@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl

As useful as FB might be for activists, organizing on FB makes me nervous from an opsec standpoint. I don't believe that anything is truly private on Facebook. Not even private groups.

@starbreaker @Wolf480pl @cercerilla We exist in a world where nothing is private. Your browser WILL track you and report your browsing habits even if you tick all the right settings. If you access the Fediverse on any mobile platform, you can forget privacy completely.

In an increasingly connected world, we need to be more concerned about how we can protect our information rather than whow we can be invisible; the reality is that we will NEVER be a fully private world ever again.

@starbreaker @Wolf480pl @cercerilla Also, look at it this way, Matthew:

Let’s say everyone in your town hung out at “Burgers & Malts” for connecting, but you decided “Shakes & Cakes” was better for all the right reasons. You may get a friend or two to join you, but the AnarchoPunk Rebel Alliance will still only meet at B&M

This is due to the social nature of humans; they gather in groups and tend to favour familiarity, so once something is established, that's how it tends to remain.

@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl That's not a bad analogy, but I would suggest that having everybody congregate in one location makes connection unnecessarily difficult because there are too many people trying to have conversations.

@starbreaker @ayachan @cercerilla maybe this is an introvert vs extrovert thing?

@Wolf480pl @ayachan @cercerilla maybe.

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @cercerilla Not really. That whole entire concept is misleading anyway...and it promotes a social fallacy that only helps push a "normal" ideal on people.

The truth is that all humans are social. It's a part of their species makeup. Both biology and psychology will back me up on this.

This is a matter of not recognising--or acknowledging--the social element of leaving everyone in your life behind.

@ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla I feel best with few people around me. I get tired when there's too many people around. I hate parties. Call it whatever you like. Call me insane. But don't try to tell me that I actually enjoy lots-of-people-in-one-place when I don't.

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @cercerilla I never said anything of the sort. What I said was that the "introvert versus extrovert" argument is misleading and a social fallacy.

Some of us prefer social interactions differently from others. But it's very nuanced and the I vs E argument creates a binary where there is no binary to be had.

@ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla
then provide a better mathematical model.
If we can't model it, we can't reason about it.

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @cercerilla That's ridiculous. There are all sorts of ways to communicate about things. Perhaps you are unable to reason without an explicit mathematical model, but many others are more than able to, myself included.

@ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla ok, then why do you not want me to keep my mathematical single-axis model, where one direction is called introvert and the other is called extrovert? That's the only tool I have, and you want to take it away from me, to make me more clueless?

@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl Not all humans are equally social. Some, perhaps even most, people would die or suffer debilitating mental illness if placed in solitary confinement or were simply deprived of meaningful social interactions.

Others have or find ways to survive, if not thrive. It's not impossible, just damned hard.

@starbreaker @Wolf480pl @cercerilla Nowhere in any of what I said did I claim that people are equally social. What I said over and over and over is that humans are social creatures and that we need to be able to connect with other people in some way. I also said that people appreciate familiarity and that we are not going to have to accept some things about common meeting places.

@ayachan
Let me chime in as someone who never started using Facebook in the first place. I've never felt like I've missed out by not joining Facebook. I never did and never will because I knew from the start what the conpany was really up to. I know you say "privacy is dead," but I disagree with you - and have the technical means to at least make my online life more private.
@cercerilla @Wolf480pl @starbreaker

@starbreaker @Wolf480pl @cercerilla I've discussed before why having too many splintered factions with full power apiece is problematic (it's the same reason why I am a communist and believe in central organisation), so I won't get huge into that.

What I will say is that having everyone in the same place allows everyone to work together easier and keep themselves organised better. Think about how hard it would be to travel from place to place and connect over distances in my analogy.

@ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla from what I understood, in your analogy, Shakes & Cakes was across the street, or at least in the same town as Burgers & Malts

Also, it's good to be able to gather a few (max 8) people in a quiet space to talk without others interfering

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @cercerilla My analogy never explicitly stated the distance between places. That was entirely on purpose.

Plus, you need to consider that people may not want to go across the street. We cannot rely on our own feelings to determine how others around us might feel. To do so is a fallacy in social understanding.

@ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla @Wolf480pl
It's easy to say "just give it up" and forget the importance of close social connections. Without FB I would have no contact with my friends, be isolated from networking events, and not attending any social organizing/protests.

Some people, for a variety of reasons, don't have the ability to leave and that's OK. Each person should decide what works best for them, and it's unhelpful to judge others when you don't know their situation.

@thindol @Wolf480pl @cercerilla @starbreaker (1/2)

Consider this quote, everyone:

"I...learned what it meant to miss out and not to be part of groups anymore.

When I met friends, I needed to be updated about earlier group exchanges. I had to continually ask my wife about discussions in our kids’ school groups. She became understandably annoyed when forced to scroll through 94 new messages about the next birthday party or unexpected drama in the kindergarden of our two toddlers."

@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl @thindol I know what is to miss out and not be part of group. I actually like it.

@starbreaker @thindol @Wolf480pl @cercerilla In that case, consider the fact that the majority of people don't like that and would feel completely isolated and depressed beyond belief.

This isn't an issue of introversion and extroversion, either. Consider the fact that you communicate a great deal with people here and enjoy the community here. You're still a social creature; the only difference is that you found the right community.

@ayachan @starbreaker @thindol @cercerilla I am a social creature, but I tend to prefer smaller communities than most people prefer.

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @thindol @cercerilla That's fine. Nowhere in any of what I said did I presume what you are. I spoke of broad concerns I had about the binary I vs E argument.

@ayachan @starbreaker @thindol @cercerilla it's always a real number (or floating point), the binary just tells us if it's above or below average. Most tests say sth like "37% introvert" not simply "introvert"

@Wolf480pl @starbreaker @thindol @cercerilla Those numbers still imply nuance and the nuance is what matters the most. My point here is that there is no such thing as a person who needs absolutely nobody.

I would like to know why you're arguing with me over something we agree about: everyone socialises differently. Nowhere in any of what I said did I ever state--much less imply--that everyone socialises the same way. I would appreciate it if you stopped putting words in my mouth.

@ayachan @starbreaker @thindol @cercerilla
Sorry, I initally misunderstood your point.
OTOH, I still think introvert vs extrovert is the only tool I have for understading how people are social differenrly.
I feel endangered because you said my tool is bad.
Imagine if I had a defect of vision, and had to wear glasses. Then you say my glasses are bad because they distort reality. But for me, they are the only way to actually see anything.

@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl @thindol I've found the right community for now. I'll stay as long as it suits me to do so, and as long as I remain welcome.

I'm not that tightly attached. I grew up without friends or social acceptance, and I learned not to depend on either.

@starbreaker @thindol @Wolf480pl @cercerilla Then that is how you interact. Everyone interacts differently.

@ayachan @cercerilla @Wolf480pl @thindol Admittedly, part of my stance is performative toxic masculinity.

Rather than trying to dominate others, I try to show that I cannot be dominated, and that even the threat of ostracism holds little power over me.

@thindol @Wolf480pl @cercerilla @ayachan Judging is a bad habit of mine. The best I can manage is to refrain from telling friends, family, and coworkers who complain about Facebook what I actually think.

Instead, I just nod and make polite noises until they either go away or change the subject. Preferably the former, given the emotional labor involved in keeping my opinion to myself.

@starbreaker @cercerilla @Wolf480pl @thindol If you recognise being judgemental as a character flaw, then you should spend some real effort on trying to improve that. I will say right now that being judgemental is one of the easiest ways to become blind to one's own privilege.

@thindol @Wolf480pl @cercerilla @starbreaker (2/2)

The aforementioned quote from the following article:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/05/whatsapp-deleting-year-what-i-learned

I agree with absolutely everything Vampire Harpy says here; being able to move platforms is not only a matter of privilege, but an issue of social importance. If you can afford to lose all your friends, then you can move...but if we're all to be honest, none of us can really afford that.

@thindol @ayachan @starbreaker @cercerilla @Wolf480pl
For me it helps my family and I stay in touch and keep connected in a way we wouldn't otherwise. I don't really want most of my family on my other social media pages.

@thindol @Wolf480pl @starbreaker @ayachan for me a big concern was the knowledge that by leaving FB I put a great deal of emotional labor onto my spouse. We had a discussion about it and decided that it was acceptable for us, but I think it’s important to be cognizant of how FB is, for a lot of folks, a tool for performing emotional labor. Given how much of this emotional labor is offloaded to women, I think it’s important to consider FB use in general a feminist issue

@cercerilla @ayachan @Wolf480pl @thindol This deserves a reply, but I had left your toot untouched for so long because I didn't have anything constructive to say.

@starbreaker @Wolf480pl @ayachan @cercerilla The point I'm hoping to make is that I 100% agree that Megacorporation Platforms Which Dominate Everything (Steam, FB, Google, etc) suck... they unfortunately also make up the fabric of our modern existence.

Perhaps a more productive branch is discussing how to mitigate the negatives of these platforms in ways that work for different people. Leaving worked for you, but doesn't for others - so how do we help? How do we subvert the systems?

@thindol @starbreaker @ayachan @cercerilla the systems profit from your personal data, so the most obvious way to kill them would be to keep your personal data away from them. For a moment I thought about end-to-end encryption, but that's no good - they care about the metadata more than they care about data.
OTOH they had sth about estimating whether a post is positive or negative, so...
maybe "don't use emoji or quick responses" and "use end-to-end encryption would be good first steps.

@cercerilla @ayachan @starbreaker @thindol Another idea would be to build third-party facebook clients (as in, apps for using facebook) and then doing some client-side filtering of what you get from facebook. Then add some algorithm that likes and posts random things, but filters them out client side. This should make the facebook servers confused. Not sure how their staff will react to it tho.

@thindol @starbreaker @ayachan @cercerilla actually, we could pull out all those mixnet, remailer, onion routing, etc. research and see how it can be applied on top of facebook.

@cercerilla @ayachan @starbreaker @thindol The problem is, once you get your friends to use some custom end-to-end encrypyion app, you could as well have convinced them to use mastodon/diaspora/email besides facebook.

@thindol @starbreaker @ayachan @cercerilla So the problem is: how do you protect yourself without cooperation from the person on the other end of conversation.
Creating fake interactions would probably work, but only if facebook has no way to tell them apart.

@cercerilla @ayachan @starbreaker @thindol But any such strategy should be coupled with a strategy that progressively pulls your friends out of facebook. This could be done by eg. checking fb only once a day, but having notifications on other communication methods. This way people would have incentives to use those other communication methods because you'd reply faster.

@Wolf480pl @cercerilla @ayachan @starbreaker My main strategy so far is: check only once a day, post nothing personal, use Social Fixer + heavy blocking, max out privacy/advertisement/app blocking settings, never like/emoji only comments if necessary, no personal photos/images on the platform, anything deeper than "hi good seeing you" goes to text messages, and encourage friends to hang out here.

Scary bit: They own data even for people who've never used the service.