Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

Hadn't been around here for perhaps a week or so, maybe a little more. On opening my reading page I find quite a bit more activity from friends. Wondering whether this is related to people's disenchantment with FB, compounded by the recent changes in it... the flight to BlueSky, etc. Now, neither BSky nor DW are a direct replacement for FB. For me, that would mean events, pages, groups and, most of all, reach. My friends and family in three continents are on FB. They are not here on DW and not either in BSky. There have been attempts at a more direct replacement for FB in the past but... alas, again, the problem has been reach. I'm told there are a couple of efforts by people to develop something that more closely resembles those aspects of FB that I mentioned but the main problem would still be reach: are my sister, my family, my friends and colleagues in three continents going to be in it? I do hope it gets to happen.

In the meantime, I'm glad there is more activity in my little corner of DW.

I've been a bit worried on how much we depend on Zuck's apps for a while. Alas, the two branchs of my family (in Italy and in Venezuela), most of my friends and pretty much all of my pupils communicate with me using either FB, Whatsapp or, to a lesser extent, Instagram and Messenger. Even the neighbours of the building where I live communicate via a WA group. Yes, well, I have accounts on Signal, Telegram, Discord, etc -but they don't and inertia keeps things as they are. And then we get yesterday's outage. And, interestingly, the congressional testimony. I wasn't gloating (as many were on twitter) for losing access to these apps. But I will be pushing a little harder for alternatives, futile as that endeavour may seem.

A rather technical explanation of what happens, here:

https://blog.cloudflare.com/october-2021-facebook-outage/

Odd how a very light thread of conversation on FB about Babylon 5 quickly turns into a discussion about the current UK/World situation...

I was corrected when I said the world was in the hands of Mr Morden and his associates and we had Prez Clark for real. They said 'nah, it's Cartagia.....'

Mr. Morden: What do YOU want?

Ambassador Vir Cotto: I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave like this.

[waves]

Ambassador Vir Cotto: Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?

Yet another Facebook killer:

http://www.tsu.co

Looks ok, it's quite busy at the moment and has several interesting angles (some of which in their Wikipedia page). Do they have a chance? Erm... probably not. So many have come and gone. The main problem with Facebook is not features, it seems to me, but momentum and, most of all, reach. If you can persuade my sister in Venezuela, my cousins and old aunties in Italy, my friends in the four corners of the globe to switch away from Facebook I'll then believe you have a FB killer. In the meantime, it's just a little fun to play with.

In any event, I'm there at http://www.tsu.co/flaviomatani -you can set up an account starting on that link.

I have learnt that alohura has been kicked out of Facebook -again because her FB name is not what FB deem to be her birth name- without so much as a warning. In previous cases people have received a warning to change their name to something compliant to the incoherent, inconsistent, self-contradictory rules FB states for names. Now they don't seem to be bothering even with that. I've even learnt of one case in which the name of the person was his legal name after a change by deed of poll years before this. FB would prefer him to have his _previous_, no longer legal, name....

[ Edit ] vexen has created an LJ community in relation to this. At the moment it is just a place-holder but it may come in useful to generate discussion and possible action around this issue. The address is:

http://fb-v-privacy.livejournal.com/profile

In Venezuela, my country of origin, they have a saying, something about 'trying to kill mosquitoes using machine-guns'. Facebook seems to be indulging in a similar exercise. Several people in my friends' list who, for valid (and different in each case) reasons) have had to choose to use names which are not their birth names, have found their accounts deleted with apparently little warning and with only a recourse to appeal through a byzantine procedure. Whatever the origin of what is now happening there, be it a lonely loony troll rampage or a sudden re-surge of a misguided 'real names only' policy to 'try and make Facebook safer' or, more cynically, to 'be seen to be doing something about it even if they well know it is an ineffective and counterproductive measure, but their real interests lie with their advertisers, not their users', in any case it is resulting in a lot of grief and inconvenience for people who, again, have valid reasons not to use their 'real' names (in some cases their nicknames are what the only names the world at large knows them by) and astonishment and not a little anger to those of us witnessing this.

Facebook is a very useful tool but it also is dodgy in numerous ways -its privacy policies frankly suck, the very fact that they offer a useful and valuable service for nothing (other than advertising and the fact that we provide them with _a_lot_ of data that can be sold to corporations, and which if misused or mis-sold can be used against us, etc) which, as the old adage goes, means it is we who are the product.

I just hope they see sense -and in the meantime, trying to make waves and the tiny little bit of noise I can make (and, ok, mixing images) so they relent and see the error of their ways on this.

Google+ does seem to be taking off very quickly. Or perhaps it's the fact that I hang out with geeks -and goth geeks at that- who may be more likely to be unhappy with the failings of Facebook (especially regarding privacy, etc) and willing to explore alternatives. In any case, in a couple of days I find that a substantial number of people I know are on G+ already, with more appearing all the time. For a clearly as yet somewhat experimental and unfinished product that is very impressive. It might not follow the fate of Googlewave after all. We'll see..

Apparently there is a phishing scam doing the rounds in Facelessbook. A message giving you a link. There have been a couple, purporting to come from people in my friends' list. In one case, he didn't send it and wasn't online or near a computer today, apparently.

The link in the ones I've seen sends you to some 'areps.at' site. I could have been taken in, thinking it was 'arepas'. Hmm, arepas... :P

... first of all, Happy Birthday, sahra_patroness !!!

There are pictures from last Sunday’s celebration of her birthday, here (Facebook album)



also a couple of pictures I took at pitufina’s on the occasion of her invite for a tamales Christmas lunch, (also Facebook)


Finally, hope 2009 brings you all (us all, even) all good things! And, have a lovely NYE, whatever you may be doing. For my part, I will be at Vagabonds....

I have a friend request from one ‘Lolly Pop’ in facebook here. Who she?

[ Edit ] Aah, the mystery has been solved.... apparently...