Social Networking - how ironic

Originally posted by facchino

Will there be a world whereby interaction becomes reduced to virtual and social skills are a mystery to people?

It's already happening. There is a big difference in the way young people socialize now than when I was growing up. It has beneficial uses, but most people just take it to the hilt and over-use it to the point where they lose out on learning interpersonal skills.

Good thread, Facchino. Your analysis is pretty much bang on. Social networking? we used to call it 'going to the pub'. But no-one can afford it anymore, and a lot of people don't like to stray too far from their sky tv.
I have a fb account, and in some ways it is a good thing. I can keep up with family news, and I am back in touch with a lot of schoolfriends, living all over the world. It is interesting to hear how life differs from one country to another.
But I had an experience on fb recently with what turns out to be a full time local troll, that left me quite shocked. I had just posted a comment on a friends post, and some other guy came straight back at me, taking me to task about my comment, and also my friends original post. I patiently tried to reason with the guy for about half an hour, but eventually lost it and told him to go do something rude and anatomically impossible, and went back to home page. He then starts messaging me, offering to fight, and getting quite personal with the insults. So I block his acc. So he comes straight back on another acc. So I block that. Repeat X5 or so, it's getting into freddy kreuger territory now.
The upshot is, I'm a placid sort, but this guy got my goat to the point I almost went looking for him, and if I had I would undoubtedly have ended up with a criminal record.
The point I am trying to make is this. If we had interacted like this in a pub, he would probably notice that I'm about 16 stone of mainly muscle and bone, and gone off to annoy someone else. But from behind a PC, anyone can be a fearless warrior, and all the old social constraints are gone.

Originally posted by freebornman
Good thread, Facchino. Your analysis is pretty much bang on. Social networking? we used to call it 'going to the pub'. But no-one can afford it anymore, and a lot of people don't like to stray too far from their sky tv.
I have a fb account, and in some ways it is a good thing. I can keep up with family news, and I am back in touch with a lot of schoolfriends, living all over the world. It is interesting to hear how life differs from one country to another.
But I had an experience on fb recently with what turns out to be a full time local troll, that left me quite shocked. I had just posted a comment on a friends post, and some other guy came straight back at me, taking me to task about my comment, and also my friends original post. I patiently tried to reason with the guy for about half an hour, but eventually lost it and told him to go do something rude and anatomically impossible, and went back to home page. He then starts messaging me, offering to fight, and getting quite personal with the insults. So I block his acc. So he comes straight back on another acc. So I block that. Repeat X5 or so, it's getting into freddy kreuger territory now.
The upshot is, I'm a placid sort, but this guy got my goat to the point I almost went looking for him, and if I had I would undoubtedly have ended up with a criminal record.
The point I am trying to make is this. If we had interacted like this in a pub, he would probably notice that I'm about 16 stone of mainly muscle and bone, and gone off to annoy someone else. But from behind a PC, anyone can be a fearless warrior, and all the old social constraints are gone.

The amount of keyboard warriors out there is frightening.
As you rightly say - its like all sense of reason abandons them when online. No one would behave that way to a total stranger in a public environment, like a pub or restaurant?
It's also shocking that he went to such lengths to keep coming back at you as well. And offering to fight someone over a facebook comment...not sure he should be out in public really.
I would imagine someone that crazy wouldn't think twice about using some sort of weapon either.

Its when you see what people do on FB, and translate it to real life it boggles the mind.
Imagine you talking to your friend in a pub over a pint - then this stranger interjects and criticises what you and your friend are saying. He would be on a one way ticket to a punch in the face.
But online - it seems its OK to do this.

'1. Facebook’s privacy problem:
Apparently, Facebook is not holding up its part of the bargain where users privacy rights are upheld. The new “frictionless sharing” is scary. When you leave or log out of Facebook, your browser still tracks you, and the pages you visit, which goes back as data to Facebook.

Hacker and entrepreneur, Nik Cubrilovic comments, “Even if you are logged out, Facebook still knows & can track every page you visit. The only solution is to delete every Facebook cookie in your browser, or to use a separate browser for Facebook interactions.”

But logically, who knows about this, and who is going to delete every cookie and clear cache every time you visit Facebook? This is a pretty scary issue.

However, Facebook engineer Arturo Bejar explains, “I am a Facebook engineer that works on these systems and I wanted to say that the logged out cookies are used for safety and protection including: identifying spammers and phishers, detecting when somebody unauthorized is trying to access your account”.

Well, that is a relief, I think.'

article courtsey of www.sexysocialmedia.com...

quite an issue when they are in the process of attempting to monetise the system. now there is big money at stake and truckloads of lawyers, will it ever be a clean break for anyone wishing to bail-out. will all past embedded data of would-be leavers be scrutinised for potential revenue generation? i guess time will tell.


Users have filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the company alleging that the social media provider is taking advantage of users’ privacy. Are all of these lawsuits a sign of more bad news to come for the social media giant?

courtsey of www.creditreport.org...

f.

reply to post by fakedirt


Quite worrying - are they able to track online purchases, banking, emails?
Who knows what these people have managed to procure that is, quite simply, nothing to do with them
How they are able to get away with doing this is beyond me - its creepy.
If they want to track what someone clicks on within the facebook page - fair game.
Not outside of that. Unacceptable.

reply to post by facchino


two suits from a large company here in the uk attempted to persuade me in joining their system of targetted advertising similar to the 'frictionless' system mentioned above. i kept my mouth shut whilst they pitched the concept. eventually i informed them i knew of this system and it's ability to track everything on an individuals computer once the embedded script is in place. i also informed them it was open to abuse and thats when the silence descended, both suits looking at each other in what i could only describe as a golden moment.
i said no to the corporate trojan and sent them packing, cheeky gets!

this i think is a large grey area that is/has been taken advantage of. not everyone clears their cache and cookies every time they surf so they have imo focused on non-techno geek surfers. next step i suppose is the making of money from the data. specific targetted advertising where no two individuals see the same advert on the same webpage for starters. after that,who knows what lengths they will stretch to for revenue other than mass auctioning of data to third parties.

i don't think we are at the stage of too much worry just yet. consider a possibility that fb lobbyists could petition governments to legislate and write into law that an account is mandatory to access services and information. if this happens you will know some of the monies they gleaned on the questionable ipo was utilised to embed the system into possibly every walk of life. we shall see.

examples.
need a passport? fb account required
pay a utility bill? fb account required
register a birth/death? fb account required
etc etc etc..
f.

btw be careful what you sign up for. always read the smalls and ask yourself are there alternatives?

regarding what you wrote about access to information above, i would say it would be quite easy for any company to install embedded script, a small keylogger and allocate storage for your data away from your system. if fraud did occur either financial or identity, one would be in a difficult position to unravel the data and nail down who exactly took what and what they did with it. potentially it could cost thousands to procure the services of a forensic computer engineer and then his remit would only cover the computer in question and not the information that moved on. with so many possible scams and hijacks online, this is potentially just another one for the benefit of those with no moral compass and a head full of greed.

Originally posted by facchino
reply to post by fakedirt

 

Quite worrying - are they able to track online purchases, banking, emails?
Who knows what these people have managed to procure that is, quite simply, nothing to do with them
How they are able to get away with doing this is beyond me - its creepy.
If they want to track what someone clicks on within the facebook page - fair game.
Not outside of that. Unacceptable.

hello facchino.
i had to add the fact that when you use online checkouts and banking, you should be in a secure page. https instead of http on the address bar. you should also see a padlock on the bottom of the browser page. hyper-text transfer protocol secure ensures that the site is secure for transactions. it may not cover any vunerabilities in ones browser or keyloggers/trojans present in ones system. ensure the browser is updated as well as anti-virus sigs, firewall etc..
whether the frictionless cookies have access to deep information is anyone guess at the moment. i haven't come across any information as of yet that pertains to this kind of system hijacking sensitive data and leaving an individual financially at a loss. i'll be watching for this though as it seems possible.

best wishes fakedirt.

btw never open your email whilst your internet browser is running. and if you are worried about vunerabilities check out grc.com. it's a cool site that will show which ports on your computer are open. i would at the very least have a back-up drive with all sensitive data on only to be accessed when needed.

I find it sad that young kids too early for FB and twitter and the likes, only have the babysitter the XBOX and such as friends. They play there hockey online instead of in the street, there is no guns in the forest because there is call of duty on your box. They get over 13 and can make a FB, bye that time already having cellphones, and most kids I know will send a text to a person across the room.

I feel in todays day and age we are going to have so many children grow up unable to write actual letters with pens, because of computers, children who can't form a sentence with out using text speak. Pretty sad, bet parents have even changed up it's no longer, go play outside cause the technological babysitter is doing such a great job.

As close as the social network gets us, I personally feel it has also been driving us further apart, the future is a scary place can only imagine what our world looks like in ten yrs, mute intorverts only able to communicate through there devices. Sad

SaneThinking

reply to post by SaneThinking



you are quite right. one could say the system has become the middleman in all facets of life.
yesterday i went for a four mile drag with the husky. there were two boys, about ten years of age huddled around a phone watching porn judging from the sounds coming from them in broad daylight. when they clocked me they simulated an adult act on a traffic bollard. there was not much i could say so i just walked past. it's a difficult call when situations like this manifest. if in doubt do nowt!
f.

Originally posted by SaneThinking
I find it sad that young kids too early for FB and twitter and the likes, only have the babysitter the XBOX and such as friends. They play there hockey online instead of in the street, there is no guns in the forest because there is call of duty on your box. They get over 13 and can make a FB, bye that time already having cellphones, and most kids I know will send a text to a person across the room.

I feel in todays day and age we are going to have so many children grow up unable to write actual letters with pens, because of computers, children who can't form a sentence with out using text speak. Pretty sad, bet parents have even changed up it's no longer, go play outside cause the technological babysitter is doing such a great job.

As close as the social network gets us, I personally feel it has also been driving us further apart, the future is a scary place can only imagine what our world looks like in ten yrs, mute intorverts only able to communicate through there devices. Sad

SaneThinking

Sad Sad Sad


just that ^^^ really. It is forcing people to become less sociable, as in my title, the irony is astounding.
Social networking - that leads more people to just become less able to interact with those around them.
Yet no one can see it coming.
I hope and pray for a backlash against it, but almost everyone I know uses it to some degree, with the majority of them hooked on it and posting numerous times a day.

Originally posted by facchino

Originally posted by SaneThinking
I find it sad that young kids too early for FB and twitter and the likes, only have the babysitter the XBOX and such as friends. They play there hockey online instead of in the street, there is no guns in the forest because there is call of duty on your box. They get over 13 and can make a FB, bye that time already having cellphones, and most kids I know will send a text to a person across the room.

I feel in todays day and age we are going to have so many children grow up unable to write actual letters with pens, because of computers, children who can't form a sentence with out using text speak. Pretty sad, bet parents have even changed up it's no longer, go play outside cause the technological babysitter is doing such a great job.

As close as the social network gets us, I personally feel it has also been driving us further apart, the future is a scary place can only imagine what our world looks like in ten yrs, mute intorverts only able to communicate through there devices. Sad

SaneThinking

Sad Sad Sad


just that ^^^ really. It is forcing people to become less sociable, as in my title, the irony is astounding.
Social networking - that leads more people to just become less able to interact with those around them.
Yet no one can see it coming.
I hope and pray for a backlash against it, but almost everyone I know uses it to some degree, with the majority of them hooked on it and posting numerous times a day.

There was a sci-fi show back in the 90s called Sliders. One episode featured an earth where everyone was gone (except a boy and a girl) due to the fact that everyone had killed each other off in real life video games. They had no social skills, were very reclusive, and didn't interact with each other, but they could use technology. Today's world reminds me of that episode frequently.

I deleted my facebook account after reading about how they didn't believe in privacy. The line for me was when a man in Egypt criticized Islam and his government asked facebook to give them his information, which they did without complaint. The man is now serving three years of hard labor. I can't support a site that would be complicit in doing that to a person.

I deleted my FB about 2 weeks ago and as soon as I did it, it seemed like this huge weight was lifted from my shoulders; I really felt like I did the right thing and have been trying to convince my friends to do the same but they think I am crazy, literally.

Basically it felt AWESOME.

Originally posted by albertabound
I deleted my FB about 2 weeks ago and as soon as I did it, it seemed like this huge weight was lifted from my shoulders; I really felt like I did the right thing and have been trying to convince my friends to do the same but they think I am crazy, literally.

Basically it felt AWESOME.

Feel exactly the same way - its like you've stepped off a merry go round that was making you dizzy and brain dead...focusing on things that are improving myself not bringing me down to that base level those sites seem to be geared towards...make people obsess over meaningless things and all the time big events go on in the world and no one cares...
It's like one big fat doobie the whole world is smoking...
"yea man there's nothing to worry about here, have some pizza and watch xfactor, let's tell all our friends how cool we are cause we are doing this"
Meanwhile the eurozone is crumbling, nations are being attacked by unmanned drones yet no war is declared, politicians are removing our freedoms piece by piece until its too late...
Scary