Facebook Is the 'Zombie Internet'

Stereotypical take pandering to (and fostering) age discrimination. Honestly - I feel like this article is just another salvo in the divisive 'generations war'.

I have many friends and family who share events, experiences, and ideas on Facebook every day. Many of the groups share cherished memories (or interesting trivia) of beloved hometowns, attractions (such as amusement parks), natural settings, and pop culture.

Many of us who use it are aware of the bot problem and of the content posted to stoke outrage (aka "engagement"). But that doesn't negate the living and vital community interactions happening there.

Reddit is overflowing with bots, zombies, trolls, zillions of psychotic partisans calling for people to be murdered routinely. Twitter/X similarly has tons of that.

I've unaware that any of the large networks are anything but complete garbage (insert reply comment about how there are a couple great niche subreddits).

How does this work? Zuckerberg and investors are getting richer. Who's paying for it? Advertisers? If so, aren't they getting ripped off when bots are generating clicks? Why do they stick around? What am I missing?

> where a mix of bots, humans, and accounts that were once humans but aren’t anymore mix together to form a disastrous website where there is little social connection at all

And in the case of zombies, let's not forget the "deadbook" phenomena, which many predicted already back when FB was only picking steam: accounts from dead people, but where others sometimes still comment / upvote / like / tag / whatever.

I remember a post saying "Hey xxx, long time no see, what are you up to?" to someone I knew who was dead more than a year ago.

That was chilling and eerie.

it would be interesting to analyze hacker news's threads in this same fashion. not only comments but also upvotes. in the past few months I have noticed that my experience of reading through them has changed significantly, with a lot less comments that are actually informative or add real new takes. plus, a lot more skewed towards more mainstream discourse and less hacker-ish...

Facebook is an archipelago of good content in a sea of garbage.

There's the guy who constantly posts braindead religious and political memes that sort of remind you of when a very small child is learning the concept of what a joke is.

There's the girl rapidly approaching middle age posting vague feelings and insinuations about someone who wronged her that remind you of a dramatic teenager.

There's your aunt who posts objectively deligtful to at least mildly interesting updates about her life (I love the cookie press you found made by distant relatives' business in the 30's)

And then there are sporadic groups which are fairly specific niches and well moderated. Like the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz, local EDM (dance music) groups, that group that only posts people who kinda look like Adam Sandler...