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Oh, and the shameless promotion of unregulated investments, which may very well just be a scam.

Does Facebook care such adverts and promotions are illegal in the UK?

No. No they do not. Yet those ads destroy lives, even when they’re not a scam.

Crime is Freedom of Speech.

MarkNorfolk wrote:
Crime is Freedom of Speech.

While freedom of speech is a fundamental right in the U.S., it does not extend to criminal acts.

Crimes violate the rights of others and disrupt societal order, which is why they are subject to legal consequences.

Freedom of speech protects individuals' rights to express opinions and ideas, but it does not protect actions that harm others or break the law.

Therefore, equating crimes with freedom of speech is a misunderstanding of both concepts.

Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
We’re doomed.

As a species, we’re doomed.

People have been saying this since the dawn of time.

See my further comments on the unopposed march of conspiracy theory and woo peddling anti-science gibberish.

Where vulnerable people in desperate situations might eschew the very thing which may be able to help them, in favour of lining the pockets of snake oil salesmen and worse.

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

In Australia and a UK, not using sarcasm is a crime

 Baragash wrote:

 Lathe Biosas wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Is sarcasm a crime? 🤣

Only in America.

In Australia and a UK, not using sarcasm is a crime

A UK? Is there more than one?

Apparently there is an app that essentially is like Facebook or Instagram which uses AI to simulate you having hundreds of thousands to millions of followers so one can roleplay being an internet famous.

so there is another facebook?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
A UK? Is there more than one?

technically, there are several "united" kingdoms

Sarcasm was the first victim of the vaccine. /S


On Topic:
I spent a lot of time last year working on and developing my social media for work reasons. Now, I am thinking of dropping it all.

When I owned a physical small business a bit less than a decade ago, Social Media was a great way to market and reach your customers. Now, I am not convinced it has the power it used to have for small business. It is not nearly as localized as it used to be.

Plus, demographics and users are shifting. Facebook is for Gen X and older, Instagram for Millenials, and Tik Tok for younger. Plus, there are a scattering of other platforms that are more niche like Twitch, X, Nextdoor, LinkdIn, etc.

I am less sure about the breakdown by Gender and Geography than I am about age, but different Demos are reached via different platforms. Therefore, you really need to know you Target audience and go where they are. Otherwise, you can waste a lot of time working on the wrong platform.

I think the big aspect is what kind of business you're into and what the purpose of your social media site is for.

Eg if its just to communicate with your customers then a FB works well as even if younger generations "don't use it" you can bet they likely do have an account so they can reach out.

If you're marketing then it really depends on your product and market focus. Plus a bit of luck as to what turns out active. I've seen the same market, same product have super active FB accounts and super dead ones - sometimes its a case of seeing what sticks and what works for what you're doing and going with the flow.



I do think that if you end up not using a SM site then it is best to either close it outright or leave a "follow us here" link as the only visible content directing to the places you are active. Nothing looks deader than a firm running a FB account that suddenly stops updates

Well, that’s a new low.

Checking local news, and I see the usual drivel posts disguised as further news articles. Only this time? It’s encouraging gambling.

Now, I do the Lottery, and have been known to try my luck on the fruit machine - predominantly in my youth, only occasionally in the modern day. So I’m not exactly against having a flutter.

But to present betting advice as a news story just feels off to me. I’ve encountered persons with gambling habits/outright addiction, and have seen the havoc it can wreak. And so having encouragement to gamble masquerading as a factual news article really irks me.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Well, that’s a new low.

Checking local news, and I see the usual drivel posts disguised as further news articles. Only this time? It’s encouraging gambling.

Now, I do the Lottery, and have been known to try my luck on the fruit machine - predominantly in my youth, only occasionally in the modern day. So I’m not exactly against having a flutter.

But to present betting advice as a news story just feels off to me. I’ve encountered persons with gambling habits/outright addiction, and have seen the havoc it can wreak. And so having encouragement to gamble masquerading as a factual news article really irks me.

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

I live in New England, one of the WORST places to bet on the weather.

There’s a lot of sports gambling ads on Spotify too. I listen to Athletico Mince, a “football” podcast with Bob Mortimer. It’s usually all sorts of abject nonsense. But those ads irk me.

 BorderCountess wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 BorderCountess wrote:

Wait until your next vacation to the States and sports-betting ads are fething everywhere. ESPN has whole pages and articles dedicated to it, now.

The rare occasion I watch an american sport, sports betting is built in to the fething pre-game show now. And we're seeing more and more sports books actively sponsoring segments so you're seeing their logos and URL's more and more during those segments.


Pretty soon, I wouldn't be surprised to see your local weather report brought to you by a sports betting website, where you too can bet on the over-under for whether it will rain tomorrow

I live in New England, one of the WORST places to bet on the weather.

I'm relocating to the place where the weather shows up and erases your home.

The forecasters here all salivate like Pavlov's dogs when a tropical depression shows up in the Atlantic or Gulf.

24 hours of local weather coverage... ugh.

But I know people who bet on where the storms make landfall.

Gambling is just the latest "get-rich-quick" scheme that we sell to desperate folks with little hope. Others include real-estate speculation, gold bugs, ponzi schemes, MLMs, Crypto, and the proliferation of pig-butchering scams.

It is honestly a signal of declining upward mobility, wealth inequality, corruption, and distrust in the economic-political system. Their proliferation should be concerning.

However, it is the neo-Roarin' 20's, so party on Wayne! In that sense, the commercialization of the Internet and Social Media reminds of the Commercialization of Radio during that very timeframe.

Discovery and the Frontier which is awesome. Then, Industry starts to commercialize and monetize it and enshittify. Then, the final step is regulation from the Government and industry standardization. This leads to normalization until the next big communication discovery. Similar happened with undersea cables, printing press, radio, tv, movies, etc.

Right, I’m done. Completely done.

My Facebook feed this morning is just drivel posts. Even switching to “my feed” rather than the default “whatever we want you to see, even if a post is three weeks old”.

All this clickbait spam email crap “it are offishul, this celeb am dedded click to reed”.

It’s not even pretending anymore. And none of them are showing as promoted.

Here's one of the best ways to mess with Facebook:

https://www.johnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com/

 BorderCountess wrote:
Here's one of the best ways to mess with Facebook:

https://www.johnoliverwantsyourraterotica.com/

That's great!

In happier news from the doom scroll?

Insta has me down a delightful rabbit hole of Outsider Art.

As someone exposed to Eurotrash from, let’s face, far too young an age, this pleases me immensely.

Because it’s now always good. It’s not always original. But, in its own way? It’s always entertaining.

FB chat regularly fails to load these days.
During Lockdown, my gaming club went onto that, so there's a fair amount of organising, banter, etc there. But, if it won't load, that will fall apart.

[It isn't just the chat now. The whole site, videos, posts, the lot.]

As of the last couple of days, every 3rd or 4th post on my FB news feed is an add for a different band or artist who wants to give people free copies of their latest CD.

Which is an awesome idea as a marketing tool except that a) it's on Facebook, so I immediately doubt it's authenticity and b) the sheer volume of them in my feed all of a sudden suggests it's all just multiple accounts run by a bot.

Which is a shame, because I'm always up for new music... But there's no way I'd touch any of these.

Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

As a frequenter of CrunchyRoll and Viz Manga's website, the internet seems to think I really want a body pillow with a PG-13 naked anime girl on it. I don't, and think the internet has a very dirty mind that it jumps to that conclusion!

 LordofHats wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

As a frequenter of CrunchyRoll and Viz Manga's website, the internet seems to think I really want a body pillow with a PG-13 naked anime girl on it. I don't, and think the internet has a very dirty mind that it jumps to that conclusion!

Wow, your internet is a lot more exciting than mine, I keep getting ads for books... and more books... and an occasional medical ad where the internet believes I am 107 years old.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Could be worse. I keep getting hit with dating apps, hookup apps, and sugar daddy aps. These started popping up almost immediately after I changed my relationship status from married to single.

Yeah, any change of relationship status seems to trigger that. I had the same problem in reverse way back- FB started flooding me with dating app ads when I got married.