[OP]
Member
I usually read fine print before agreeing to anything. I'm hearing people complain about being addicted to facebook and it's hard to cancel because it takes 90 days and one click reactivates your account.
They say Facebook is free because you are the product.
How is Sawmillcreek different from facebook?
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
- Henry Ford
Contributor
Well.., it's spelled differently?
And we don't allow politics...
I don't belong to Facebook.
Lee Schierer
USNA '71
Go Navy!
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I basically quit using facebook about 3 years ago because the signal to noise ratio was HORRIBLE... It's like trying to find a needle in a 50-square mile trash dump...
Facebook was particularly bad about slagging every inch of your entire feed with sponsored content you cannot escape... And then - to make matters worse - they slag your feed with the junk they slagged onto your friend's feed because he made a comment about being aggravated that this was slagging his feed and merry Christmas - you get it too because you are his friend..
It's 10,000x worse than the "Let's show everybody what sort of idiots we are here" work email chains where every idiot clicks "Reply to All" and says "Why did you send this to me?"
And because it was an election - all the ad-mongers were slurping up as much vitriolic and hate filled political money as they could grab with both fists... Just think... $1.5 billion dollars was spent on MEDIA and internet ads during the last election... What can you get for $1 billion?.. They will sell you their soul for that kind of money and say literally anything you want... They will say anything, do anything...
Here - you may get the header/banner ads.. You may get a few sidebar ads - but you don't get 50,000 miles of video and sponsored "content" playing without your consent for every single sentence of actual post....
[OP]
Member
I'm asking if Sawmillcreek is different from facebook as far as security.
I'm not tech smart but are there potential risks to being on here?
Last edited by Andrew Joiner; 03-22-2018 at 2:36 PM.
"Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t - you’re right."
- Henry Ford
Contributor
To me, the difference is that Facebook's whole financial model is to get you to disclose lots of personal information so that they can sell your information to advertisers*. SawMill Creek's financial model is that people contribute real money. I don't think the people who run SawMill Creek care anything about my personal life. And they certainly don't have a database of information about you and me which contains a lot about our personal likes and dislikes.
Bots from outside can read everything you and I post and use that data but that's just the way the Internet works and we can't avoid it. But SawMill Creek is not doing it. Facebook *is* doing it directly and selling what they learn about us.
Of course, Facebook is not the only one doing that. Other places you go, including Google, do the same thing.
Mike
*Facebook tries to learn your age, your school, your level of education, geographical location, income level, your political affiliation, etc. and they watch your "likes" to learn more about you. Everything about it is designed to allow the advertisers to finely target their ads to you. This allows Facebook to charge the advertisers more for advertising on Facebook.
Last edited by Mike Henderson; 03-22-2018 at 2:37 PM.
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
Moderator
I deactivated my FB account yesterday.
Please help support the Creek.
"It's paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn't appeal to anyone."
Andy Rooney
Member
Aren't there ads on SMC, though? Targeted ads from WW sponsors to WW forum users? Also we're required to use our real name... what's that all about.
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't really mind targeted ads when I go to a website. I'll admit to being a FB user, I mainly share my kids picture on there so that my family can see them grow. I also like the FB events planning feature for inviting friends and family to events, and vice versa. It works great for those purposes for me, and since I understand that nothing in life is free I'll allow Facebook to make a buck to sell ad space to advertisers. Might as well be ads for things that I'd have a smidgen chance of being interested in, as oppose to something totally off the reservation like uh... women's lingerie or ....umn... kites, or something.
Oh and if you don't want to deal with wacky politics on Facebook, then just be selective on who you add as "friend". Don't add that random person that you barely know that's a hardcore Democrat/Republican/party of the week. And if your drunk uncle is suddenly posting his b.s. every five minutes, then deleting him is a click of a button.
Originally Posted by Mike Henderson
Member
What is this Face Book everybody is talking about. I used to have a My Space years ago and don't even use Linkedin
Guest
There is practically very minimal difference in risk. It is primarily driven by what you're willing to share publicly (which Mike notes Facebook is more aggressive at pushing you to share more but whether or not you do is a personal decision).
One one hand you could argue the "risk" as it exists is mildly higher here because everything you say in the main forums is public whereas you can somewhat control the share scope on facebook (nefarious data mining activities aside).
On the other hand this isn't a forum that pushes sharing large amounts of personal information, nor does it build (as much of) a social graph (there is the friends stuff here but I don't know how much its actually used and its not really visible the same way).
From a practical matter, I know that you Andrew in particular are quite careful about your personal data so I would count your exposure as very minimal.
Don't share things you aren't comfortable with other people knowing regardless of the forum.
Facebook also has some very good communities, a lot of it depends on how you curate your feed. You also find some people aren't at all what you thought they were so that's perhaps also useful in a different way.
Member
If the "Big Data" and "Targeted ads" here really worked - I would get tons of ads for new high end chisels... Nope.. Used car lots halfway across the USA and CNC machines....
what actually happened is that Facebook sold the routine user data collected on the website... The companies in question used AI techniqies to correlate the boring site data with their prediction of a political affiliation... And then they sent you "sponsored content" specifically either to fire you up hopping mad or discourage you depending on where you fell in relation to their goals...
Facebook wasn't doing the dirty themselves - they just sold the data to an analysis clearinghouse...
But they weren't alone - multiple companies including Google are doing exactly the same thing and on a massively larger scale...
Last edited by John C Cox; 03-22-2018 at 3:13 PM.
Member
^Exactly. All the 'free' service sites use the same model. 'You' (the community of users) ARE their product. And the more you tell them, the better their product gets....
Someone can 'mine' this site to glean what they can about me. Here's hoping they find the consummate boor!
Contributor
As surely as someone can design a software to protect data, another equally qualified person can design a software to hack that data.
I belong to FB for one reason, to maintain some contact with family members and a few select friends. I don't get my news there. I don't respond to surveys there. I have my security relatively tight there, limiting what can be viewed by the general FB public. I don't wash my "personal laundry" there. I joined FB late at the urging of some deaf friends but with immediate family members (children, grandkids, great-grandkids) ,some serving or having served in the US military, scattered from Kansas to Phoenix to Southern California to Seattle and back to Idaho, it's a convenient way to see occasional posts and photographs from their daily lives like the great-grandkids learning to ride their first bicycle. At one point we had family from here in Idaho, Houston to Virginia to Southern California to Idaho. Our family was scattered very nearly coast to coast and border to border. I never post anything there or here, for that matter, that I wouldn't say or admit to in public.
Here at SMC, if I wanted opinions about something personal, I'd only post it in the Lumberyard forum as it is outside the viewing of the Searchbots but of course, one must be a Contributor to post or read there.
There have been reports of prospective employers perusing FB and websites, in general, when considering hiring someone. People have claimed to been fired or not hired as a result of their posts and comments on the Web.
That is the world we live in. If you put it on the Internet it could become available for unauthorized use. Yet, I don't believe a lot of what I read on the Internet. Here at the Creek, we have hundreds of members who will admit, they read the terms of membership, and lied about their names when they registered here in the interest of personal security.
Last edited by Ken Fitzgerald; 03-22-2018 at 3:40 PM.
Ken
So much to learn, so little time.....
Contributor
I don't have an FB account as I don't think people are really interested in what I had for breakfast or what my cat's doing.
My daughter deactivated her FB account previously.
Where I work, HR checks social media prior to hiring people, be careful of what you post. Stuff that seemed "funny" 10 years ago to you might cause you to lose a prospective job..........Rod.
P.S. I like rules and sites such as SMC that support polite, respectful dialogue. I also belong to vintage motorcycle site, and another wood working forum where I'm a moderator.
All of those sites have good moderation, I'm not interested in the least in a flame war......Rod.
Last edited by Rod Sheridan; 03-22-2018 at 3:51 PM. Reason: Added post script
Contributor
I agree. And that's why I don't use Twitter. What could I possibly tweet that would be of interest to other people? I really doubt of my, or most other people, have lives, the details of which are of interest to other people.
Mike
Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good.
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