"The Great Hack" on Netflix

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DisorientingSneeze

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Has anyone seen this documentary? I’m so disturbed.

I’m not.converned about being personally politically influenced, seems the data on me told them don’t bother, but I am concerned about our data being psychologically weaponized.

I know I have a Facebook problem. This documentary made me just about ready to quit, but the mothers ministry I took over uses a Facebook group for a lot of its communications.

What would be some immediate steps to take without quitting yet?

Stop posting? Stop liking and reacting to posts?
 
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What do you mean by “a Facebook problem”?

Do you spend time on there that you should be spending tending to your other responsibilities? Do you get too anxious or upset over stuff you read on there?

Why is this documentary disturbing? It’s a documentary, it’s probably full of baloney as most biased documentaries are these days.

I use Facebook pretty much daily to keep up with friends, prayer groups and animal group pages. It’s no big deal. I don’t argue with people on there and I couldn’t care less if Facebook sees me liking a picture of a pug or posting a political joke on my friend’s jokey political group. Facebook has zero influence on how I vote or what I think.
 
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Good question. I would say I have a Facebook problem in that my attachment to it as a way of connecting to people makes me not immediately willing to quit even upon finding out our data is being weaponized to manipulate us.

You’re right, I should dig deeper. Documaries are designed for outrage.
 
Your data is not being “weaponized to manipulate you.” Please come back to reality.

The most your data is being used for is to stick ads in your feed, which can get pretty funny at times, like when I posted my husband died and I all of a sudden got ads for a joke “Handbook for the Recently Deceased”.

You can avoid being manipulated by simply ignoring the ads/ not buying the product.
 
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I’m not as concerned about myself personally being manipulated as by what we are all participating in.

The documentary suggests the Do So movement in Trinidad and Tobago was generated out of this sort of data to spread voter apathy among a targeted population. It even suggests similar forces had a hand in working up fury during the peak of black lives matter and blue lives matter types of rallies and demonstrations.
 
if you think it’s immoral to support Facebook then quit. Problem solved.
I know many people who never bothered to go on there, others who quit for one reason or another.

I myself don’t use any other social media such as Twitter, Instagram, etc. It’s not a necessity of life.

The other way to be on Facebook while not supporting them is to just use accounts with a lot of fake data. Your friends know who you are, nobody else is getting the straight story.

I find it laughable that the only reason everybody all of a sudden cares about this data manipulation issue is that the liberal left didn’t get the result they wanted last election. All the same stuff went on during the past two elections as well but it wasn’t a concern then because the “correct” candidate won.
 
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I can give you my experience as to how/why I cancelled my facebook. I got on facebook several years ago but not seriously, just looked at it here and there it was more of a novelty in the beginning.
Later, it became a good way of communicating and sharing with freinds and relatives
that lived far from me. My daughter as of 2 years ago admitted to me her SSA (same sex attraction). A relative of mine (my aunt) supported her and seemed to post things like
advertisments, media campaign type stuff sympathetic to this lifestyle and aimed at me
to either gauge my reaction or posting the stuff to “teach” me. I don’t know, but I got into
it with her by responding back a few times just to make it clear I didn’t share the same
views. Very upsetting it became and I started viewing facebook as a platform for those
that use it to garner support for social and political issues ,(my aunt and a few others)
It seemed to me that she only posted things using it as a platform for her beliefs and causes. I’m bent towards the conservative side (in case you haven’t already guessed) however, I don’t like using this medium or whatever you want to call it, as a way to rally, sway, intimidate people, it turns me off and that goes for the conservative’s who post things too. I found myself starting to engage in what I call facebook road rage exchanges. I got off two years + ago and don’t miss it. Also didn’t like having to remember to say happy birthday and maybe forgetting somebody else’s; to much to keep up with.

So if that helps any,
God Bless
Debbie
 
I definitely had to change the way I use it to avoid exchanges like that, customize my experience to make it a positive one.
 
If you are concerned about being attached to facebook (side issue) give it up here and there. For instance , decide to give it up for a day here and there for God or limit it to a certain number of hours a day etc. You are right attachments of any kind are not good, you should be able to take it or leave it and you should teach yourself to not be bothered about it. Perhaps your concern about this documentary was not its idea of control but a nudge from God getting you to deal with your Facebook problem as you put it. Only you can say as these sort of things are very personal but just something to think on.
 
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Is that the documentary about how we are being watched through our smart phones?

I might watch.

But it’s happened that I mention something with my sister and then, I get an advertisement for the same thing. 😳
 
F_Marturana said:
Is that the documentary about how we are being watched through our smart phones?
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I’ll be sure to engage in more gross personal habits while talking on my cell phone in that case. Might as well give the watchman something entertaining to look at!

I hope the government found my phone conversation this morning with the tree pruning guy to be scintillating.
 
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🤣😂🤣 I listen to music when I shower. But the phone goes in the medicine cabinet to keep the moisture from the steam out. I keep it open just a crack.
 
DisorientingSneeze said:
What would be some immediate steps to take without quitting yet?
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First off, I haven’t seen the documentary but think that concerns about FB are legit. If find the entire business model unethical, (remember, you are the product), and their psychological experiment was the last straw for me.

For whatever reason, there will always be people who cannot or will not use FB. This is a huge pain, but try to convince the mother’s ministry to use a different format. Even offer to set it up for them. A lot of Catholics give up Facebook for Lent or another spiritual discipline, so I’d hope they’d understand.
 
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Political campaigns have been manipulating people since the very first campaign in human history. Using the data we put on there is simply the latest tool.

This documentary underscored for me the importance of using critical thinking, of not believing something simply because “I saw it on facebook”. Do not eat what is spoon fed to you by algorithms or propaganda posing as news. Read source documents, read transcripts for yourself.
 
There are a few things anyone can do to help your privacy on FB. Everyone has to decide what level of privacy or non privacy they are comfortable with.

Go through the privacy settings! FB doesn’t always make it easy but they are there. If a setting is confusing, search to find out what it means. You can also deactivate your account which doesn’t delete it or you can delete it. These are two different things and I think neither will actually happen right away. They want to give you some time to change your mind…like opening the app even once!

It is very hard to completely quit FB. Our friends, family and organizations we follow all use it. You also may have linked your FB account to other logins. If you delete your account, now you can’t access those either.

Finally, always be aware of what you are doing in the app. A like is data to FB. Taking a silly quiz is data. On and on…FB uses algorithms to keep you engaged and they are very good at it. They feed your likes! I feel that I can’t quit because it’s the only way I have contact with certain people but I don’t interact with the app. I rarely like anything. I never do quizzes. FB probably hates me and I’m just fine with that!
 
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