{"id":18590,"date":"2020-05-12T02:00:31","date_gmt":"2020-05-12T02:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rbsitsoftwaresolution.com\/blog\/reconnecting-reluctantly-with-facebook.html"},"modified":"2020-05-12T02:00:31","modified_gmt":"2020-05-12T02:00:31","slug":"reconnecting-reluctantly-with-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rbsitsoftwaresolution.in\/blog\/reconnecting-reluctantly-with-facebook.html","title":{"rendered":"Reconnecting, reluctantly, with Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

Haje Jan Kamps <\/a> is a founder, photographer and journalist who logged time as a TechCrunch writer years ago and who has since launched a platform for virtual conferences called Konf<\/a>. In a recent catch-up with him about work and life during COVID-19, we wound up talking at some length about Facebook, which is seeing record use across its social networking, messaging and live-streaming platforms right now and will likely continue to do so throughout this pandemic.<\/p>\n

We asked Kamps, who joined Facebook <\/a> around 2006 \u2014 which is when it first expanded beyond its roots on college campuses to enable anyone over age 13 with a valid email address to join \u2014 if we could share some of his thoughts as a kind of snapshot. They represent only his views and opinions, but they underscore a broader struggle that many Facebook users around the world \u2014 currently isolated from friends and family \u2014 are experiencing as their relationship with the tech giant evolves, and its power accordingly grows at an accelerated pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kamps\u2019 comments have been edited lightly for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

I take breaks from Facebook from time to time, because it\u2019s a little bit much and occasionally, I think, they change your algorithm, so sometimes it just gets real depressing, [so] I\u2019m just going to vote with my mouse cursor and get the hell out of there for a bit. And then I come back. And then it\u2019s like more friends doing updates and stuff. <\/em><\/p>\n

I want my friends\u2019 life updates. I don\u2019t necessarily want the weight of the world on my shoulders. I made a conscious choice a while ago to stop reading the news just for my well-being. And if it gets in through the back door through Facebook, I\u2019m like, \u2018Look, I don\u2019t want that.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

Just a little vignette from this morning: I woke up, I overslept slightly, and I got on Facebook, and there was a friend who was doing a live stream because she decided to try and cheer people up a little bit. She was playing her ukulele and just singing for 15 minutes. She had, like, 20 of her friends watching and was like, \u2018Hope everyone has a great day.\u2019 That didn\u2019t happen before everybody had to go into isolation.<\/em><\/p>\n

There\u2019ve been a whole bunch of groups that have popped up, as well as some older groups that became reactivated. I actually started one for the Human Awareness Institute<\/a>, which has this concept of a large group share, where basically people stand up in front of a room of people and share something that is real and heartfelt and pertinent. <\/em>They\u2019ve had to cancel their workshops, but it turns out the digital version of that is juicy and beautiful and connected. And the outpouring of comments you get on those shares \u2014 people leap in with words of support \u2014\u00a0 is just not something I\u2019ve seen on Facebook in such a long time.<\/em><\/p>\n

My big realization, which I guess is kind of an obvious realization, is that it\u2019s just a tool, and we get to choose what we use that tool for. And if we choose it to be a place to, to spread joy and share creative projects, and if I feel really good about seeing other people that do that, I might do that, too.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. I have signed off before for weeks, even months. <\/em>I am grateful for the internet and the information that is available, but I feel like basic source criticism is something that isn\u2019t taught at all in the U.S., meaning that when you read something on the internet, do you know whether or not it is real? In Norway, where I grew up, you get taught as part of history class to criticize the source itself, to ask: Is this a reliable source? Was this kind of the \u2018victor writes the history\u2019? How do you piece together sources to get a good feeling for what really happened?\u2019\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The fact that fake news has even slightly been able to take hold is terrifying to me. I was in a yoga class the other day, and the yoga teacher had this little spray bottle [to clean her mat] and she said, \u2018There are essential oils<\/a> in here. You can use it on your hands, on your mat, on your face \u2014 you can even drink it because it\u2019s edible.\u2019 It\u2019s like, \u2018Look, if it\u2019s fucking edible, it\u2019s not gonna do anything to a virus.\u2019 I mean, maybe some essential oils might help get some viruses. I have no idea. But Lysol was invented for a reason.<\/em><\/p>\n

People allow themselves to get so bubbled and so echo chambered into believing what they want to believe. I mean, the anti-vaxxer movement is one example. There\u2019s a lot of other dumb news out there, to the point that now that if I really want to know what\u2019s happening, I go to the BBC or maybe The New York Times or The Washington Post or any of the other big stalwarts of journalism, because I know they have some sort of process in place to make sure that what is published is actually relatively sensible. <\/em><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the big challenge with the internet. There\u2019s more information available right now than there ever has been. You can find the best possible information if you want to. You can go to a medical journal and read about coronaviruses. But there is a lot of news that\u2019s absolutely 100% made up and people still believe it. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Look, either everybody collectively is really fucking stupid, or we just want to believe.\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really have an opinion on whether Facebook is meant to police what is real and isn\u2019t real. But the fact that it is so easy to share and spread misinformation is not helping us when there\u2019s a massive pandemic going on.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Article source: http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/techcrunch\/social\/~3\/5kv_n3sBH3Y\/<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Haje Jan Kamps is a founder, photographer and journalist who logged time as a TechCrunch writer years ago and who has since launched a platform for virtual conferences called Konf. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[10,7,14,15,6,12,11],"class_list":["post-18590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-update","tag-computer-news","tag-downloads","tag-microsoft-download-news","tag-networking-updates","tag-technology-update","tag-wordpress-plugin-download","tag-wordpress-theme-download"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t