Hello all,

I'm using DDG and Google to search for some particular information, and ever
so often get results back that poin to a facebook group. I neither have a
login, nor does my browser run random scripts.

My question : does anyone know of a way to read (and *just* that)
facebook-group posts ? A proxy perhaps ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

P.s.
If someone knows about similar simple, read-only access to other social
media I would like to hear about those too.

In article <t226hf$1qj8$1@gioia.aioe.org>, R.Wieser wrote...
>
> Hello all,
>
> I'm using DDG and Google to search for some particular information, and ever
> so often get results back that poin to a facebook group. I neither have a
> login, nor does my browser run random scripts.
>
> My question : does anyone know of a way to read (and *just* that)
> facebook-group posts ? A proxy perhaps ?
>
> Regards,
> Rudy Wieser
>
> P.s.
> If someone knows about similar simple, read-only access to other social
> media I would like to hear about those too.

Facebook groups (I've been an admin of a large group) are configured to be
public, private or secret (I rather think terms have changed, but the principal
is the same).

Public groups don't restrict visibility of posts at all, or their members'
identities, though individuals can also influence this. Private groups only
allow visibility of content to members. Secret groups can't be found in a
search - you have to have the exact name or link.

There's little cost in creating a simple Facebook profile, though admins
considering you for membership of their group often turn up their nose at near-
blank profiles. Be thoughtful what you disclose, but you can make most of your
details private. If you accept Facebook "friends" you can classify them as
Family, Close Friends, Friends or Acquaintances (without them seeing this).
Then choose which level of Friends are to be able to see any default posts you
make (adjustable on a per-post basis).

Facebook is huge fun if you get it right. You can keep up with people you'd
otherwise lose touch with, and groups can be a rich source of interest,
including locality-based groups. I learned a lot (and even grew a little as a
person) from creating and administering a very busy and lively locality group,
learning to deal with fools, trolls and worse, while cultivating a real
community. But I got sucked in to the point where it was taking up WAY too
much time, and I'm currently taking a lengthy break. I look forward to getting
back to it when current big projects are done and dusted.

One lesson, to pick from many? "Always let the other side have the last word.
For then it will be their foolishness, and not yours, that will linger in
people's minds."

TLDR: No, you can't read the content in private groups (most groups) unless
your Facebook identity is given membership of the group.

--

Phil, London

Philip,

> Facebook groups (I've been an admin of a large group) are configured
> to be public, private or secret

I'm aware of that. AFAIk the group I try to read the messages in is public.

> There's little cost in creating a simple Facebook profile,

Lets put it this way : I have zero wish to hand over my life to Facebook
just to read a few posts. Besides the problem that I would still be unable
to read anything, as everything is hidden away behind lots of JavaScript (I
checked)

Hence my question.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote

| Lets put it this way : I have zero wish to hand over my life to Facebook
| just to read a few posts. Besides the problem that I would still be
unable
| to read anything, as everything is hidden away behind lots of JavaScript
(I
| checked)
|

I'm with you. Surprisingly, even a lot of organizations
and businesses use Facebook without having websites.
They just don't know about the WWW. They only know
social media.

I haven't come across a way to access such groups.
I just try to shame them when I have a chance. But
I did come across nitter.net, which allows you to search
and read Twitter without javascript. So if Twitter ever
has anything worth reading... I'm all set. :) So far I've
only used it to look up old friends, none of which seem
to actually post there.

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 20:11:51 +0200, "R.Wieser" <address@not.available>
wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I'm using DDG and Google to search for some particular information, and ever
>so often get results back that poin to a facebook group. I neither have a
>login, nor does my browser run random scripts.
>
>My question : does anyone know of a way to read (and *just* that)
>facebook-group posts ? A proxy perhaps ?
>
>Regards,
>Rudy Wieser
>
>P.s.
>If someone knows about similar simple, read-only access to other social
>media I would like to hear about those too.
>
My dog has a Facebook page. He doesn't talk about me. I got a little
flak from the admin of the private group I follow but they haven't
kicked me out yet.
I watch my ad stream and I haven't seen any bleed over. It is really
all about ad targeting.

In article <t22i49$1hn$1@dont-email.me>, Mayayana wrote...
>
> "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote
>
> | Lets put it this way : I have zero wish to hand over my life to Facebook
> | just to read a few posts. Besides the problem that I would still be
> unable
> | to read anything, as everything is hidden away behind lots of JavaScript
> (I
> | checked)
> |
>
> I'm with you. Surprisingly, even a lot of organizations
> and businesses use Facebook without having websites.
> They just don't know about the WWW. They only know
> social media.
>
> I haven't come across a way to access such groups.
> I just try to shame them when I have a chance. But
> I did come across nitter.net, which allows you to search
> and read Twitter without javascript. So if Twitter ever
> has anything worth reading... I'm all set. :) So far I've
> only used it to look up old friends, none of which seem
> to actually post there.

It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post - termed
"permalink" in FB. That link is underneath the faint grey legend of the
date/time of posting, just beneath the post. So it's possible to access a
given post via the web, if the applicable permissions allow. But if nobody
identifies that link for you, then without a profile you'll be knocking at a
locked door. It's perfectly possible to have a minimal profile, even using
genuine information, and to configure it so that none of it is visible to
anyone that you haven't explicitly given permission to. And that would give
you many more chances to get at the info you're looking for. But some people
simply knee-jerk at the thought (often based on third-hand accounts) of social
media. The choice is yours.

TikTok, on the other hand, is clearly the work of Satan.

--

Phil, London

Mayayana,

Thanks for mentioning that twitter entry point. I"ve stored it for when I
might need it.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Philip,

> It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post

No, it isn't possible.

I took the time to follow such a link (
https://www.facebook.com/groups/{name}/posts/{big number} ), and all that I
got was a page full of JS. With the only human readable contentin some
"<meta property=" tags in the "head" part of the page.

IOW, the link itself is *at best* an indirect one - with the actual content
hidden behind a lot of JS.

Why do you think I asked ?

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

gfretwell,

> It is really all about ad targeting.

:-) Thats just the part you see.

I myself consider Facebook (and its ilk) as icebergs : most of it is
invisble to the common person. But don't get too close, you know what
happened to the Titanic.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 11:04:34 +0200, R.Wieser wrote:
> Philip,
>
>> It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post
>
> No, it isn't possible.
>
> I took the time to follow such a link (
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/{name}/posts/{big number} ), and all that I
> got was a page full of JS. With the only human readable contentin some
> "<meta property=" tags in the "head" part of the page.
>
> IOW, the link itself is *at best* an indirect one - with the actual content
> hidden behind a lot of JS.
>
> Why do you think I asked ?

It's going to be difficult or at least, tedious.

First of all, the correct JS code will need to be parsed to extract the raw
data of the page content which contains user posted messages - which is in
form of a JS object.

The other difficulties is that, the HTML page resource retrieved from a post
URL, only contains the first view comments. FB retrieves the rest of the
comments using JS, and the URL used to retrieve it includes access tokens -
which also need to be extracted from a JS code elsewhere from the HTML page
resource and/or cookie.

You might want to search GitHub or other open source project repositories
for a project that does that _without_ using FB's Graph API. FYI, FB's Graph
API requires an FB account to generate an access token.

In article <t23qra$i9k$1@gioia.aioe.org>, R.Wieser
<address@not.available> wrote:

> > It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post
>
> No, it isn't possible.

yes it is.

> I took the time to follow such a link (
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/{name}/posts/{big number} ), and all that I
> got was a page full of JS. With the only human readable contentin some
> "<meta property=" tags in the "head" part of the page.
>
> IOW, the link itself is *at best* an indirect one - with the actual content
> hidden behind a lot of JS.

your browser is either misconfigured or not supported. did you disable
javascript? what browser are you using?

if the content is not public, you should see a login page. since you
stated you do not have a facebook account, that will be as far as you
get, and even if you did have an account, it might not be available to
you.

R.Wieser wrote:

> I took the time to follow such a link (
> https://www.facebook.com/groups/{name}/posts/{big number} ), and all that I
> got was a page full of JS.

I'm not on FB in any way, but there's a village hall group I sometimes look at,
if you google for the name of the group, facebook wants you to login to see it,
but if you find a link to an item on the group itself, the group is "public" and
"visible" and you can see the discussion without logging in at all.

the formats that work for me are just

<https://www.facebook.com/groups/1111122222333335>

or

<https://www.facebook.com/groups/1111122222333335/posts/6666677777888889>

I don't see any javascript gobbledygook

"Philip Herlihy" <PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote

| It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post -
termed
| "permalink" in FB. That link is underneath the faint grey legend of the
| date/time of posting, just beneath the post.

As Rudy pointed out, that still leaves the problem of
extensive javascript, which probably won't work at all
in older browsers. I'm finding that in XP on an increasing
number of sites. The most recent was my doctor's website,
built on reactJS. These sites are complicated software,
designed to only work in the very latest browsers, by people
who don't actually have any idea of how to code a webpage.
One look at the code makes it clear that it's all machine-
generated.

| So it's possible to access a
| given post via the web, if the applicable permissions allow. But if
nobody
| identifies that link for you, then without a profile you'll be knocking at
a | locked door. It's perfectly possible to have a minimal profile, even
using
| genuine information, and to configure it so that none of it is visible to
| anyone that you haven't explicitly given permission to. And that would
give
| you many more chances to get at the info you're looking for. But some
people
| simply knee-jerk at the thought (often based on third-hand accounts) of
social
| media. The choice is yours.
|

You talk as though social media is just a neutral tool. It's
actually a profound cultural change. Sleazy, for-profit companies
have taken control of peoples' social lives; especially teenagers.
If you ask young people why they don't quit they say they'd never
hear about parties. Their social lives are owned by Zuck and his
ilk. That's like teenagers who grow up in malls rather than in
parks and on Main St. They grow up seeing themselves having a
duty to be consumers, rather than as citizens. But social media has
greatly amplified that effect.

And that's just part of it. Social media has also created crushing
peer pressure. When I go onto public trains and buses I see virtually
everyone, especially the young, swiping through posts. Then they
put their phone away, only to take it out again, 2-3 seconds later,
like automatons on a software loop. As of 2021, 1 in 12 children
in the US is on psychoactive drugs prescribed by a doctor. I don't know
how many are in "therapy", but I know it's been normalized. I know
a 14 year old now who's going home from school regularly with
"panic attacks". That sea change is not an arbitrary accident.

Young people are living in a fishbowl of peer pressure, forever
doomed to the mob rule of the playground. They're growing up
in terror of actually being alone, because they don't know that
experience. Nor are they normally where they are. Their bodies are
in one place; their interactions in another.

If you look at wokist mania and cancel culture you can see
reverberations of that. Brutal peer pressure with no adult supervision.
Young people screaming about feeling "safe", obsessed with tokenistic
self-righteousness. They all feel under the microscope of social media
and that has produced a witch hunting mob of people who mercilessly
accuse others for fear they'll be accused themselves. They don't
even dare to be male or female!

To regard social media as neutral is like the geeks on Slashdot
desperately wanting to believe that 5 hours/day of murdering
people in video games has no effect on young minds. If that were
true there would be no such thing as raising children, because
the raising would have no effect. 40-year-old GTA addicts
just can't bring themselves to admit that they're wasting
their lives in a sick addiction.

Which is not to say that I think the whole idea is evil. Rather, the
ubiquity, the for-profit model, and the lack of supervision for children
is what worries me. I've been using Reddit for some time, to join
specific discussions where I can offer help. Their current version is broken
for me, but they were nice enugh to offer an older, compatible version
at old.reddit.com. They require minimal personal info and it's not a
social site in the sense of people conducting their personal lives there.
It's more like usenet with whining.

But even Reddit has a dark side. They want people to be happy
and keep coming back. So groups tend to form around topics of
interest and then the "moderators" can be petty tyrants, strictly
controlling what can be said. Anyone is free to complain that they
feel "harmed" by someone they disagree with. Posts can be upvoted
and downvoted. So that nasty peer pressure gets going again.
People begin to post in hopes of votes. I know that because they
talk about it. Younger people, especially, are so accustomed to the
mob rule of social media that for them social discourse means saying
whatever they think will gain them acceptance. Again, you can see
that mindset reflected in wokism, BLM, gender battles, and so on.
No one dares to think for themselves. It's all desperate "virtue
signalling" while accusing others of lacking in virtue.

I saw some good commentary about that kind of groupthink around
last week's Oscars. There was pure idiocy, like Jessica Chastain
defending LGBTQ out of the blue, as though someone had just
beat up a lesbian onstage, and "Power of the Dog" almost winning
simply because it attacks "toxic masculinity" and champions
men acting more feminine, bringing out their "hidden homosexuality".
CODA won because the actors are deaf. No one dares to judge
the movies on quality.

Ricky Gervais was asked what he might say if he were hosting,
and as usual, he injected a bit of sane decency:

"I'm proud to announce that this is the most diverse and progressive Oscars
ever. Looking out I see people from all walks of life. Every demographic
under the sun. Except poor people, obviously. Fuck them."

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 20:11:08 +0100, Philip Herlihy
<PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote:

>In article <t226hf$1qj8$1@gioia.aioe.org>, R.Wieser wrote...
>>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I'm using DDG and Google to search for some particular information, and ever
>> so often get results back that poin to a facebook group. I neither have a
>> login, nor does my browser run random scripts.
>>
>> My question : does anyone know of a way to read (and *just* that)
>> facebook-group posts ? A proxy perhaps ?
>>
>> Regards,
>> Rudy Wieser
>>
>> P.s.
>> If someone knows about similar simple, read-only access to other social
>> media I would like to hear about those too.
>
>Facebook groups (I've been an admin of a large group) are configured to be
>public, private or secret (I rather think terms have changed, but the principal
>is the same).
>
>Public groups don't restrict visibility of posts at all, or their members'
>identities, though individuals can also influence this. Private groups only
>allow visibility of content to members. Secret groups can't be found in a
>search - you have to have the exact name or link.
>
>There's little cost in creating a simple Facebook profile, though admins
>considering you for membership of their group often turn up their nose at near-
>blank profiles. Be thoughtful what you disclose, but you can make most of your
>details private. If you accept Facebook "friends" you can classify them as
>Family, Close Friends, Friends or Acquaintances (without them seeing this).
>Then choose which level of Friends are to be able to see any default posts you
>make (adjustable on a per-post basis).
>
>Facebook is huge fun if you get it right. You can keep up with people you'd
>otherwise lose touch with, and groups can be a rich source of interest,
>including locality-based groups. I learned a lot (and even grew a little as a
>person) from creating and administering a very busy and lively locality group,
>learning to deal with fools, trolls and worse, while cultivating a real
>community. But I got sucked in to the point where it was taking up WAY too
>much time, and I'm currently taking a lengthy break. I look forward to getting
>back to it when current big projects are done and dusted.

I joined Facebook because friends told me I 'had' to. It's hardly been
of any use to me at all. It does have some disadvantages: when any of
your Facebook friends bakes a cake or goes to the toilet you get an
email (never been able to turn them off). Also no longer works in XP.
My solution is to have my Eudora email client label these emails as
'junk' and I no longer see them. Occasionally when I'm in Win7 I'll
scan the 99 Facebook messages I've accumulated. Hardly ever need to
reply to any. I do have some groups I'm interested in, don't know if I
have to been signed onto Facebook to see them. I think the majority of
Facebook messages I get are sent from phones - one liners. As you can
see from this wordy reply I ain't a fan.
>
>One lesson, to pick from many? "Always let the other side have the last word.
>For then it will be their foolishness, and not yours, that will linger in
>people's minds."
>
>TLDR: No, you can't read the content in private groups (most groups) unless
>your Facebook identity is given membership of the group.

JJ,

> It's going to be difficult or at least, tedious.
>
> First of all, the correct JS code will need to be parsed to extract
> the raw data of the page content which contains user posted messages
> - which is in form of a JS object.

I was hoping that someone had already done that, wrapped it into a bit of
PHP, and would offer the result to us as a simple webpage. :-)

But yes, I've also considered trying to do that.

> You might want to search GitHub or other open source project
> repositories for a project that does that _without_ using FB's Graph
> API.

Thanks for pointer as well as the warning.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

Andy,

> the formats that work for me are just
>
> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/1111122222333335>
>
> or
>
> <https://www.facebook.com/groups/1111122222333335/posts/6666677777888889>

I've tried both formats, with the latter one being the one I described in
the post you replied to. Neither work for me.

> I don't see any javascript gobbledygook

:-) You're not supposed to. You'll only see it when looking at the page
source.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser

"John B. Smith" <crasso@verizon.net> wrote

| I joined Facebook because friends told me I 'had' to. It's hardly been
| of any use to me at all.

I've never used it, but friends who have typically say that
they joined to find old friends, only to discover their friends
were not on it. I don't think it's ever been very popular with
older people, except to read what their kids post publicly.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 08:56:09 -0400, John B. Smith <crasso@verizon.net>
wrote:

>On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 20:11:08 +0100, Philip Herlihy
><PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote:
>
>>In article <t226hf$1qj8$1@gioia.aioe.org>, R.Wieser wrote...
>>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> I'm using DDG and Google to search for some particular information, and ever
>>> so often get results back that poin to a facebook group. I neither have a
>>> login, nor does my browser run random scripts.
>>>
>>> My question : does anyone know of a way to read (and *just* that)
>>> facebook-group posts ? A proxy perhaps ?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Rudy Wieser
>>>
>>> P.s.
>>> If someone knows about similar simple, read-only access to other social
>>> media I would like to hear about those too.
>>
>>Facebook groups (I've been an admin of a large group) are configured to be
>>public, private or secret (I rather think terms have changed, but the principal
>>is the same).
>>
>>Public groups don't restrict visibility of posts at all, or their members'
>>identities, though individuals can also influence this. Private groups only
>>allow visibility of content to members. Secret groups can't be found in a
>>search - you have to have the exact name or link.
>>
>>There's little cost in creating a simple Facebook profile, though admins
>>considering you for membership of their group often turn up their nose at near-
>>blank profiles. Be thoughtful what you disclose, but you can make most of your
>>details private. If you accept Facebook "friends" you can classify them as
>>Family, Close Friends, Friends or Acquaintances (without them seeing this).
>>Then choose which level of Friends are to be able to see any default posts you
>>make (adjustable on a per-post basis).
>>
>>Facebook is huge fun if you get it right. You can keep up with people you'd
>>otherwise lose touch with, and groups can be a rich source of interest,
>>including locality-based groups. I learned a lot (and even grew a little as a
>>person) from creating and administering a very busy and lively locality group,
>>learning to deal with fools, trolls and worse, while cultivating a real
>>community. But I got sucked in to the point where it was taking up WAY too
>>much time, and I'm currently taking a lengthy break. I look forward to getting
>>back to it when current big projects are done and dusted.
>
>I joined Facebook because friends told me I 'had' to. It's hardly been
>of any use to me at all. It does have some disadvantages: when any of
>your Facebook friends bakes a cake or goes to the toilet you get an
>email (never been able to turn them off).

Somewhere in the profile/settings section there is a box you uncheck
to turn off <email> "notifications". You can also get rid of a lot of
the click bait by turning off "nametest" in the newsfeed options. It
really doesn't affect me much since all of my dog's E Mail is spam
anyway. and I wipe the inbox occasionally without looking at any of
it. I have never given them a cell number or much of anything else
they want to see.
Usually I just look at the private group I am subscribed to and the
private notes from a few family members who are FB junkies. Just be
careful what you post and what info you put in your profile. Firefox
runs FB in a "container" that is supposed to keep them from sniffing
your cookies but I wipe them on logoff anyway on that browser so there
is not much to see. Never do anything else with FB open. There does
still seem to be some bleed over if you do. If you have FB open and
log onto Amazon, your FB feed seems to start sending you ads about
what you looked at on Amazon.
Coincidence?
Maybe. Just don't do it. I suppose they still have your IP address.
The less "friends" you have, the less they can build a network around
you. I only have a few. None of them have ever used my name. I
appreciate that.

On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 at 09:12:02, Philip Herlihy
<PhillipHerlihy@SlashDevNull.invalid> wrote (my responses usually
FOLLOW):
[]
>> "R.Wieser" <address@not.available> wrote
>>
>> | Lets put it this way : I have zero wish to hand over my life to Facebook
>> | just to read a few posts. Besides the problem that I would still be
[]
>It's certainly possible to have a direct web-link to a particular post
>- termed
>"permalink" in FB. That link is underneath the faint grey legend of the
>date/time of posting, just beneath the post. So it's possible to access a
>given post via the web, if the applicable permissions allow. But if nobody
>identifies that link for you, then without a profile you'll be knocking at a
>locked door. It's perfectly possible to have a minimal profile, even using
>genuine information, and to configure it so that none of it is visible to
>anyone that you haven't explicitly given permission to. And that would give
>you many more chances to get at the info you're looking for. But some people
>simply knee-jerk at the thought (often based on third-hand accounts) of social
>media. The choice is yours.

I think R's point was, why should there a need to join - however easy,
and however little information you have to give - just to get
information? Fair enough for a social group, I suppose (though you won't
find me joining such - I actually don't hate FaceBook*, I just don't
have the time), but when _companies_ start putting information _only_
there, it's (some way down!) the slippery slope.

(For example, my SatNav [GPS] maker - XGODY; the product itself is fine
- puts the _address_ of their map updates on a Facebook group, which you
have to join to get the addresses. (They put the actual _files_ on
Google Drive.))
>
>TikTok, on the other hand, is clearly the work of Satan.
>
(-:

* I think the main reason _I_ don't use FaceBook - as I said, I _don't_
hate people who do use it - is the way its pages work: a combination of
top-posting (which is irritating, but common in many situations) and
continuously-loading (presumably sodden with 'script). I'd (possibly)
use it more if it had pages where "loading complete" was even a
possibility.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

He [Alfred Kinsey] wouldn't ask 'Have you ever slept with a horse?' He would
say, 'When did you first sleep with a horse?' [RT 2018/5/5-11]

On Wed, 30 Mar 2022 20:11:08 +0100, Philip Herlihy wrote:

> There's little cost in creating a simple Facebook profile

Like selling your soul to the devil.

--
s|b

On 3/31/2022 10:50 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

> I actually don't hate FaceBook*, I just don't
> have the time), but when _companies_ start putting information _only_
> there, it's (some way down!) the slippery slope.

I don't know whether I would hate Facebook or not, but I suspect that I
might. I've never seen it. I have no interest in it.

--
Ken

"Mayayana" <mayayana@invalid.nospam> on Thu, 31 Mar 2022 10:42:07
-0400 typed in alt.windows7.general the following:
>"John B. Smith" <crasso@verizon.net> wrote
>
>| I joined Facebook because friends told me I 'had' to. It's hardly been
>| of any use to me at all.
>
> I've never used it, but friends who have typically say that
>they joined to find old friends, only to discover their friends
>were not on it. I don't think it's ever been very popular with
>older people, except to read what their kids post publicly.

Some times I find old friends, and well, all we have in common is
something we were involved in 40 years ago, or that we once went to
the same high school, or some similar part of what is a past life.

"Glory Days!..."
>
--
pyotr filipivich
This Week's Panel: Us & Them - Eliminating Them.
Next Month's Panel: Having eliminated the old Them(tm)
Selecting who insufficiently Woke(tm) as to serve as the new Them(tm)

--
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On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 at 11:10:57, Ken Blake <ken@invalidemail.com> wrote
(my responses usually FOLLOW):
>On 3/31/2022 10:50 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>
>
>> I actually don't hate FaceBook*, I just don't
>> have the time), but when _companies_ start putting information _only_
>> there, it's (some way down!) the slippery slope.
>
>
>I don't know whether I would hate Facebook or not, but I suspect that I
>might. I've never seen it. I have no interest in it.
>
I really meant I don't hate people who _use_ FaceBook, which many other
people who like me don't use it seem to.
>
I have no interest in it either - not because I have a strong dislike of
it, just I haven't the time to start yet another, on top of usenet,
email, twitter, and YouTube. Same applies to WhatsApp, TikTok, and all
the others: I don't hate people who use them, I just don't have time.
>
But some people - and worse, some companies - _only_ put information
there, so even if you have no interest in it, you have to use it. Like
fobile moan app.s.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush.
It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899-1977)

On 3/31/2022 11:16 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 at 11:10:57, Ken Blake <ken@invalidemail.com> wrote
> (my responses usually FOLLOW):
>>On 3/31/2022 10:50 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I actually don't hate FaceBook*, I just don't
>>> have the time), but when _companies_ start putting information _only_
>>> there, it's (some way down!) the slippery slope.
>>
>>
>>I don't know whether I would hate Facebook or not, but I suspect that I
>>might. I've never seen it. I have no interest in it.
>>
> I really meant I don't hate people who _use_ FaceBook, which many other
> people who like me don't use it seem to.
>>
> I have no interest in it either - not because I have a strong dislike of
> it, just I haven't the time to start yet another, on top of usenet,

Me too.

> email,

Me too.

> twitter,

I've never used that either.

> and YouTube.

YouTube? That's very different. It's not for communication between people.

I use YouTube fairly often, mostly because I play classical guitar, and
use YouTube to study and learn from professional performances of pieces
I'm working on.

> Same applies to WhatsApp, TikTok, and all
> the others:

Me too. I probably haven't even heard of most of them.

>I don't hate people who use them, I just don't have time.

For me, no time *and* no interest.

> But some people - and worse, some companies - _only_ put information
> there, so even if you have no interest in it, you have to use it.

I've never run into that.

> Like
> fobile moan app.s.

I've never run into that either.

--
Ken

On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 19:16:48 +0100, "J. P. Gilliver (John)"
<G6JPG@255soft.uk> wrote:

>On Thu, 31 Mar 2022 at 11:10:57, Ken Blake <ken@invalidemail.com> wrote
>(my responses usually FOLLOW):
>>On 3/31/2022 10:50 AM, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> I actually don't hate FaceBook*, I just don't
>>> have the time), but when _companies_ start putting information _only_
>>> there, it's (some way down!) the slippery slope.
>>
>>
>>I don't know whether I would hate Facebook or not, but I suspect that I
>>might. I've never seen it. I have no interest in it.
>>
>I really meant I don't hate people who _use_ FaceBook, which many other
>people who like me don't use it seem to.

Not just people who like you, right? Perhaps that sentence could have
benefitted from a couple of apostrophes. ;-)

>I have no interest in it either - not because I have a strong dislike of
>it, just I haven't the time to start yet another, on top of usenet,
>email, twitter, and YouTube. Same applies to WhatsApp, TikTok, and all
>the others: I don't hate people who use them, I just don't have time.
>>
>But some people - and worse, some companies - _only_ put information
>there, so even if you have no interest in it, you have to use it. Like
>fobile moan app.s.

"app.s"?