A society of our own creation
Facebook makes you dive into humanity, hear things you do not want to hear, and defend what you have to say. It is for those with opinions or for those who had not previously had the courage to share them.
And fence-sitters, of course. It also attracts the reasoned, the not-so reasoned, the civil and the uncivil.
The biased and the unbiased. It is for people with ideas and sadly those without any. It whispers or shouts dissent. But mostly it’s a society of our own creation.
Unfortunately, it gives a safe house to those with the cut of sarcasm and the political nutters who without it have no voice.
Many times those who inhabit the extremities of right-wing politics have demonised me. Those feral types who would not have their voices heard elsewhere.
Friendships are made when the tyranny of distance is broken by the written word. It makes possible the resumption of friendships long since lost in the overlook of time.
With technology not thought of in our youth but readily accepted by the young it is but a click or two away – the correspondence of today.
People live on our Facebook front doors and you can see, feel or hear them. Their voices give credence to their presence. It is no substitute for the charisma of another’s presence, but it makes for an excellent second best. To be able to reach out to a single person a thousand miles away a century ago would’ve been God-like in its essence
As a tool for social networking nothing surpasses it – families included.
Dating I cannot opine about but it is useful for business. Video chat fits easily into Facebook’s seemingly endless possibilities, as do news and information. Politics being my main interest and means of friendly persuasion seems to start on Facebook and ends with The AIMN.
It does have privacy and fake profile issues but the biggest downside is one’s time that it seems to engulf in enormous amounts.
My truth is that Facebook is the first thing I open every morning. If I have an article that has also been posted on The AIMN then I share it on 100 Facebook pages that I’m a member of.
Facebook suffices for My thoughts for the day. They seem to have attracted a small but significant following of thoughtful people who add their opinions to what I say.
I have never been able to work out why it is that if I post a piece as plain text it is likely to get more reads than a linked version to The AIMN. Much more satisfying for the intellectual journey.
Reading the comments of my articles on the various pages, together with my email and messenger communications is all very time-consuming. Mostly I just press ‘Like’ and hope that it suffices and that people will understand that it is impossible to comment on everyone’s. I do read them all.
One is often surprised with the total comments one gets but at the same time I’m left wondering just how many of my friends are actually “live” so to speak.
Some days I get 10-20 friend requests and I haven’t a clue as to why people do it, given I never hear from them again. Maybe they just like my thoughts without complication.
With great certainty as I peruse Facebook every morning I find many links from it to the many fine articles on The AIMN. This is but one of many ways I digest my news and commentary.
So Facebook to me has become somewhat of a complicated beast. It doesn’t have the political quality of discussion that The AIMN has but nonetheless is part of my daily life.
Social media used wisely can enhance your life and provide an opportunity to share similar interests and ideas with people who otherwise would not do so.
It opens up a treasure chest of thoughts you may not have considered and an opportunity to debate them.
As with drums, smoke signals, word of mouth, the printing press, the pen, books, the telephone, newspapers, film, radio, television, tablets, type writers, computers and so on all these things over the centuries have, all in there own way, provided us with a sense of community and inter-connectedness.
For some it is not a mandatory part of being who we are where as for others if gives them a voice in matters that concern them.
Nobody forces you to read a newspaper or send smoke signals. Facebook is at the end of a lingering line of historical means of communicating with fellow humans and it probably wont be the last.
It will not however, replace the human touch, the reverberation of the human voice or the aroma of life that we all so fervently require.
My thought for the day
No one group should think they have an ownership of righteousness, or ideas for that matter.
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
11 comments
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John Lord
Return to home pageHaven’t actually read anything on my FB for quite a while now (years), no time to waste on fascists, bigots, ingrates and morons. Very sad, I am a member of many interest groups (all above board) on FB that seems to raise the ire of morons who read my profile and think they have the right to abuse me. Screw them! I have my interests and others have their interests in which I have no interest. Conservatives and god botherers are the worst, and I’m a quiet believer (I don’t preach to or criticise others).
I only keep my account to use their messenger app on my phone to keep in contact with non sms relatives & friends.
If FB folded tomorrow I’d be a very happy chappy.
Facebook has become the new TalkBack Radio.
It is where LNP stooges and urgers lurk, presenting their slogans and talking-points in a sick travesty of public discourse.
Thanks John…..always interesting reading your thoughts. Don’t give the idiots any oxygen. Facebook does bring them out, but usually not in their names. Cowards.
This site has a lot to thank Facebook for. Over half of our traffic has come from Facebook thanks to the authors and our admin team sharing the posts widely on that platform. Plus, of course, the support we receive from dozens of Facebook groups who follow The AIMN.
But apart from posting photos for the benefit of family and friends – and sharing AIMN articles on various political groups – I rarely use it for anything else these days. No matter what you post there, someone has a problem with it or wants to troll you.
Last year Carol posted a photo of a beautiful sunrise, but there just happened to be the jet stream of a plane in the left of the photo (which mattered not a great deal to Carol). Someone took offence though, and commented:
“Why do you want to post a photo promoting the spreading of chem trails by which the government controls the people?”
That was almost the final straw.
The final straw came shortly after when she was asked by a friend:
“Why didn’t you put a ‘Like’ next to my last photo?”
(Maybe it’s because Carol couldn’t care less about the salad you made for lunch).
Thanks John, a good reflection on the medium and a good end to the article. FB is a shadow of the interactions we really need.
I can see where you’re coming from Michael re this site, yes I did share to FB from here until my Wife who is active on FB, got some irate morons abusing her because of my posts. How petty is that? Keyboard warriors of the most gutless type. So now (unfortunately) I basically share to Twitter when I have time. From me, FB is nothing more than a festering swamp that needs to be drained.
Here’s a hint, never ever retire!! Too many people find that they can sink their talons into you for “love jobs” and your time is never your own….🤣🤣🤣🤣
I spent too much of my young years programming, hacking and working with computers (started in the 60s learning binary logic & theory) to spend my time sitting in front of one copping abuse from keyboard warriors with f*ckall to say politely. FB & Twitter are the only 2 social media sites I belong to, not the least bit interested in thing like Reddit or Instagram or any of the other rubbish available. Too focused on looking after our grandkids, balancing our pension budget, getting things done around our hovel and doing jobs for others.
That being said, yeah, I’m a cranky, crusty, invalided ol’ bugger, but I care deeply for those around me.
I actually like Facebook. It helped me attempt to reconnect with my children, and most friends seem to use FB for birthdays and Christmas, which is a bit sad as cards are nice to receive in the mail.
My gripe with Facebook right now is to do with a news article I shared from ABC News website about health of some children in the outback. This article was shared a year ago in 2018. Yet yesterday (Sept 4 2019) I was informed by FB that no one could see it because the image was against their Community Policy. The image used in the article was of indigenous children with bare chests. So the FB robots decided I had posted either sexual activity or nudity. On looking at the info contained in the place where they informed me of my crime they went into great detail about the showing nipples. I was pretty angry about this and asked for a review. In less than 10 minutes (it would be night time over in USA) I was told it had been reviewed and still the same outcome.
I found the article thanks to Google and contacted the author and asked her to please not use photos of sexual activity or nudity on any other future articles she might write about the preventable disease children suffer in the outback.
In this sense FB is ridiculous, and to make it worse we have no way to contact a human, or even a non-human to state our case. I did inform them in feedback that this was an article of importance not some sleazy porn image. I think I am still angry about it, even after a sleep. I now wonder if they also remove photos people share of bare chested men at times? Or animals that show nipples in photos. FB could shut itself down with their censorship robots doing their job.
I was not the only person dealing with this so that was some consolation, anyone who shared it faced the same decision. Of interest to me is why it took them a year and 3 days to inform me of my mistake. But today is a new day so time to move on.
Facebook can give some insight except from trolls and astro turfers, but is good and essential to attract people to websites like AIMN and digital marketing generally, especially for local business too.
Socially, I’m neutral, excellent for keeping in touch with dispersed friends and family without any effort (vs. collecting virtual friends); notice more middle aged and older using FB, but younger less so.
For social insight was an amazing period of months 2016 on FB watching UK friendships and family relations breakdown before, during and after Brexit supported by dog whistling EU, anti-immigration, myths, nationalism/nativism, nostalgia and (decades of) media agit prop (Murdoch et al.); watching a car crash in slow motion that’s still going on….. however I notice many Brexit supporters have pulled their heads in, changed their views or have they passed away with demographic change?
Thank you John. With quite a number of progressive people being delisted or demonetised by Facebook, Twitter and Alphabet (Youtube), one can only assume that your views, observations, opinions and advise are being tolerated, for now.
As an author of good, but sparsely read, novels, I once spent a lot of time on Facebook and Twitter, getting new friends and followers, trying to promote myself. Yet, what I found most was that I was mostly attracting people who had something to sell to me, or just wanted me as a number!! So, I failed social media and now only use to post happy life events and I belong to some groups which can be useful (outside of ‘booklovers’ groups, which seem to be full of struggling authors). People who want to post to twitter regularly annoy the crap out of me, for some reason, but there you go.
If ever they ban you, I’ll keep coming here to read your perspicacious words.
As the resident ratbag(not troll as the crow flies) there are items that inspire, items that irk and simple drivel.
This site’s posts emulate life and often have all three.
Facebook and cellphones are individual spaces exposed to the world. Privacy doesn’t and shouldn’t exist, on such occasions, and anyone who expects privacy is dreaming. See another AFP crash search and black garbags full of material taken???
But if you are not able to take criticism, lord, you need to limit your audience and ‘unfriend’ those that criticise.
Several labor pollies have ‘unfriended’ this little duck, because of my use of little billy and torpid tanya in my attempt to get them to ‘do something’ not on the ABC, leading up to the 2016 election.
I continue to offend the loonies, domi et militiaeque for 2009 carbon price rabbottian disaster and 2019 use of senile bob and ‘loonie vegan women’ in townsville successfully increasing the AEC cash intake..
My most successful troll is the lack of respect shown by not affording Australian Aborigines a capital ‘A'(yesterday’s news had a letter pointing out that ‘doesn’t remember seeing aboriginals(sic) in other capital cities, remember your shiny black words??).
Anyone who writes, facebook, maori english australian aborigine will get a red line asking for a capital for all but one..
How many Australians use a small letter aborigines in the context of Aboriginal? But it fits with the ability to ‘not see’ Aborigines in ‘our’ society..
Thought: Facebook allows one to remove opposition and retain a group point of view? I have copped ‘leftist asshole, if I knew where you lived you’d be flat on your back’ from republican, trump supporters’ all the way to ‘rightwing troll’ for anti-bobby words
Unfortunately, I have a problem with words – online bullying is not possible because the evidence is visible what is needed is the process of law that reacts to the fears and mental anguish caused by suggestions to kill or maim or bash?? A family knew their 15 child was being bullied at school refused to let her leave the school and she killed herself. Internet bullying got the blame????
ps
Michael,
Did Carol say get a life look at the sun and tell the friend why no likee post?? Facebook can be informative and educational??
pps
Sharon American attitudes are ruling change in our language and society through facebook, google and cable.
Nipples and bum cracks are so offensive to septics because of pornography connotations, they are blotted out in our TV. Breastfeeding is now legal in all US states when the clause of bare breasts was removed. So breasts and babies ok but jackson’s error still illegal. Australian laws are only genitals so the TV are self censors
Thanks Christopher J. Most encouraging.