Serious concerns about Facebook.
I posted this to FB. I generally don't like to make a noise about this stuff. It's kind of how it is.
Until it isn't.
And it ain't.
Nope.
Thinking ensues.
Here's what I wrote.
I watched Zuckerberg today and I gotta say I'm disturbed. I'm not sure Facebook is a positive influence and it's making me strongly reconsider how much we engage with this platform. I'm not ranting, I'm not fb bashing, I'm questioning whether I am cooperating with evil.
Given that the very act of mentioning those two words can trigger a reduction in the visibility of something I post here, how this post itself is treated and who it reaches may be a verdict.
I am, and have been, concerned for a while that FB and other platforms have been throttling access to people that 'like' or 'follow' to get $ each week for posting things.
Frankly, we are not in the in-your-space-without-invite business. If you've signed up to 'like' or 'follow' and you get to control how much of what we post gets displayed, then why does Facebook want $26 if I want more than 10% of our 'friends' to see a post?
We maintain a low social media profile and we don't do selfies. We do Weirdies. Or Stuff-that-we're-doing-ies. Otherwise, and to the approval of a grateful nation, we stfu.
'Platforms' do not exist without 'Content' any more than a Library with no books.
Our lives, and in our bands case, our Work, are the content from which FB and other groups sell ads, our data and then charge us to communicate.
We, like other commercial entities seeking access to the public keep shtum, because we've been Dopamine'd and Pavlov'd into needing that next little red tick.
The web continues to evolve. What starts as a brand name becomes a function.
Not 'Myspace', not 'Facebook', but 'Social Media' and the concept of there being One Platform To Rule Them All is as ludicrous as the proposition that there can be only one email provider.
Think about it.
Social communication is a function. Not an App. Not a Patent.
I am concerned that Facebook has gone from a meeting and gathering place to a bad faith market that has decided to exalt money over truth, and money over access, whilst turning our content, our stories, our lives and our work, into sharecroppers tributes.
No I'm not rage quitting, but I stopped advertising 5 years ago.
I reduced my posting here.
I think I've had enough of this party, the vibe's turned sour and the host doesn't appear to be someone I want to hang out with.
How we manage the actual commercial aspects of this I don't know.
But there's a cost beyond money, and it's antithetical to what we are. I'm neither asking nor expecting this platform to change, but I'm going to start working on how we behave towards it.
