Yes, Facebook is every bit as bad as you thought.

Invasions of privacy, uploading my life into the hands of a greedy right-wing billionaire, and making myself a target for right-wing and foreign attacks? Um, no thanks.

But turn a blind eye to the facts. Makes absolutely no sense...

Destruction of democracy and ranmpant disinformation fueling hate and a pandemic vs. pics of the grans? For a lot DUers it’s apparently an easy choice.

At least they got to see selfies of people with their food!

But I do know that you're right, users make Facebook.

Others, including myself, will make different choices.

As mentioned I have no trouble with it. I hide each and every Meme (blocking the sources where I can) I see and am selective with the friends (the requests from the young ladies with impossible cleavages are just ignored).

It provides me with a wealth of information for my hobbies and I find it very useful.

It is a place to interact with my friends and family. I don't go there for my news and I keep my friends to a minimum. I have a Facebook page for my colorized vintage photos that get far more exposure there than they do on Flickr. Any political interactions are kept to private groups.

Over the years, I have unfriended a few people due to posts I perceived as racist or anyone who openly supported Donald Trump. At my age, I really do not suffer fools gladly and usually find it easy to just release them. Meanwhile, I am very selective about any friend requests I accept, even if they are very old friends or relatives.

But hey, it's all about the self now.

...though it did get a little edgy sometimes.

Should I get rid of my Roku because they carry "BlazeTV"? Should I throw away my radio because it picks up conservative talk-shows? Should I stop going to my local grocery store because they sell Goya rice, beans, spices? I suppose I should cancel my subscription to the Washington Post because they print George Will? --- This over-the-top Facebook hate is absurd. Y'all are just too much.

Or maybe censorship boards could be set up that would control what Facebook, Twitter, DU, Daily Kos and others post.

... it's damn near 100% ad-free. Y'all go ahead and gnash teeth, wring-hands and pull out hair... I'll share and enjoy photos, keep in touch, send birthday greetings, send condolences, and video chat with my kids and grandkids.

It's great!

People want it both ways.

Sorry you are scared of Facebook. It’s good to know your own limits.

I have no problems on my Facebook news feed. Don’t really see any propaganda at all.

The folks complaining the loudest about FB are those who have never really used it.

You could say the same about your TV set, or even the entirety of the Internet.

Shut them all off and go live off the land in some remote place. You'll never have to think about anything again. That's my advice to such folks.

But yeah, at the end of the day, Facebook is mining and selling your info. to the highest bidder.

My FB page is friends-only. My spam filter gets updated daily. A guy has to take care of himself, it seems to me.

I don't see any propaganda on FB. NONE! I see some ads, of course, but I see those everywhere.

Facebook is what you make it. If you don't care, you get a lot of crap in your feed. If you care, you avoid that quite easily.

However, non-FB users don't know any of that. They don't use Facebook; they just complain about it.

I don't have any issues with this on my FB feed either. And these repetitive posts griping about FB invariably seem to originate from people who have heard Very Bad Things about it but never used it.

Reminds me of the hysteria over Dungeons and Dragons in the 1980's such that one woman who kids I once watched for an afternoon (favor for a family friend) instructed me not to tell them anything about D&D since she knew I was a devotee because she "heard it involves Satanism."

If I had a nickel for every time I read someone here condescendingly telling others to "You! You there! You should write letters, send emails or make phone calls instead of using social media! Don't you know better??!" I'd be retired now.

But really the core of my peeve here is how we are perpetually talked down to and belittled for being so stupid to make a decision they don't like and using Facebook despite the constant hand-wringing here.

Let them make their choices, we'll make our own. Isn't that the core tenet of our belief structure?

Long time lurker, first time poster. Always enjoy your posts, MM.

No one but friends or friends of friends can comment, and I keep refusing friendships with all those studly military dudes. And I NEVER look at an FB "news" item. I get my news elsewhere; FB is for keeping up with the friends scattered far and wide.

Some of us use Facebook for very valid reasons. For example, my 75 year old sister has advanced Alzheimer's. She can't do much, but she can still look at photos of her children and grandchildren on Facebook when her husband goes to her page. She sees pictures of me, as well. I'm her big brother.

Please stop trying to shame people for making the choice to use Facebook. It's a little authoritarian, it seems to me. Clearly, you don't use Facebook, but you're happy to explain to everyone else why they shouldn't as well. Virtue signaling isn't a good look.

photos of my great-grandchildren. I belong to a Fb group called Science Funnies, which I like too.

No political crap, just good posts from Democrats, including, but not limited to, Adam Schiff.

People see stuff in which they’ve indicated interest, either by google searches or other means. I don’t show an interest in bullshit so I don’t see bullshit.

... do what's right, eh?

Others seem to have no problems with the service and are not seeing the alleged propaganda described.

Undermine democracy help elect Trump.

Frustrating because there are lots of ways to stay in touch without using FB! I have grand kids that live away, we send photos, share and stay in touch and never use the site!

Zuckerburg helped elect tfg and that is common knowledge. He meant with him at the WH and in general is a big part of the problem.

Those of you who use the site are enabling this regardless of ad blockers, and other measures. It puts money in the coffers they will use to elect more gqp criminals...tell me it ain’t so

managed to vote for Biden. Perhaps that is a surprise to you, perhaps not. My connecting with with the local historical preservation groups and botanical garden along with my hobby interests seems to have not made any difference in my ability to get to the polls and vote a straight Democratic ticket in November. I wonder just how that happened?

They are all active on FB...

Telling us peons what to do is fine, but please tell the important people that they are undermining Democracy. Thank you.

I'm all ears.

When the griping, scolding and nagging starts, the subtext is "I'm better than you because I don't use Facebook"... it's meant as a swipe to put people in their places and take them down a notch (for not being sufficiently progressive, I suppose.) It comes and goes in cycles. In a day or two this thread will sink... it will start up again in about 5-6 weeks. Ugh.

I have noted that Our Doom and Gloom poster seems to not have an answer to my question regarding my use of FB affecting her, but then I never expected a response. FB is like anything else, it is a tool to be used. How it is used makes all the difference.

... the preening condescension is what really gets me, along with the barking of commands along the lines of "You there! You stop using social media right now! Get back to sending emails, faxes and making phone calls! Write letters, what's the matter with you??! I HAVE SPOKEN! You'll do as I say or I'll insinuate you're stupid!"

And don't even get me started on the holier than thou types who come RUSHING into these repetitive threads to proudly boast "Never used FB, NEVER will!" the split second these rants start right up again.

Complaining about FB is mental masturbation for many on DU, plain and simple. And there are many who leap at the chance, every single time.

To the posts that say, "You there!..... " etc. You need to back up your assertions with facts.

With two posts under your belt, smatteson, I'm starting to wonder if you are on FBs payroll.

Tired of the “no other way to communicate” crap.

My entire family lives across country, so I'll keep using FB. During Covid, it's how I've kept up with friends.

I see no politics nor ads, because I use an ad-blocker and don't subscribe to groups that promote politics. If a friend or family starts posting wacky stuff, I just shadow block them from the feed I see.

YouTube has crazy crap on it. Reddit has crazy crap on it. Twitter is absolutely a shitfest of misinformation. If you think DU is 100% factual and doesn't contain lots of stuff to reinforce narratives that are not . . . objectively accurate, not sure what to tell you about that one.

People are 100% responsible for their online experiences. It takes a little bit of effort, but it is completely doable.

Once you realize the algorithms are designed to show you things it thinks will get you to engage more and click more, you'll quickly learn not to click on things.

As for selling information, that's every website ever. If you're using something for free, you are the product. And I do mean every website.

People aren't going to scold me out of using tools I find perfectly useful for my purposes.

I know! It's like listening to a Peta rant.

It's having the opposite effect - it's driving us more apart and making us more isolated than ever before. And it's also radicalizing people like never before thanks to targeted propaganda.

I don’t think we’d have had Brexit or Trump without Facebook.

Full disclosure: I use it. I do see propaganda. I see the effects of the algorithm controlling what I get shown; if I disagree with something a friend posted, it’s like, “You like arguing with Fred? Here’s a bunch more of his posts!”

I see propaganda from our side too — over-the-top stuff from Occupy Democrats, one-sided or factually wrong things, perhaps deliberately made that way to sow chaos. Like that pic of Obama laughing with a caption of something he never said; I had a friend who thought Obama was condescending but couldn’t say why; turns out he was exposed to a bunch of memes like that which created a false impression. I like a good political cartoon now and then, but of course those things are designed to be distorted. Now I get them from all sides.

The lesson? Don’t “like” something unless you want to see more of it. Don’t click on any ad. Don’t put a lot of personal info in your bio. Log out of FB on your browser so they don’t track your online movements. Don’t argue unless you’re prepared to argue constantly.

Even with all that, just by being a user doing nothing wrong (anymore), I am aware that I am swelling FB’s numbers and making them more powerful. Which sucks, as I become more aware of how they abuse that power to boost conservatives.

I've used Facebook since 2008.

I don't see any pro-trump stuff in my newsfeed. I don't see any anti-vax stuff in my newsfeed. Nor do I see anything that belittles the BLM movement, or supports the Jan 6 Insurgents.

I don't see any anti-science stuff in my Facebook newsfeed (but I do occasionally see it right here on DU....go figure)

Perhaps the folks that are apparently inundated with all of these messages that they don't want to see, don't know how to use Facebook that well. Maybe Facebook could do a better job of familiarizing it's users with the tools that are available to them.

But, for the most part, Facebook, just like the Internet in general, or television, or radio, is pretty much what the user makes of it.

Facebook doesn't post anything, never has. If you are seeing anti-vax horseshit and Q-conspiracy nuttery on your facebook feed it's because your friends are posting it.

I'm on Facebook multiple times daily, everyday, and I haven't seen one anti-vax post. Not 1 Q-conspiracy post. Not ever.

Again I am forced to say that most of you don't understand even the basics when it comes to Facebook. EVERY USER CONTROLS WHAT IS SHOWN TO THEM. My Facebook is full of rational articles urging taking vaccines, wearing masks, pro social distancing, and listening to Doctors and scientists. And memes promoting the truth about COVID-19. And the truth about Joe Biden trouncing Trump.

My Facebook is a force for good. As I imagine all other DU Facebook pages are.

Stop with the Facebook doom posting. Because either you don't know what you are actually talking about, or worse, you are letting you're Facebook page spread lies and misinformation.

You control what's on your page, not Facebook.

Nor do sweets spread misinformation about vaccines.

As well as Snapchat and TikTok.
Everyone uses YouTube it seems. There are other social media platforms, such as Clapper, a TikTok alternative. Medium and Tumbler are still a thing. WhatsApp is popular. Twitter, of course.

Should everyone stop using all of these platforms, or just Facebook? Everyone of them is problematic in someway.
Crap. Almost forgot Reddit!

Could go back to email, or even letter writing I suppose.

I stay off. No tiktok either. FB is so toxic it's shocking. Good article.

I'm on FB but I have no toxic friends & I don't follow any toxic pages. Therefore my experience is obviously much different than those constantly complaining about it here.