The point being, it is just as likely that the writer of this post wasn’t left out any more than he would have been in the past. What has possibly changed is that a funeral lightly attended by only a few in the past could now reach the many. In the past, he would have missed hearing about the death and would have missed the funeral. In the present, the same thing happened but now feels left out.

It’s a benefit to the mother who lost her child, but a detriment to the friend who feels left behind.

There are certainly other paths the world could have taken where such power and control would not be in the hands of one company (and one person, really) but that's not what happened and it's worth lamenting if you believe the problem of "keeping friends connected through the internet" could have taken on radically different forms.

I am around your age, and my 10 year reunion had its own domain name and website (still up - not sure who is paying for it or hosting), but my most recent reunion (20 year) was only on Facebook, and since I have never had a Facebook account, I did not find out until about a week beforehand (second-hand from a friend who was not attending).

Please be aware, this is a cohort that has mostly been together since elementary/middle school, learned Logowriter together, and had an HTML CD-ROM yearbook.

Facebook has made everybody lazy and cheapened our relationships.

How does lack of domain and website cheapens relationships?

The domain was named to indicate it was reunion related.

If you couldn't find somebody's email address, you emailed their friend, or called them, and asked, "Do you know how I can get int touch with so and so...?"

YOU WOULD NEED TO COMMUNICATE WITH ANOTHER HUMAN TO OBTAIN INFORMATION.

But now, if it takes any effort to communicate with somebody, it doesn't happen.

Only the easy communication...and there is not much substance to it (bullshit small-talk or just posting links).

The "easy-ness" diminishes the quality of interaction.

Facebook is killing communication and friendship much less then 80 hours a week work schedule combined with long commute and with people changing jobs every 2 years on average. And maybe add to it nearly complete isolation after people have children. If any moment not spend with work or personal project is considered lazy, relationships have to go away.

For you, maybe. For me and others, it makes it easier to organize events and coordinate meetings with friends. Why do you assume your experience is universal? It might be a problem in your circle, but that doesn’t mean it is in everyone else’s.

I did that in part because i didn't want a repeat of the experience i had with LiveJournal as an undergraduate, where conversation and organisation that had been happening in university newsgroups suddenly evacuated to LJ and left me on my own.

(I don't think these moves were deliberate attempts to avoid me. I'm still good friends with all these people decades later, and they really would have found a way to shake me by now.)

Although this may apply to OP's problem(s), it's not really the case everywhere. I'll give you two counterexamples:

1) A friend of mine is required to have a facebook account for school (woodworking trade school). They say "you can always create one with a fake name" but that's obviously a TOS violation and may cause the account to be deleted at any time (making schoolwork really difficult).

2) My basketball group has decided to organize things on WhatsApp, again requiring you to accept FB's EULA. I refuse to do so, which results me in missing quite a few occasions to play and finding myself alone in the gym when practice has been called off.

Neither of these things were done on facebook in the past. Yes, it might be more convenient to do so (for the organizing party) but it'll leave a bunch of people out who refuse to sign carte blanche EULA for a company that preys on our personal information and influences our voting behavior.

Both of these cases are examples where email or phone would be acceptable, but it's (only) slightly more convenient to use social media for those who are a part of it.

Of the soccer team, basketball, and parenting groups I'm in; more and more of my peers probably couldn't even define a "calling tree". To them, there's no "alternative" to group coordination other than social media.

It's just easier to reach out on [X Technology] because they already friend-ed each other the first day of meeting. And FB makes that easy with location-based friend recommendations. Who even knows phone numbers anymore? (Emails next...)

I've stripped most of my personal information off Facebook and now just use it as a messaging app and a "find me by name" sort of internet yellow pages thing.

And your social graph. You implicitly give it information about all your interactions and connections - and allow it to record even interactions you aren't aware of (like other FB users looking you up or checking your profile without interacting with you in ways you find out about). You're also opting in to web-wide surveillance, where FB track you individually across every webpage with Facebook social widget on it (unless you take steps to manage your browser's FB login status - and most likely even if you do log out whenever you're done with FB by using "industry standard" ad network browser fingerprinting...)

I’ve had friends have to submit government ID to prove that they were using their real name.

The problem is, that after you sign up and enter only your e-mail address, Facebook will fill in all the blanks for you, without needing any interaction from your side...

edit: cleaning up the grammar

Whether you consider facebook's algorithms benevolent or not, the danger actually lies in the fact that people's opinions and friendships are not forming in a more natural and organic way. If relationships and opinions are shaped by an algorithm from a single source, it's more prone to failure, influence, if not by malevolence than by simple incompetence of not knowing the macro effects of a line of code applied to hundreds of millions of people.

To Facebook _users_, the newsfeed is just a gimmick they use to get you to reveal more about you and your friends/connections than you would otherwise.

The next morning, however, the other coupons were all used up. He claims nobody else has access to his FB messages and I never bothered to actually check the validity of the codes on Amazon, so there is enough room for plausible deniability, but this coincided in time with this reddit post https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/79x7u3/facebook_em... and now there's that nagging feeling in the back of my mind that some underpaid 3rd world facebook employee read through the messages and decided to use the codes themselves.

I don't know, this is all probably a stretch, but that moment reached a new low for Facebook in my mind (not that my opinion of them was high before).

We put together a big list of people for a HS reunion, and used real-life social networks to (try to) reach the names that weren't on FB. Mostly successful and with a large nucleus who were on FB, easy to distribute the workload.

I unfollowed every single person and page I'm connected to on Facebook a month and a half ago.

Every time I look at a Facebook there's just about no value. My feed is empty. Nevertheless, I'll visit it by habit. It's weird to see how that persists.

I am not posting (never really did anyway), and I have no idea what's going on with the people I didn't really interact with that much anyway.

What put me over the edge was answering the question: "Does anyone that I deeply care for post anything (at all)?"

Answer for 90% was no. And there rest I still have phone/text to communicate.

This has all made me consider what relationships in my life are important. And it's made me consider how susceptible I was to a fine-tuned algorithm hungry for outrage and virality, and how that influenced my relationships and myself.

I feel great opting out. I hope to fully delete the whole thing soon. Weird that I can't just do that.

I recommend the unfollow thing.

What was funny, after ~300 clicks I got the captcha to fill and 14 clicks later week block with a message: "This is not a proper using of the function". Also, FB was hypocritical. It allowed me to click to follow again, just unfollow was blocked. :-)

I also highly recommend curating who you follow, you may realize you don’t need FB after all.

To eliminate this behavior I use the Crackbook extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/crackbook-revival/...

It acts as hinted in this comic: https://xkcd.com/862/

This captures perfectly my reasons for getting on Facebook in ~2007. One of my best friends had a baby and I was the only one who didn't know because I wasn't on there. I'd also been one of the last of my friends to get a cellphone 3 years before, and was starting to worry that I was just a jerk about keeping in touch.

It's really interesting to compare those two decisions now. The slider phone I got in 2003 was nothing like what we have today, but buying it let me participate in a communication ecosystem that's still evolving fast.

Facebook feels really stagnant by comparison. Its core mechanics, at least the ones I care about, are unchanged. Everyone's usage of it long ago stagnated into the same patterns. I still check it because I have to for life events, but it's not something I look forward to.

>I hate that, if I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs, preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life events.

I feel very much the same way. Social media is a tool that we can use to make social interaction more convenient, but it should not replace real social interaction. Writing a letter, an email, calling a friend, or even sending a text should not be replaced by Facebook because it is ultimately a corporation that seeks to exploit those very interactions for its own profit through means you may not agree with -- that is, selling off your personal data to advertisers.

That being said, it's fine to use Facebook occasionally to check up on what's happening with your friends across the globe. But I really think that everyone should consider removing their "close" friends from Facebook and moving that communication to in-person talks, phone calls, or even text messages. If you're logging onto Facebook even once a day, you're playing into their psychological traps: it's probably best reserved for a lazy Sunday afternoon, something like how older folks treat email. You certainly don't need it on your phone.

If you're concerned that you'll lose friends by deleting your Facebook, you can always keep a Messenger account connected to your phone number and not miss out on group communications. If you're a mover and shaker in your social groups, try pulling your groups away from Facebook. Organizing an event? Offer to send out a mass email to people instead of using Facebook. Or text people yourself instead. Decoupling yourself from Facebook only gives you more power when they decide to do misbehave (do you really think this is the last or worse scandal we'll see from Zuck), and if you're really successful, your friend group will eventually start to realize that they don't need Facebook any more either. Everyone isn't going to delete their Facebook overnight, but if folks start to disconnect bit by bit we'll a) all be better off and have more future options when it comes to Facebook's manipulation and b) start to make Facebook less and less valuable, so eventually people won't even want to join in the first place. "What is an ocean... but a multitude of drops?"

>I somehow don’t want to consign my personal data, beliefs, preferences, relationships, work history, daily plans, and private messages to a massive advertising corporation, I have to risk missing out on seminal life events

Is just to have a facebook account with you name and picture and limit to that? Log in in an incognito window if you really don't want them to know what you are browsing?

And since Facebook is tracking the phone calls and text messages of at least some of my Android-using friends, there goes even more privacy, this time completely out of my control to keep private. Unfortunately Facebook is pretty good at being "sticky".

As someone who has never had a cell phone, I can say that living this way in a first-world country is challenging. I've been in situations where it's assumed I do have a cell phone, and the result ranges from awkward to maddening for the other party.

I also don't have a Facebook account. Not having a cell phone is much more troublesome.

The pull of network effect doesn't just mean that people join for opportunity. If sufficiently insinuated into daily life, some become compelled to join out of necessity.

But with Facebook and Cell Phones, joining this club takes a major toll one's privacy.

That's the dilemma anyone resisting network effect faces.

What if there is an incident and you need to call emergency services? Maybe you crash your car? Maybe you come across another crashed car, and can't contact emergency services because you don't have a cellphone?

I understand why you wouldn't want to carry around a cellphone all the time for privacy reasons (government tracking etc.), but why not get a $10 dumbphone and keep it turned off and in your backpack, or in your glovebox in your car? Nobody can track you if it's turned off.

I'm not sure about the USA, but at least in New Zealand, you'd only have to top up a few dollars every 6 months to keep your SIM active, and you don't need to register SIM cards in your name (although I know that other countries, like Australia, require this). Even without a SIM in your phone, you can still ring emergency services. There's no reason not to buy a $5 phone and keep it around just in case.

Its a matter of letting a nefarious actor into your life to feed you addictive poison, torpedo your well being, and feed you propaganda. Each new revelation makes this increasingly clear.

Is missing a high school reunion or the funeral of a long-list friend really "seminal"? Socially awkward, perhaps, but seminal? No, not really. Seminal is getting married, the death of a parent, birth of a child, finishing college. Not getting drunk with a bunch of people you barely know any more.

Seminal literally means "of seed." Seminal moments are the moments in life that "seed" your future. 99.99% of the time your life continue on exactly the same if you attend a funeral or you don't and if you attend a class reunion, or you don't.

Why not have a Facebook account but only use it read-only for the most part? Nothing requires that you post your beliefs, work history, daily plans and such.

That's what I do. I do post a couple of times or so a year, just to keep the account looking used, but those posts are always just something innocuous. Usually just a link to something funny I saw on Reddit, but sometimes a photo or video of mine. The latest, for example, was a link to this video of several Chestnut-backed Chickadees that landed on my hand to eat peanuts out of my palm [1].

I do the same thing on Twitter.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShPgZhSbxU0 If you watch, I recommend a second viewing going frame by frame as they land and takeoff.

Except a lot of information about these things can be inferred simply from using the network, through metadata and behavioral analysis. Facebook will also use their software running on your machine to steal just about every piece of information they can access at rest there.

We have ways to track contacts, organize E-mail threads, view restaurant web sites, etc. and all those tools are uninvented when the data is only visible through Facebook. Even when Facebook graciously permits you to keep using one of your tools (like a web browser), it’s still effectively broken until you log in.

I find a silver lining in this by making it as friction-full as possible for me to view Facebook content. For example, having to unblock domains and log in every time (never saving passwords, etc.). It works: it makes me consider whether or not I really want to spend time viewing whatever silly video/rant/whatever I initially thought was interesting. And of course then I am not sucked into an hour of grazing the rest of the feed.

To be more clear: They know where you go, who you call and text, and what you buy.

Referring to ad companies here, not NSA etc

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/FCC-Mobile-Devices-iPhone-Andro...

"Devices that are not GPS-enabled must be tracked via triangulation with local cellular towers, a time consuming process that can only give an approximate location and can dangerously delay critical assistance. The new regulation will allow almost universal pinpoint location of 911 callers by emergency responders. No date was given for when non-GPS enabled devices must be discontinued, but given FCC estimates that by 2018, 75 percent of all mobile devices will be GPS capable, it is likely that the assumption is the sunsetting of obsolete devices will occur naturally as consumers chuck outdated gadgets for shiny new ones."

I'm really curious to know whether this means my iPhone will give up my GPS location against my preference setting if I call 911, or if it means the carriers are going to be required to improve non-gps derived location data from cell towers to "allow almost universal pinpoint location of 911 callers by emergency responders"...

But you are 100% correct that the cell network knows to within a rough approximation where you are and how fast you travel. This information is also used to predict where and when the next cell-hand-off will happen.

If your adversary is the NSA(/GRU/Mossad/etc) - you're fucked. Throw away all your electronic devices, torch your house, and hope you make it to Belize before they shut the borders to you.

If your adversary is Law Enforcement, they'll get cell tower data (quite likely without a warrant by just asking), and they'll then mislead a court and jury about how accurate that data is: https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/what-your-cell-phon...

This link: http://urgentcomm.com/psap/different-strokes says that since '05 wireless carriers in The US have been required to do better than just "which cell tower you're connected to", but for some percentage of connections they're required to provide 50 or 150m location accuracy - which they can apparently do using three cell towers and triangulation. Since they're happy to hand over cell tower data to law enforcement when asked (or possibly when asked with a warrant) - I wouldn't bet against then handing this E911 Phase 2 level of location accuracy over.

Somewhat more worryingly... The cell providers seem to be happily monetising that data too: https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/15/mobile-phone-companies-app... https://www.theverge.com/2013/4/9/4187654/how-carriers-sell-...

Now out of the four big technology companies - two of them own a mobile OS and so can do whatever-the-fuck they want with your phone if you're "in their camp" and of the remaining two, one of them actually sells you stuff to make a living, the other makes their money by surveilling you.

With Facebook's warchest - what do you reckon the chances are of them _not_ buying cellphone location data on the open market to add to their advertising-marketing machine?

I'm not saying I know they are - but I do know that the data about location down to perhaps 50m accuracy or less is legally required to be available to the cell operators - and they've been caught in the past selling that data - and Facebook have _very_ deep pockets to pay for data to match against theirs. (And there is almost _zero_ chance that whatever the cell companies might to to "anonymise" that cell location data, Facebook wouldn't be able to de-anonymise it by correlating to to other data they collect.)

But yeah, having your phone use a VPN no doubt helps...

I don't think they would have to pay for it. They're just going to give the phone company a nice fat discount on their advertising campaign. That way they don't have to own up to selling your data either, win/win. /s

Mobile phone location data is so valuable that there are whole companies dedicated to 'enriching' mobile phone OpenRTB requests with location data.

https://www.iab.com/guidelines/real-time-bidding-rtb-project...

And don't tell me you're cash-only.

Also, in order to have got reunion messages from his school, he'd have to have 'liked' their page. It's kind of a dopey way to advertise a reunion really.

That said, I think it is a terrible shame more efforts haven't gone into making an alternative -- and at this point, it would need to be a compatible alternative -- that is not controlled by a single for-profit organization.

I put it to you that Facebook is about group communication, whereas friendship is about one-on-one communication. As such Facebook has nothing to do with friendship, and it is a delusion to think otherwise. Those Facebook "friends" are actually acquaintances, and your friends are those smaller number of people whom you talk to outside Facebook.

The world would absolutely freak out like never before and I would sit back and chortle with delight as I watched my fellow people throw tantrums like little babies for months on end. Think of the lawsuits and blubbering that would ensue!

I think it would be an excellent lesson to society that they shouldn't ever, ever, ever entrust their personal data to a profit-driven corporation again.

Out of the ashes would arise a better, decentralized system and control would be given back to the individuals and we would stop hating each other and being glued to our fucking phones all the time and, well ok this fantasy has gone off the rails, but you get the idea!

That isn't comparable to not being invited to a spontaneous dinner in 2 hours at 9PM by someone clicking invite all of their contacts list tagged as classmates because you're living in the mountaints a one-hour flight and a two hour hike away without any communication tools around you and you don't even believe in flights.

I don't mean these examples to sound flippant, they're here because I'm trying to underline how there's reasonable compromises between convenience and being a good friend / event organizer, and not being on facebook doesn't make you hard to contact. It definitely didn't in the case of the author.

A talk by Moxie Marlinspike called "Changing threats to privacy" also addressed some of these network effect aspects in a thoughtful way. https://archive.org/details/youtube-dBtmzY5gcO8

Should I go on?

They didn't get an invite because they don't stay in communication with people, not because they don't have a Facebook!!!

I'm not really sure why they'd expect to hear directly from the mom. When a person dies, the information is spread like a web, the next-of-kin very rarely informs everyone directly. Usually they inform their close circle and the close circle of the deceased. Then those people spread the word. 100% of the time I've been informed of a death it was by someone in my close circle, not the next-of-kin. Since the author doesn't keep communication with their "friends," they got overlooked. That's very sad and shitty, but it doesn't have to do with Facebook.

Maybe because they wanted to see their friend at said event?

Or maybe, just maybe, they didn't have the current contact info for their friends and would like so still see them but otherwise can't setup a meeting with them?

The article doesn't make all of the facts plain, so it's pointless to speculate the full details.

I think that’s a good point, well stated, and your dismissal is rude and without depth. Owning a phone doesn’t necessitate giving something like Facebook access to your whole life. When a means of communication becomes a utility (as you’re describing), it has responsibilities and regulations.

As of 2015, this blog was on the nose.

Shouldn't it also be the case that, if you're the one not on a widespread platform that - clearly - a lot of people are using to communicate, it's on you to make the effort to reach out?

I actually think the opposite of your claim - expecting a family who's member has committed suicide to have to actively reach out to this one person is rude and without depth. Expecting any kind of personalised treatment whilst alienating yourself is similar, but that one example sums it up for me.