook know to reach me by email or text.

I think this is something about the younger generation, yes. I notice that when older folks don't have social media (especially more 'trendy' things like instagram, snapchat, twitter, etc) they're seen as a lost cause and won't really be asked to make any, but when you're young and in school you're 'not cool' unless you have a bajillion accounts with hundreds of followers (nothing I had ever cared for, and if not having them helped keep people off of me, the better).


If younger folks are figuring out that social media are not all they were cracked up to be, so much the better.

From my POV, it's like keeping up with the Joneses in digital form and at the click of a button. What a headache. People advertise themselves and talk about getting you more friends (contacts) for your account as if that's a good thing. No thanks. I doubt people are able to personally invest in hundreds of people and the aggregate of thousands of posts they make daily, so I can only wonder what the appeal is for people who do this other than the obvious social flashiness.
 

Coriolis

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I think this is something about the younger generation, yes. I notice that when older folks don't have social media (especially more 'trendy' things like instagram, snapchat, twitter, etc) they're seen as a lost cause and won't really be asked to make any, but when you're young and in school you're 'not cool' unless you have a bajillion accounts with hundreds of followers (nothing I had ever cared for, and if not having them helped keep people off of me, the better).

From my POV, it's like keeping up with the Joneses in digital form and at the click of a button. What a headache. People advertise themselves and talk about getting you more friends (contacts) for your account as if that's a good thing. No thanks. I doubt people are able to personally invest in hundreds of people and the aggregate of thousands of posts they make daily, so I can only wonder what the appeal is for people who do this other than the obvious social flashiness.
Keeping up with the Joneses is overrated, in RL or online. Each generation of school students has had their list of what peers need to do to be "cool". I was no more responsive to such pressure regarding the criteria when I was in school than you seem to have been. I got involved in what made sense to me, and as you say, attracting the attention of slews of people didn't. I was more interested in quality than quantity. Even in my Linkedin page, I connect with people only when I actually interact with them professionally, or have an interest in their work.

Yes, peer pressure to use social media is fortunately much less among older people, taken here to mean over 35. As a group they cannot be assumed to have the easy facility with these platforms that younger people developed, having grown up with them. As a result, from what I have seen, social media usage is much more inconsistent. Some won't touch it, some use it for narrow utilitarian purposes, and some socialize on it just as much as the young folks, perhaps even invited and encouraged by their own kids.

Whatever their personal preference, older people cannot ignore the significance of social media, especially when it comes to publicity and marketing. My volunteer group has developed very active profiles on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and now a Youtube channel, despite the fact that most of our members are middle aged or even retired. We want to engage the community across the board, and understand that social media are an effective way to reach the younger demographic, especially when integrated with our website, and email marketing. This is a relatively recent development, however, and had to wait for a "changing of the guard" in the group's leadership, to include the appearance of a few volunteers - not necessarily our youngest folks - who are able and willing to lead the charge. Now that things are set up,we are finding out that quite a few of our members are already on these platforms, and using their personal pages to share group information with family and friends. Of course, we still have our share of luddites who don't touch the stuff. I should include myself here, except that I am actually one of our most savvy members online.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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LinkedIn has even increasingly felt more like Facebook clone in recent years. Quite frustrating because I think it’s one of the only useful forms of social media and the only one I use regularly.
 

ceecee

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LinkedIn has even increasingly felt more like Facebook clone in recent years. Quite frustrating because I think it’s one of the only useful forms of social media and the only one I use regularly.

I have a profile there and I keep it mostly updated but I don't go there anymore to connect with anyone because it's just FB with job postings now. Which is too bad because it started out as a really useful professional tool.
 

Doctor Cringelord

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I have a profile there and I keep it mostly updated but I don't go there anymore to connect with anyone because it's just FB with job postings now. Which is too bad because it started out as a really useful professional tool.

Yeah. Tons of bullshit inspirational quotes and shit like that. People posting how attitude is more important than skills. Really? I think that’s debatable. I’d rather my brain surgeon or mechanic have skills than a good attitude, if it came down to a binary choice.

I do find it a useful tool for finding job postings though.
 

tinker683

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I've done this once or twice, but as a general rule I'm pretty cagey about who I friend on social media so this isn't something I need to do very often at all.

I made the decision after I shut off my Twitter account after Biden got sworn in that, now that we had someone sane in the White House, I would let politics fade back into the background of my life and it wouldn't become this thing I was constantly living with as I was when Sweet Potato Saddam was regularly doing or saying something stupid. I will continue to vote down party lines and occasionally donate to my local candidates but otherwise I long to go back to way my life was before Trump.

My social media feeds are now about sharing life moments with my friends and family and sharing amusing memes or videos, stuff that's purely fun for me, and I have no interest in anyone raining on my parade. For Lent this year I decided to step away and off of all of my social media accounts everywhere and what I discovered was...I didn't really miss them. I mean, it's FUN to laugh at a meme or video and share that with my friends, but I didn't really feel like I was losing anything.

Like ceecee, I have no compunction about punting or removing anyone off of my feed and I've made that abundantly clear to friends and family that political stuff will get you unfollowed by me, I don't care if you happen to share the exact same political ideals that I do. They can still PM or tag me in stuff if they want too, but I don't want any part of that anymore.
 
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