‘Tremendous guilt’: Ex-Facebook exec’s regrets on ripping apart the social fabric

[SS Junk]

Had to do that with someone I've known for years. He started lashing out on friends of mine, which he didn't know, with his liberal and Bernie Sanders bullshit so I had to drop him. I haven't talked to my mom or brother in years either, but they do share some of the same friends I have so it can be awkward at times.

[4king]

Im on it to buy and sell stuff, but you deal with the bottom level of society. I keep my friends list small, it's always their stupid kid stuff

It can get dark when you see the younger generation raised by only social media, seriously im not going to buy and sell you shit when you post pictures doing drugs and guns sitting around.

Seriously surprised there aren't more Facebook robberies. People leave shit on their porches constantly, post pictures of stuff in their house say when they wont be home. Yeah roll through the house and get everything while you make them meet you somewhere

Make fake accounts just to rob people

I trust Craigslist people more than Facebook shit heads

[Shaggin Wagon]

I shut my shit down before the divorce and never went back. I missed it at first, but now, don't want any of it at all.

[LANTIRN]

I haven't spoken with my brother in years because of Facebook. Well because of his wife on facebook really.
My wife posts on there rarely. but every time she did share something with a religious or conservative color to it my sister in law would attack her (my wife was a Pakistani orphan adopted by an American missionary family while over there. so she's a little fond of Christianity.) Brother's wife did the same thing when I posted a picture I found funny about how the pro abortion people where calling for the head of the dentist that shot that lion. So when once again she attacked my wife online my wife asked me what to do. I said, "fuck it, it's just the internet! unfriend her."
So the last time my brother ever talked to me was to call me and yell at me for "unfriending his wife". I said dude, it's just fucking facebook", but he went on about how disrespectful it was to him and yada yada yada, then hung up on me. I mainly use the FB to keep up with my RC friends around the world, and plan for events we are going to. I never thought it would cause a rift in my family. But it's no big deal my sister in law is a twat waffle and my brother and I have nothing in common anyway. Party on folks.

I laughed at "twat waffle".

[Sean88gt]

I laughed at "twat waffle".

Ugh. My sister uses that term ad nauseum. A reason she'll likely get unfriended.

[BLAKE]

Ugh. My sister uses that term ad nauseum. A reason she'll likely get unfriended.

I think you can only get away with using that term if your name is Wade Wilson.

[BradM]

Ugh. My sister uses that term ad nauseum. A reason she'll likely get unfriended.

10 years ago my wife wanted to start a band named Twat Waffle and Thunder Cunt. They were going to wear super hero costumes.

[Broncojohnny]

You should only use Facebook to sell things to idiot or to keep in touch with people you never talk to. There are literally herds of fucking morons on there who have absolutely no filter to their postings. Even selling things can be tedious at times because everyone thinks their fucking opinion matters so much.

What this ex Facebook exec is saying is absolutely correct. It is tough to put your finger on but there is an odd combination of narcissism, co dependency and brainwashing going on. What bothers me the most about it is that the stupid among us are the ones who can be driven to do all sorts of outlandish things very easily. It is the ultimate propaganda tool.

[Shaggin Wagon]

10 years ago my wife wanted to start a band named Twat Waffle and Thunder Cunt. They were going to wear super hero costumes.

Thats one helluva missed opportunity right there.

[yellowstang]

10 years ago my wife wanted to start a band named Twat Waffle and Thunder Cunt. They were going to wear super hero costumes.

Pics of wife's twat waffle and/or thunder cunt???

[bird_dog0347]

The other day at a restaurant my wife was on her phone (facebook) and my boys (10 and 7) were nose deep in their 3DS systems... I looked around and I was disappointed in the entire place, not just my table so I told my family to put that shit away and WE should TALK to EACH OTHER. It was really good, but it's bothered me for a long time how everyone is stuck in their phones. I keep facebook to mainly keep up with my hobbies and buying/selling shit and scroll past everyone else's shit. I post about my kids so some of my remote family members can see them, but other than that I would LOVE to get rid of it.

[Captain Crawfish]

Most people who are on fagbook have some sort of mental problems! Something to consider. Not to mention the fucker that owns it is full blown libtard!

[Strychnine]

This whole shitshow got me thinking about myself and all of us here and how we compare to others in the world. I got my first AOL account in the late 90s or so, when I was in middle school. I grew up playing outside, riding my bike until my legs nearly fell off, only coming home when it got dark, etc, but then I was also in that first real expansion of online shit. Chat rooms, instant messenger, and most importantly forums.

The first forum I registered on was Team Chevelle - March 2000 when I Was 16 yrs old. It was a community of like-minded people. Sure there were arguments, differences, guys who would stir the shit (Racer1320 / Ed Bigley, lookin' at you...), but in the end there was a common thread that brought everyone to that place. Even on forums there were a lot of people (myself included) who used their real name as their screen name. Good, bad, or otherwise there was still a community.

Same goes for this site. I think we've all had a disagreement with someone else around here at one point or another. Maybe you said, "I think you're wrong" or maybe you said, "You're mother's a fucking whore and you blow goats for quarters," but there's still a sense of community at the end of the day.

The problem with shit now is that it's a free-for-all. The majority of these people in question (mostly on Facebook) never had any online interactions before Facebook. In peak-forum time people actually met up offline. The internet was just a tool to aid real life - now the internet is actual real life for some people. There's no regard for social norms and mores. You'd think that, in the end, the fact that we're all Americans would be the common ground that kept us from literally tearing apart someone else's life... but nope. Zero accountability combined with a lack of empathy (which comes from the lack of community and personal connection) has proper fucked the whole thing.

I remember when I had to use my @ttu.edu email to get a Facebook account back in 2005. There was a section for you to put your classes (e.g. "ME 3371 - Heat Transfer, Fall 2005") and connect with classmates to talk about assignments, teachers, etc. It was civil, and it had a purpose. In 2006 it was opened up to non-students, and within a couple years people's moms and batshit crazy aunts were on it and they came with no appreciation for how to behave in a "public" online place.

Looking back, having been an observer through all of it, it's all really fucked up.

[Strychnine]

Was listening to an interview with Bret Weinstein earlier and there was a part that was pretty relevant to this:

We don't want markets ruling the planet and deciding that anything that spits out a profit is therefore good, and that we should be exposed to whatever the market discovers can be viable, So what we want, ultimately, is to provide incentive structures that cause market to produce things that are good for us.

If you tell the market you want a solution to some problem, the market can figure out how to solve that problem, and it will do it very well. But if you allow the market to decide what problems to solve it may end up, for example, addicting you to your phone - addicting you to your phone in a way that harms your social relationships, harms your parenting of your children, harms all kind of things that are really important. For instance, the ability of your children to have an educational experience in school- we don't want the market discovering how to disrupt the useful functioning of people, we want the market to stay out of that stuff, and then to provide us the benefits that only it can provide.

Put yourself in your own mind 15 years ago and present yourself the deal that the phone represents - "Hey, check this phone out... this phone is going to allow you to navigate in a place you've ever been, and it's gonna connect you with all sorts of people who share your interests, you're gonna be able to say a sentence that you think is clever and suddenly hundreds or thousands of people are going to be able to react to it..." I mean all sorts of marvelous things. The point is, "Here's the down side: You're gonna be hooked into mega-corporations that are going to study your psychology and they are going to compete in order to keep you paying attention to their site. And they're going to become so sophisticated that you're going to lose control over your own mind. You are going to be come addicted to it in a way that you might become addicted to nicotine." That's a pretty high cost. What's more, you are going to surveil yourself, and your only protection from surveiling yourself is going to be end-user license agreements that you're not going to be sophisticated enough to understand. So you're going to be at the mercy of whoever has access to your phone camera, your metadata, all of these things...

The point is, if you said this to you 15 years ago you'd know to be afraid of it. If you told me I'd be bugging myself with a sophisticated device like that - I mean I can't even turn it upside down because there's a camera on both sides of the damn thing... The cost is really high. But we signed up for it incrementally in a way that never left the ability to say 'no' and whats worse, it is now inconceviable that if we discovered the net cost of such a device exceeded the value of it by 10 times, we still couldn't get rid of them. You can't unmake them.

[AnthonyS]

The other day at a restaurant my wife was on her phone (facebook) and my boys (10 and 7) were nose deep in their 3DS systems... I looked around and I was disappointed in the entire place, not just my table so I told my family to put that shit away and WE should TALK to EACH OTHER. It was really good, but it's bothered me for a long time how everyone is stuck in their phones. I keep facebook to mainly keep up with my hobbies and buying/selling shit and scroll past everyone else's shit. I post about my kids so some of my remote family members can see them, but other than that I would LOVE to get rid of it.

Good for you. I try and do this every dinner with my family. That's the time to discuss your life and things with the people who really care about you. I also host a no electronics party once a year normally on the 4th. And I try and take the family camping sans electronics twice a year. Last year due to work was just once. We stayed in a yurt looked at Indian pictographs cooked out. My four year old still remembers 8 months later.