What Social Media Do You Use Frequently?

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I am wondering which social media platform you use frequently?

  • Total voters
    29
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None for me. I am on FB but RARELY post; I do look at grandkids progress - two or three times a week. And look at YouTube maybe once a week for creative ideas in the areas of wood, metal/mechanical.

I am not against their purpose but I am diametrically opposed to tracking and cookies. I still have close friends in some countries that have the ability to track and spy. There have been deaths due to inadvertent emails and then posts on FB back here of names of people who travel in said countries. I love living in a "free country" but I lived overseas long enough, and knew enough about tracking and friends that got tracked that I just stay off.

And I am in ministry. What is on the internet stays in backups decades later. When government changes, records of two decades ago come out. Your preferences get logged.
 
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None, except an occasional viewing of a technical "how-to" on Youtube.

Please note that this is my choice and not an expression of inability .... :)
 
leehljp said:
None for me. I am on FB but RARELY post; I do look at grandkids progress - two or three times a week. And look at YouTube maybe once a week for creative ideas in the areas of wood, metal/mechanical.

I am not against their purpose but I am diametrically opposed to tracking and cookies. I still have close friends in some countries that have the ability to track and spy. There have been deaths due to inadvertent emails and then posts on FB back here of names of people who travel in said countries. I love living in a "free country" but I lived overseas long enough, and knew enough about tracking and friends that got tracked that I just stay off.

And I am in ministry. What is on the internet stays in backups decades later. When government changes, records of two decades ago come out. Your preferences get logged.
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I agree totally.

By brother is a banking IT Data Base Mining VP; my son has a MS in Computer security. Both have simply said - "Do not go down the rabbit hole of the social media sites." Is my data still being collected - absolutely. I realize this, but will still try to limit my exposure to enterprises I do not trust. Too much damage has been done by these sites.

I will edit/add: This is a relevant question!
 
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None here either. I too check in FB but rarely post. If you consider forums social media than I visit a few of those with this being the most visited. Still use a flip phone so that should tell you what century I still reside in.
 
Two options missing:
* None
* Websites with forums like this one, which I consider social media.

I have never joined any of the social media sites mentioned in the poll, and all the reasons I chose not to join have been borne out. Nonetheless, they track me and my activities almost as much as the members who use their sites on a regular basis. They know my relationship to active members. There is no avoiding them.

I belong to several forums (fora?) on varying topics that interest me. I have different identities in each of them, and try to keep those lives separate and isolated from one another. I depend on them for skilled advice from others who know more, while trying to help bootstrap newbies like me as a way of giving back to those communities. I hope that the content that I create lives on to help others, many of whom may find it through general web searches.

(The one exception is woodworking and pen turning, which overlap too much to keep my lives separate. Anyone can probably match my writing style and activities between two forums, even though the names are different. I am not trying to hide between them.)

There is a big difference between the forums and the popular social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Forums are communities that work together to build a topic-oriented knowledge base to share with all who want to learn and grow. Their hosts generally do not exploit the data contributed by members beyond the topical value of the content itself.

That said, forums like this one must pay for their hosting services, and often they do it through advertising. The advertising methods used today involve the same social tracking methods that are pervasive in our lives. Thus the advertising in forums ties your membership and some information about your forum activities back to your social media accounts, like Facebook.

Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter provide hosting for similar communities, but they exploit their members to extract the maximum value possible. Everything their members do is massively tracked, correlated, and analyzed. Every time you use a payment card to buy something at the store, it is correlated to your social media activity. Everything you do with your phone is recorded and correlated. Far reaching, unrelated data about you is being recorded for future analysis, all of it tied to your identity. Most people have little understanding of how that massive data is being collected and abused, or its impact on their lives. Most of us are helpless to do anything about it, because Big Data grew so fast and hid itself so well that it owned Congress before most people understood the implications to our privacy and freedom, much of which has been lost as a result. Frankly, most people still don't get it.

Worse yet, those social media companies failed to secure the massive information that they collected, so it is also in the hands of those who want to exploit and subjugate the people for their own personal ambitions and private gain, as well as countries whose goals are global domination and our destruction. And that's ignoring all the legal ways that large businesses, politicians, and many others exploit the information by buying services from big data companies.

The question asked about social media, so I have not mentioned the integral role of other related companies, such as Google and Amazon, and how they exploit our personal data in unimaginable ways. Nor have I discussed the ways our own government collects and stores data about us in secret, probably in knowing violation of its own Constitution. Databases are easily subject to "mission creep."

Sadly, due to the nature of my work, I understood the implications and saw this coming decades ago. I never joined those social media sites and warned others about the large scale data collection concerns. Nobody heeded my warnings.
 
I agree with most of the sentiments here about social media and what it REALLY represents/means and following its progress since the beginning I noticed a trend that is even more obvious today than ever before and that is, while the older generations dislike it and try to keep the hell away from it, the newer generations are embracing it full on and showing absolutely no fear or second thoughts so the question that comes to mind is, what do they know we don't...?

I'm a YouTube viewer pretty much like most people watch TV, the wife runs the TV and the shows she likes to follow and I do exactly the same thing but on the computer that has also a large monitor, when there is something on the TV like a documentary channel program or other programs Merissa knows I like to watch, she either records them or let me know when they are on and I do pretty much the same thing when I come across something that I know she would like to watch, I let her know and we watch it together on the computer, no fights for the damn remote control.

Cheers
George
 
I use YouTube as a learning resource; a good teaching video can be extraordinarily helpful - it's how I picked up a lot of my woodworking knowledge and initially got turned on to pen making and lots of other stuff that I'm interested in. There is certainly a lot of toxic stuff there but that is easy to avoid for the most part. That being said, I love this site, and others like it for other interests, because of the breadth of knowledge available; and the generosity and civility of members and willingness to share their experiences and in some cases, tangible materials, helps renew my faith in the basic goodness of people.

I used to work in IT security a long time ago so am aware (and alarmed) at the privacy issues and the willingness of seemingly every major player to monetize our movements on the net in every possible way, but frankly the Equifax data sec breach a few years ago did more to harm me personally than anything else, and that was in a system that none of us as consumers and credit users ever had any choice in or opportunity to opt-out of. At least if you decide to not participate in social media by avoiding FB, etc., that is still a choice you can make.
 
I have a FB account but don't post on it. My wife uses it to see what are kids and grand kids are up to. She refers to it as "FB stocking". Other than that I use Youtube for reference only (couldn't have built the cabin without it). I also have an old Linkedin account that I don't do anything with. I had to get it when I was working for Chevron. I don't tweet (leave that for the birds), snap chat, instagram or any of the other social media pages. If you want to see what I'm up to, give me a call.
 
There are computer robots that "mine" information off of the forums like IAP. There are also human "robots" that mine the information that is posted on these forums. How many of the gadgets that PSI has introduced came from people off of IAP? Quite a few of them, along with a few that I have even seen on personal websites. Our information is free to the "miners of information" of the Internet.
 
Does everyone here realize just how crazy you all sound with your conspiracy theories. On to something really is anyone else going to area 51 to find them Angelique wondering nomads (aliens). 😉😉😁

In all seriousness I will do some research on YouTube. The IAP is the closest to social media I have ever been and it took a year or so to convince myself to do this. At the same time I am not sure why I don't my wife does all of them so all my data is already being mind through her and my Amazon account.
 
John Eldeen said:
Does everyone here realize just how crazy you all sound with your conspiracy theories. On to something really is anyone else going to area 51 to find them Angelique wondering nomads (aliens). 😉😉😁

In all seriousness I will do some research on YouTube. The IAP is the closest to social media I have ever been and it took a year or so to convince myself to do this. At the same time I am not sure why I don't my wife does all of them so all my data is already being mind through her and my Amazon account.
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Sound crazy - Yup. Are much of the above comments true - yup. Conspiracy theories - nope. (My opinion only).

I do hope you were joking John, as I fully believe much of what has been reflected, and in no terms are they conspiracy theories, but actual processes at play that many are ignoring.

If you disagree, that's fine. But I'll stick with my opinion that much of this is true. And I'll go even further... It is much worse than we know.
 
mark james said:
Sound crazy - Yup. Are much of the above comments true - yup. Conspiracy theories - nope. (My opinion only).

I do hope you were joking John, as I fully believe much of what has been reflected, and in no terms are they conspiracy theories, but actual processes at play that many are ignoring.

If you disagree, that's fine. But I'll stick with my opinion that much of this is true. And I'll go even further... It is much worse than we know.
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Mark my comment are unfortunately in gest. The reality is it is no conspiracy theory it is most definitely a fact and one that is changing the way the world lives daily. Not for the betterment of mankind either. I fear the world my son will live in will be nothing as it is now unless people world wide realize what is being lost and or given away and stop it. Hopefully it is not to late and it can be stopped.
 
Some of you might be interested in this article that popped up in front of my eyes just yesterday, I think :
www.nbcnews.com

The internet has made it easier than ever to destroy someone's life — this law makes sure of it

Lawyer Carrie Goldberg believes that we're all just one person away from having our lives ruined. It’s a consequence of the internet and a law that dates back to 1996, says Goldberg, who runs a law firm for victims of sexual abuse and harassment online. Her book, “Nobody’s Victim: Fighting...
www.nbcnews.com www.nbcnews.com
I haven't read it or looked at it so I cannot vouch for its veracity. . I got totally scared by the title.
 
John Eldeen said:
Mark my comment are unfortunately in gest. The reality is it is no conspiracy theory it is most definitely a fact and one that is changing the way the world lives daily. Not for the betterment of mankind either. I fear the world my son will live in will be nothing as it is now unless people world wide realize what is being lost and or given away and stop it. Hopefully it is not to late and it can be stopped.
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Whew! As we can clearly witness here - messages can mean very different things. You and I agree and share our fears for our sons and daughters.

Be well and thanks for the clarification.
 
Can someone explain to me the concerns about YouTube and what makes them special compared with other websites? Yes, I know that Google owns YouTube.

I watch YouTube videos from time to time. I consume the content and use their search engine, which Google can track and tie to my identity and other interests on the web. That happens on many websites, not just YouTube, and it happens whether the content is video, images, text, or whatever.

Google owns YouTube, so they can make stronger correlations between my YouTube consumption and other unrelated activities. When I search or consume content on PenTurners.org, they can correlate it with my other activities on PenTurners.org, but not much else. Other than the obvious issues that I have stated, what am I missing?
 
I just cast a You Tube vote--never really considered it as "social media". I watch videos, and have learned a lot--pretty much never have read any of the comments though.
earl
 
I use none of the six social media sites listed in the multiple choice question. I agree with much of what Penicillin wrote in his/her posts.
 
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