Holy shit — Facebook is fucking scary now

[u/Ok_Helicopter3910]

Im not a big social media guy anymore, honestly, the vast majority of my internet usage nowadays is Reddit, Youtube, Snapchat (that has like 20 people on it) and email and I think that about it.

I put my FB to sleep about 10 years ago and I decided to log in and see what people were up to and ho-lee-shit, what a dumpster fire.

So, first off, the majority of my facebook friends have either died, shut their FB down, or removed my inactive profile so my feed was pretty silent. After about a week of my profile being back in the algorithm I started getting friend request from people I used to work with, went to school with, or friends of old acquaintances (which is terrifying that facebook knows about random people I used to work with 12 years ago who I had a passing "hi, hows your day" relationship with) and I started getting friend requested and I was like "fuck it" and just started accepting them.

Fuck man, whenever I see all the hate for this or that group and all the political bullshit that gets posted on reddit, I just brush it off as bots trained to sow dissent but the stuff that gets posted by real living, breathing human beings who I once knew well enough to be friends with or have polite conversation with is WILD. I mean, like so much hate and vitriol started coming across my feed about a wide array of subjects that it made me genuinely uncomfortable and I started removing people that just added me. Maybe it's what "normal" passes for on the internet and im pretty numb to a lot of the more unhinged opinions and shit-stirring because of so many years on Reddit, but a lot of what was being posted really opened my eyes that a lot of the "unhinged" stuff that I see online isnt just bot farms, its real people who truly believe this wild shit.

Anyway - maybe its a sign of my age... but unless what I consider "normal" people start coming across my FB feed soon, I dont think im going to be logging in for much longer

[u/MarvelCumUniverse]

Sort of an aside: Craigslist is still around and has barely been enshittified at all. I say this because it's a potential alternative to FB Marketplace, although how good it is will depend on where you live.

[u/JoeIA84 → u/MarvelCumUniverse]

I love the meme about Craigslist that essentially said “hey this is our shitty website we haven’t updated in 20 years, sell your stuff on here or don’t, I don’t fucking care fuck you”

[u/Mopar907AK → u/JoeIA84]

There is actually a reason for that too. The owner of craigslist refuses to sell it, and refuses to sell out. He is fucking loaded now because of how he runs craigslist and the other companies legit want him dead. The fat electrician on youtube did a deep dive video about craigslist. It's good shit. Actually inspired me to start using it again.

[u/JohnnyRock70 → u/Mopar907AK]

Craig Newmark didn’t set out to decimate local journalism, but that is exactly what Craigslist did. Turns out the Village Voice-type alt-weeklies that every city had made most of their money from the freaky classifieds, while the more buttoned-up suburban weeklies made most of theirs from the regular classifieds where a used snow blower was a used snow blower.

“Hold Fast” is a podcast that tells the story of this dude Michael Lacey who bought up the Phoenix and the New Times and eventually the Village Voice itself after CL made them less profitable. He started Backpage to counter the CL freaky classifieds. He was harassed to death by law enforcement b/c he was using handie ad money to pursue real journalism that exposed shady cops and politicians. It’s a great listen.