It was me what started it, albeit indirectly. I'm talking about the Fans of the Old Ruthin Blog Facebook page.
The number of Fans is now at 4,000. That's more than the *adult* population of Rhuthun/Ruthin. It's an achievement, there's no doubt. But I remain sceptical about all things Facebook. More than that, I continue to be worried about it. Ive said so before.
The quality, robustness and clarity of the Fans Facebook page is sometimes lacking. The impartiality of some of those who post there is a cause of concern. And, some posts are bizarre or just banal—lost cats come to mind.
But there's more. Psychologists are beginning to wonder whether Facebook itself is ripping society apart, as Facebook changes users' relationships with society.
And it's not just head shrinks saying this sort of thing: former Facebook executives are trying to atone for their part in creating a whole generation of social media addicts constantly craving approval in terms of user comments and other people's "likes". One executive said that this triggers dopamine, the brain's reward chemical. Another felt social media was as addictive as heroine and it weakens the ability to focus on "proper" tasks. A third suggested that Facebook exploited "a vulnerability in human psychology".
As addicted attention-seekers spread their misinformation and fake news, Facebook reduces the ability to have civil discourse. Think this is nothing to do with you or the Fans' page? It's had its share of ugly encounters or ill-judged words. Why are people so ready to state publicly what hitherto was always left unsaid other than in the family home?
There's even more. Before Christmas, BBC Panorama exposed Facebook's role in manipulating the US presentation election by using our likes and comments to sell our data for what were political purposes—basically, psychological profiling, an intrusion into people's lives. There's no such thing as a free lunch and the price you pay for a free service like Facebook is quite terrifying in terms of what they know about you. Apparently, it takes as little as one like (although the more, the merrier), be that people, brands, goods, services, ideas. So, while Tesco Clubcard gives you a monetary reward for sharing your shopping habits—very valuable to Tesco—what is the reward for using Facebook? There doesn't appear to be one, other than targeted ads and misusing the information which is yours. When these threaten democracy, it gets serious.
So, that's 4,000 people, many Ruthinians, whose intimate details are now known to Facebook and its third party associates. They'd be surprised exactly how much Facebook knows about them. What they don't know, Facebook deduces. They have a knack (or an algorithm) of joining the dots. The BBC reporter went through his own Facebook-held data and found out just how accurate those assumptions and interpretations were.
But, 4,000 people is a lot.
At its height, how many followers did this blog have? I cannot tell. It was always publicly available and didn't rely on "followers". People who used to visit here probably had to make the effort to come here. Facebook is just always on in the background, whether you want to see something or not. I could only tell how many page views I achieved per day, per month, over the lifetime of this blog.
And, although periodically I had to contend with some rather difficult comments (to put it mildly), some of which were responsible for several periods of inactivity, the difference between this blog and the Fans Facebook page is that Facebook tends towards causing arguments with a limited ability to self-police.
Meanwhile, in an update on March 19th, here is something new to the Fans page which makes different reading to the usual stuff about lost cats... It turns out that there's something of an infestation in frogs around Rhuthun and an army of homing frogs is something about which I'd probably've blogged... had I known about the issue. Not sure, though, what the poster means by her garden being "vertically covered in frogspawn". Perhaps "virtually" was what she was looking for. And a "missive inconvenience" it is, judging by the number of comments that follow hers : )
The quality, robustness and clarity of the Fans Facebook page is sometimes lacking. The impartiality of some of those who post there is a cause of concern. And, some posts are bizarre or just banal—lost cats come to mind.
But there's more. Psychologists are beginning to wonder whether Facebook itself is ripping society apart, as Facebook changes users' relationships with society.
And it's not just head shrinks saying this sort of thing: former Facebook executives are trying to atone for their part in creating a whole generation of social media addicts constantly craving approval in terms of user comments and other people's "likes". One executive said that this triggers dopamine, the brain's reward chemical. Another felt social media was as addictive as heroine and it weakens the ability to focus on "proper" tasks. A third suggested that Facebook exploited "a vulnerability in human psychology".
As addicted attention-seekers spread their misinformation and fake news, Facebook reduces the ability to have civil discourse. Think this is nothing to do with you or the Fans' page? It's had its share of ugly encounters or ill-judged words. Why are people so ready to state publicly what hitherto was always left unsaid other than in the family home?
There's even more. Before Christmas, BBC Panorama exposed Facebook's role in manipulating the US presentation election by using our likes and comments to sell our data for what were political purposes—basically, psychological profiling, an intrusion into people's lives. There's no such thing as a free lunch and the price you pay for a free service like Facebook is quite terrifying in terms of what they know about you. Apparently, it takes as little as one like (although the more, the merrier), be that people, brands, goods, services, ideas. So, while Tesco Clubcard gives you a monetary reward for sharing your shopping habits—very valuable to Tesco—what is the reward for using Facebook? There doesn't appear to be one, other than targeted ads and misusing the information which is yours. When these threaten democracy, it gets serious.
So, that's 4,000 people, many Ruthinians, whose intimate details are now known to Facebook and its third party associates. They'd be surprised exactly how much Facebook knows about them. What they don't know, Facebook deduces. They have a knack (or an algorithm) of joining the dots. The BBC reporter went through his own Facebook-held data and found out just how accurate those assumptions and interpretations were.
But, 4,000 people is a lot.
At its height, how many followers did this blog have? I cannot tell. It was always publicly available and didn't rely on "followers". People who used to visit here probably had to make the effort to come here. Facebook is just always on in the background, whether you want to see something or not. I could only tell how many page views I achieved per day, per month, over the lifetime of this blog.
And, although periodically I had to contend with some rather difficult comments (to put it mildly), some of which were responsible for several periods of inactivity, the difference between this blog and the Fans Facebook page is that Facebook tends towards causing arguments with a limited ability to self-police.
Page views per month Sept 2005 to Nov 2012 inclusive (click to expand)
Here is a graph of my monthly page visits, from September 2005, when I added a counter, to the close of the blog in November 2012. Things dipped in March 2009 when I stopped blogging for a while. The stats bounced back when I restarted. We reached a zenith in March 2011. And all of thgis without any form of advertising or promotion. Then, on November 13th, 2011, I called it a day—sort of. Even after that, I spluttered a bit, with a handful of posts a month but not every month: posts were few and visits fell off a cliff. I finally closed this blog to public view at 4.30 p.m. on November 24th, 2012.
Meanwhile, in an update on March 19th, here is something new to the Fans page which makes different reading to the usual stuff about lost cats... It turns out that there's something of an infestation in frogs around Rhuthun and an army of homing frogs is something about which I'd probably've blogged... had I known about the issue. Not sure, though, what the poster means by her garden being "vertically covered in frogspawn". Perhaps "virtually" was what she was looking for. And a "missive inconvenience" it is, judging by the number of comments that follow hers : )
