Monday 9 April 2018

Mercury Retrograde and Social Media

I have cancelled and deleted my Facebook account with the recent news.

I think we all know that the findings are going to be a lot worse than we thought.

My first inkling something was off was during Brexit when I blocked certain political parties who were bombarding me and even after blocking them, they were allowed to feature on my feed and even direct message me to change my vote.  

I am on WhatsApp however and know that it is linked to Facebook but I had to at least make a stand and a gesture. But I am toying with getting rid of that possibly.

It seems that due to the closures that Instagram might actually listen to the users and bring back chronological feeds so perhaps these account closures are having a small effect.

But today I had another incident.

I liked a comment on twitter on an american politician's feed about a fast food that originated in Italy and now is common place in the world which is linked to a controversial matter that was on wikileaks before the US election. ( I am not going to get into that with any commenters just so you know.) 

I don't want to write it because it will only come up on some algorithm. This was a sparsely active twitter account that I have had since the beginning of twitter and never had any problems until a few hours after I liked this comment.

Twitter said I had 'suspicious twitter activity' and they wanted my phone number to reactivate my twitter account.

I have declined and they can have the handle back. 

I refuse to to give up the beauty of the internet and treat a social media outlet like a bank KYC ( know your customer ) protocol.

Then today I tried to log on to Hayu - this is a UK online version of all the trashy Bravo TV shows.

However, I couldn't log on as it was linked to the now defunct twitter account.  So I tweeted on my husband's twitter account asking for help in this specific situation.

They said that I had to follow them for instructions.

I asked them again and got them to confirm that if as a paying customer I still had to "follow" them to get help.

They confirmed.

I then tweeted the UK Ombudsman tagging Hayu explaining that they were forcing me to do something on top of paying them which is all that is needed to get commensurate service.

Only then did I get help.

I unsubscribed of course so any help was redundant. 

Plus this season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is so dull thankfully.

But it makes you think.

I thought it was ridiculous to chase followers but apparently now it is such a commodity that you may not get due service unless you 'follow'.

It is tainting rather a lot and making me a social media Debbie downer.

I wish I didn't care and to be honest I feel we are already at the sand pit of the slippery slope so why should I bother fighting.

I might go google 'off grid living on an island' now.

It really is strange times we live in.

24 comments:

  1. Very very strange times indeed.

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  2. What a frustrating experience for you! I don't blame you for canceling Hayu! I had already stopped posting to Facebook a couple of years ago, I found it to be so clunky, like an old dinosaur, and I was never on it to catch up with friends or relatives anyway. I will probably go ahead and just delete the account. I am spotty on Twitter, I do like to read it when a story is happening in real time because you can often find stuff out faster there than on the TV news, but I have stopped posting there mostly too. I do love IG but if it went away tomorrow I would survive. I only post jewelry. I will be curious if others who chime in here say they are deleting Facebook and Twitter. xx

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    1. I purposely don't follow anyone i know on twitter just so i am not in an echo chamber but censorship is real it seems now it has happened to me. Who knew a like was so powerful as well right? xx

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  3. The strangest times indeed!
    I feel for those telling/teaching teens and tweens about social media. Den xx

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    1. My worry for the young is that it really has wired their brain so differently - i am so thankful i knew analog days Den xx

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  4. I still have my Facebook with my 11 friends...I might have 12 now after meeting a lovely woman who wanted to be “friends”. Unfortunately, I quickly unfollowed her because of her incessant posting. I also have unfollowed my mom, dad, aunt, uncle because I am tired of getting “requests” or notifications from their slot play. I just want to see pictures, not what Disney princess or wolf name you might be. Twitter...Donnie Johnie has ruined that for me before I even started.

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    1. I love wolf names- only thing i miss LOL I don't mind facebook in itself but i don't like them snooping in everything else on my PC! x

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  5. Times are so strange. I had a completely bizarre incident on FB and Instagram where it kept saying I had problem content. Perhaps that espadrille post was too provocative? We do live in strange times. I've always had somewhat of a persona online after some early blogging troubles. I think you are wise to delink and may do so myself at some point. Xo

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  6. Those Tech Titans are overdue for an ass-whippin'. They're all scared now that they don't have a lavishly compenstaed (with soft money and future considerations) US Executive Branch to be exceedingly helpful and strongarm the EU, et al into similar fave treatment with their current leaders also getting lucrative future considerations.
    Silicon Valley is about to feel the heat.

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    1. THe monopolies need to go - it is like we are in the middle ages and we are all serfs!

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  7. I have been chasing a meeting with someone who refuses to meet with me unless I have 5k followers. I see how it's intertwined but I was disappointed that before it was even assessed if I have or didn't have talent I needed to qualify by followers. I've told like seven people to fuck off this week so he might be next. Mercury retro is hitting me harder than usual. I don't know why. I don't care who knows my data. I don't believe anyone has true privacy anyway.
    How about an American island? How about Hilton Head Island? Haha. Xoxoxo

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    1. What is nuts is that one can easily buy followers so I guess then if that is what they want just buy some - apparently you can get "good" followers that don't look conspicuously like bots! I have been tough this week but that doesn't really mean much. Right now i think pretty soon there will be like 5 planets in retrograde. plus effects of an eclipse still linger - plus uranus in taurus again in May which means huge stuff re finances - been looking into this :) Gosh i really want to visit SC again! xxx

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    2. I know but you know as vapid as I am I’m not vapid enough to buy followers. I did think about sounding the horn and saying I’d donate the amount I’d pay to buy followers if I got X amount of new ones but I also just don’t really care. What should I do?

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    3. I know you don't care but why don't you amuse them - throw them a bone and get yourself followers or just donate. No point fighting a ideological metaphysical battle with a business that isn't on the same karmic frequency as you LOL. you have mansions and complexes to develop :)

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  8. No doubt the FB thing is disturbing, but also, I wonder what did people think FB was doing with all that information? It has been a monetized platform from the start, whose assets are us that it turns into sources of revenue. Don’t really get all of the shock. For those reasons I have always been a reluctantly on their social platform. Really like Instagram, well until FB bought them out now I am spammed with ads there too. Thank the stars for Blogger!

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    1. I think in the beginning they thought holiday pics wouldn't be of much use until holiday companies would target demographics to a successful rate. Then politics...But all those quizzes were apparently more useful than we realise about what soda pop would you be etc?!

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  9. I'm afraid that I have missed the boat with all these social media. Before it seemed like a waste of time, and now it seems like a massive invasion of time and privacy. Blogs require more effort both on the part of writer and reader, but they seem a lot more meaningful than everyone just continually pressing "Like" buttons.
    --Jim

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    1. You missed the titanic Jim! Lucky you. At first it was great to reconnect with old friends as I was analog in the first half of my life :) but agree that blogs just have a different frequency. I also don't connect as well with bloggers that are now only on IG. Mindless likes seem mindless but it seems corporations use it as a form of currency which makes me reevaluate bitcoin for instance.

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  10. What a crazy thing our dependence on social media has become, looked at one way, the world becomes a smaller, more connected place, witness our interaction on your blog, where your little community can and does become the best of friends, the best of pen pals imaginable. However, looked at the other way, and despite that connectedness, one could make a good argument that we are more isolated, more lonely, less human than ever before. Of course, throw in the privacy issues, driven I believe by the need for revenue, and the desire to have us all consume more, since Lord knows we all need more stuff in our lives. Then, before you know it all ends up a big mess and, if you value your privacy, you go back to either penning real letters on real paper, or, if one is really technologically savvy, operating a ham radio.

    xo
    Kenneth

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    1. So true Kenneth - it is a double edged sword. Must handle with care. But also convey with care and receive the messages - the whole gambit. I love those who have somehow found this little space on the web and I feel so lucky to be able to have a safe space. And this would otherwise not be available in previous times so I have to remember that. I do treat this like a letter to people or AM radio hehe xx

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  11. I lived happily my whole life until 2016 when we moved to the US (temporarily) without any social media and no smart phone. So new life in new country meant an iPhone so I could talk/message my children for free via Messenger. So along came Facebook which I never post to but I do look at the feed occasionally to see what friends are posting. My daughter was in year 8 at school (2008) when Facebook exploded onto the social media scene and wiped MySpace off the map. It was aimed well and truly at teenagers then and there was a baptism of fire as eventually those kids found out what goes on Facebook can stay in cyberspace forever. However FB is no longer used by that generation. Its only purpose, apart from the occasional post, appears to be for arranging events and its good for that. I love my Instagram because it allows me to not only post so any friends who are interested can see what I'm up to but also to document my stay in the US and I enjoy looking at past posts. Without taking data and selling it or flogging ads for feeding to specific groups these tech companies wouldn't worth so much money as basic economics is their value reflects cashflow and future cashflow. There is no such thing as a free lunch or a "free" social media platform. I did find the recent outcry of switching the Australian nation census from paper to on-line due to "privacy issues" hilarious as I expect all those who were concerned did not have a smart phone. You have raised very interesting issues and I guess reinforces my antiquated response when prompted to register/connect via Facebook I always choose the option of email. I still love listening to radio but have no idea how to navigate it here. Always found the ABC in Australia the best news source available.

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    1. Yes facebook is where grandparents are constantly amazed or oddly like yourself and myself - it is where people who have family and friends not in the same country ti connect. I think that is why I stayed on so long. I do miss that aspect. I would be willing to pay for it though now. It was crazy that this was all "free". I miss SBS ;)

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  12. I AM TOTALLY WITH YA!!!!!!!!
    THEY HAVE OVER DONE IT!!!!!!!!!!
    More of a headache than an enjoyment!
    You were going into my SPAM!!!!!!!!!!!

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