this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It's Google Plus all over again.

If people wanted the bird app, they would have already got the bird app, if they don't like the bird app, they would have got a Mastodon account.

It feels like the same reason that Reels isn't doing well, people who wanted TikTok would have already got TikTok, you can't force Instagram users to like Twitter/TikTok but on their Insta account instead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google+ had more than one thing wrong with it. Just for example ...

The precursor to Google+ was called Google Buzz, and it was rolled out to Gmail users in a way that exposed privacy & security problems with Gmail contacts. This led to a lawsuit and a settlement which Google had to obey when releasing their next "social media" attempt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Buzz#Privacy

As a result, Google+ became a heavy-handed effort that tried to hew closely to the settlement's privacy & consent requirements while assimilating seemingly-unrelated projects such as YouTube comments.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

IMHO Google+ had one good thing: Circles. You could define groups of people to share stuff with, without those people having to "join a group".

I don't think people understood it well, though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Mastodon sort of has this.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

It feels like the same reason that Reels isn’t doing well, people who wanted TikTok would have already got TikTok, you can’t force Instagram users to like Twitter/TikTok but on their Insta account instead.

I'm never going to download or sign up for TikTok. I know Meta isn't really that great as far as privacy goes, but at least they don't share information directly with the CCP. Fuck the CCP. IG Reels works just fine for me. I actually can't stand the IG home feed because of the algorithm showing me what it wants to show me instead of a chronological timeline of the posts of the people I follow, so I mostly just use IG for stories and Reels.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

All social media based in the U.S. share information to the three letter agency, confirmed by the NSA leaks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I trust America more than China. If some foreign government has to have my data, I'd rather it be America.

[–] naught 1 points 1 year ago

Why? Isnt a government that directly affects you a more immediate problem? Sure we're not authoritarian, but the things the FBI, ATF, CIA, NSA, ETC have done sure look like it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah I hate that curated list bullshit. It made both FB and YouTube worse, too. And both were intended to manipulate users into spending more time there. Ironically, I haven't been on as many YouTube dives into the random following interesting videos from the recommended ones since they started curating their list based on what you've previously watched (and seemingly picking one or two of them to tunnel vision on).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YouTube used to work by showing you videos that other people who watched that video watched, which was really great for music discovery. Now it shows me things that I already watched with a small sprinkling of new things. The front page still suggests things I haven’t seen before related to things I watched. I think they were pressured to make that change because it was taking impressionable people too quickly down rabbit holes of extremism… seems like it still does though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I miss the old YouTube dives. You never knew where you would end up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Unless you live in China, are a Chinese national, or have someone living in China who could be used to blackmail you, then you shouldn't care much about what data the CCP has on you.

Meta shares data with the NSA and likely any other US allies, so that might be a slight concern if you live in any country like that.

Lemmy makes all its data essentially free for everyone to grab, so... Hi CCP, Hi NSA, Hi CIA, Hi MI6, Hi FSB...