The Geek is Back

WTF Facebook?

Glenn Brensinger -

I don't use Facebook much anymore. For one thing, it requires typing, and let's face it - my typing sucks. It got a lot worse since my last stroke, so I try to type only when and as much as necessary. Second, it's becoming more and more of a digital tabloid over the years. For example, for the past few days, my timeline (wall, feed, whatever they are calling it this month) has consisted of:

  1. Fake game ads. Mobile games are all the rage, and everyone wants to capitalize on them. Unfortunately, that means the scammers have come out of the woodwork to grab money for stuff that sucks.
  2. Unlicensed t-shirts. Whatever the latest craze, you can bet there is a company selling t-shirts for it. Remember "Baby Yoda?" Or the Hawaiian shirts featuring Baby Groot? They all say the same thing: "Limited stock! Buy now!" What that really means is, "Buy it before we get shut down for copyright infringement again!" Then the ad will disappear, but a few days later will come back under some other company name. You can usually tell the scammers by the names of their stores - they are nonsense words. They aren't even Chinese names badly translated into English, they are just random "cat on the keyboard" letters. Why put time into the name when they know it will be shut down every few days? Or, in the case of "Baby Yoda" - that was never an official name. That's what everyone called it before it got a name - Grogu. So, why did people think anything with "Baby Yoda" on it was somehow licensed and authorized by Disney? The scammers know people don't think rationally when they see something cute.  
  3. "Suggested Posts" from Lie and Share groups. These are usually groups supposedly dedicated to some topic, or claiming to be funny (stealing posts from another source) but the thing in common is they try to get as many people possible to like and share their posts. They often ask some random question, asking everyone to post their thoughts. These groups only exist to collect data about people, so the next time your FB or bank account gets hacked, remember all that personal info you freely gave out because some random stranger asked "remember your first car?"
  4. Ads for stuff I already purchased.
  5. Ads for stuff in which I have no interest.
  6. Ads for stuff I might have searched for. These are often wrong. Example - I was looking for a voice dictation app that works across all the platforms I use. One of them was called "Otter." When I tried to look for more info about it, Google also presented hits for "Otterbox" phone cases. So, what do you think is now showing in my Facebook feed on a completely different device? Tell me again about how FB isn't tracking every damn thing we do.
  7. Facebook's "News" feed is an absolute joke. The headlines are always "Hey, check out this celebrity! She's not doing anything exciting or important, but she's wearing a BIKINI!!!!" Because somehow this is news.