Week of 02/04/2019

Don’t Be Facebook
– by David Matthews 2

Once upon a time in the year 2000 – the year that did not give us the flying cars that we were promised – a little startup search engine named Google had a very simple slogan: “Don’t Be Evil”.

This was actually their code of conduct.  A message and a reminder that the service they provided came with responsibilities.

Unfortunately, that startup company eventually became a tech juggernaut, and apparently they were “too big” for such a little slogan.  When Google became Alphabet, they decided to change the slogan from “Don’t Be Evil” to “do the right thing”, and then, as of 2018 according to some sources, they just plain got rid of the slogan.

Well, recently I came up with a new slogan that I hope will spread across the Internet...

Don’t Be Facebook.

The idea came from a change in, of all places, Twitter.  (Yes, even I use Twitter.)

This commentator had noticed that Twitter had changed my preferences for viewing posts.  Instead of the most recent posts, Twitter decided all by themselves that I should instead see “Top Tweets”.  Of course, I could change the setting back to recent posts, which I did, only to discover that Twitter kept changing it back on me.

That led to me posting the following:

Hey @Twitter stop switching me to "Top Tweets"! Don't be Facebook!

Not long afterward, the pattern stopped.  My viewing preference stayed as “Latest Posts”.  For now, anyway.  But I would not be surprised of Twitter decides to start it all over again.

Since you’re reading this online, you probably know that Facebook is the new king of the tech world.  They are where Microsoft was twenty years ago.  Everyone wants to be them, and everyone is afraid that they’ll be bought out by them.

Remember Snapchat?  Still in operation, but not really as popular anymore because Facebook, which owns Instagram, copied their little filter application.

Remember Yahoo Messenger?  That service is no longer in operation, because too many people have been using WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and Facebook’s Messenger, and Microsoft’s Skype.

Google itself had a social media platform called Google+.  That is shutting down.  They just can’t compete with Facebook.

But my question to you is this... why try to be like Facebook?

Well, yeah, making mad money and having the most popular service in the online world are probably the best answers to that question.  Who wouldn’t want to be Mark Zuckerberg right now?  At least you’re not Tom Anderson, aka “MySpace Tom”.  And if you’re asking “Who the hell is MySpace Tom”, then you’ve made my point.

But do you even know what Facebook really is other than the 800-pound digital gorilla?

The best way to describe Facebook is to say that Facebook is an information brokerage organization that uses a social media platform to collect information volunteered by its users and then markets that information to other organizations for various purposes, including - but not limited to - advertisements.

Oh, I’m sorry... you thought that Facebook was just a place for people to post bitches and gripes and to share pictures?  How sweet.  You’re confusing Facebook with MySpace and Google+, which is what Facebook wants you to think.

No, there is a reason why Facebook wants to be all things for you.  Why it wants to be your source for information and news and gossip.  Why it wants to be your source for gaming and videos and chatting.  Why it wants your Facebook login to be used to access all sorts of other websites and web services.  They do this to get information about you.

Facebook gets to know all sorts of things this way.  They know when you are online.  They know what you do when you use their services.  They know what movies or TV shows you watch when you sign in with a streaming service connected to your Facebook account.  They know when you’re playing a game, which means they know that you’re not working.  They know what you like to eat and when and what kind of restaurants you go to.  They know what subjects interest you when you link stories to Facebook.  This is all information that can be used by marketing to send you ads. 

How funny that you said you watched “Fast and the Furious 6” and the next day you get hit with ads in your news feed for car dealerships and car parts and tire stores!  You like pizza?  Well here are a few other restaurants in your area!  You got a bonus at work?  Here are some financial firms you may want to click to get more information from!

Remember the “Ten Year Challenge”?  That was the stupid game where people were encouraged to put up a photo of yourself from ten years ago and one from today.  Well, it wasn’t long before people began to get suspicious of it, realizing that putting up two photos of yourself back-to-back could be used for facial recognition programs.  And the minute that happened, Facebook quickly distanced itself from it and you never really heard about it afterward.  It just stopped.

Remember the whole scandal with Cambridge Analytica?  That was a private firm that used data collected from Facebook users to help benefit conservative groups connected to the 2016 presidential campaign of Narcissist Donald Trump.  And you had no idea if you were one of the people that gave information to them, because the data collection also included friends of the people who were paid to give data.

And Facebook plays these little games to get your attention.  So they’ll switch your news feed from “Most Recent” to “Most Favorite” without telling you, and, even if you switch it back, they’ll change it all over again.  Because Facebook wants you to see what *they* consider to be essential.  And, by that, I mean the posts that people pay Facebook to promote.

As the owner of Get Brutal Productions, I am continually getting hit with offers to promote the pages I host on Facebook as well as every single post I submit through them.  They continually want me to pay them to advertise instead of just relying on the sharing of others, which is what social media is supposed to be about, right?

That’s why Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, is deluged with these people who call themselves “influencers”, who use the social media to promote drinks and vacation spots and clothing lines.  And that actually bothers me as a longtime online user, because I didn’t “like” or link myself to these people to be advertised to.  I visit their pages to see them, not the products they are promoting.

Facebook also promotes games at the drop of a hat.  If someone that you’re friends with on Facebook is playing a game or using an app through them, you’ll start getting “posts” from them telling you to play that game or use that app.  They’re really not sending it.  Facebook is doing that in their name.  They may even be encouraged to give you up in exchange for a reward.  I’ve had to block a few people because that’s all they were doing, even when I asked them to stop.

This is what Facebook does, folks.  They’re in this for information, because having and collecting and using information is money.

And you think you can out-do them?

Look, if you want to be the next big thing and replace Facebook, you’re not going to do it by being like Facebook.  People are wary of social media right now because of all of the things that Facebook is doing to get you hooked on them and get you to be more involved with them and what they do with that information.  Governments around the world are looking very closely right now on what Facebook has been doing and what kind of information is being collected and used on its users.  And, quite frankly, they don’t like what they see.

You want to beat Facebook?

Then don’t be Facebook.

Because let’s get brutally honest here… Facebook is evil.  Albeit a necessary evil right now for many people, including this commentator, but still an evil simply because of the information it collects, the huge question mark as to how it is used, and the all-encompassing reach it has on the online world.

The secret to being the next Facebook is to not compete with them, but to make every effort to show that you’re not like them.  You adopt Google’s original motto of “Don’t be evil”.  You reassure users that you don’t care about collecting information, but rather that they enjoy the interaction.  You make it about the users, not about the information.  That’s how you get them.

So stop trying to compete with Facebook.  Stop trying to come up with the “killer app” that would supposedly put Facebook out of business.  Don’t try to play their game.  Make your own.

Don’t be Facebook.