# *Edit* I made a mistake ...



## FriFlo (Mar 13, 2019)

Well, I way under the impression that it was ok to criticize facebook, so, 3 days ago, I made a post, mentioning I had already bought my bike and it was pointless to show me further bicycle advertisements. I already had marked this ads as undesired, they were still showing up. I started my post with "F#§k you Facebook". Probably, that is a violation of their rules, although I did not spell out the F-word! But I have seen many times people use language in a similar way in little rant posts like that ...
Now I am blocked to do any further postings there. Have you ever encountered something similar? 
Big brother is watching your I guess ... next thing, Apple will not forward any mails from me complaining how bad Apple has become ...


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Mar 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Well, I way under the impression that it was ok to criticize facebook, so, 3 days ago, I made a post, mentioning I had already bought my bike and it was pointless to show me further bicycle advertisements. I already had marked this ads as undesired, they were still showing up. I started my post with "F#§k you Facebook". Probably, that is a violation of their rules, although I did not spell out the F-word! But I have seen many times people use language in a similar way in little rant posts like that ...
> Now I am blocked to do any further postings there. Have you ever encountered something similar?
> Big brother is watching your I guess ... next thing, Apple will not forward any mails from me complaining how bad Apple has become ...



yeah Facebook. Move on, man. Don´t spent a second of thoughts on fb. My tip: Just delete your personal account. I did it 4 years ago. When you realize that you don´t need facebook for organizing friends and contacts, then this is a great achievement. Pity to say but everybody I know uses facebook these days apart from my wife. Fuck facebook is a good attitude.


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## germancomponist (Mar 13, 2019)

I often have criticized the EU on facebook and you know what? They delete my comments without a word telling me this ..... . Yeah


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## Quasar (Mar 13, 2019)

These corporate entities have become way too powerful...


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## Desire Inspires (Mar 13, 2019)

Quasar said:


> These corporate entities have become way too powerful...



It’s all robots doing this stuff.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Mar 13, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> It’s all robots doing this stuff.



Oh I guess he was talking about the company and not their detection implementations.


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## micrologus (Mar 13, 2019)

I deleted my account a week ago and now I'm so happy.  It was a big waste of time...


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## VgsA (Mar 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Now I am blocked to do any further postings there. Have you ever encountered something similar?


Their services are down today, it affected Instagram and WhatsApp too, maybe it has something to do?


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 13, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> yeah Facebook. Move on, man. Don´t spent a second of thoughts on fb. My tip: Just delete your personal account. I did it 4 years ago. When you realize that you don´t need facebook for organizing friends and contacts, then this is a great achievement. Pity to say but everybody I know uses facebook these days apart from my wife. Fuck facebook is a good attitude.



Pete Townshend turned out to be a prophet: in 1970 he began his second Rock opera, Lifehouse, which was about a rebel who turned against a system that acted like a grid...everyone on the "grid" was provided with the right entertainment, fashion, music, etc.

That grid is Facebook, and it makes you into everybody else...who suck btw. I've been deactivated for six years now. It will get you nowhere.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 13, 2019)

micrologus said:


> I deleted my account a week ago and now I'm so happy.  It was a big waste of time...



You are off to a super smart start, then.


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## Quasar (Mar 13, 2019)

Desire Inspires said:


> It’s all robots doing this stuff.


LOL. The robots function at the behest of the people who manage the company.

If I create an algorithm that removes money from your bank account into mine and get caught, I can't claim innocence on the grounds that it was the algorithms doing it, not me.


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## FriFlo (Mar 13, 2019)

Yeah, I might quit Facebook after this. It may be a strange coincidence with their services being down, but I actually doubt it, as this seems unlikely to me ... I have never experienced Facebook being down and unresponsive to posting. Well, we will see ...


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Yeah, I might quit Facebook after this. It may be a strange coincidence with their services being down, but I actually doubt it, as this seems unlikely to me ... I have never experienced Facebook being down and unresponsive to posting. Well, we will see ...



You might end up overall happier. I sure did. FB gets people to measure themselves according to others, there are cliques and gangs and exclusive wastes of time all over it. Of course, it's probably best that it is called Facebook, because that's all it is (which is why there are a staggering number of fake profiles).

I found clubs to _belong _to on Facebook, then realized all they did was eat up the hours of my day, leaving me feeling empty. Just me.


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## Quasar (Mar 13, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Yeah, I might quit Facebook after this. It may be a strange coincidence with their services being down, but I actually doubt it, as this seems unlikely to me ... I have never experienced Facebook being down and unresponsive to posting. Well, we will see ...


I want to completely quit, but I have a few friends and a few work-related acquaintances with whom the messaging service is the only efficient way to communicate. But I don't hang out there and socialize on the news feed anymore.


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## MartinH. (Mar 13, 2019)

Quasar said:


> LOL. The robots function at the behest of the people who manage the company.
> 
> If I create an algorithm that removes money from your bank account into mine and get caught, I can't claim innocence on the grounds that it was the algorithms doing it, not me.



You really need to look into modern neural nets / deep learning algorithms. We're way past the point of "they do what they're told", they are made in a way that no one really knows how _exactly _they work. You just feed them data associated with desired outcomes, and pretty much leave the rest up to them.



FriFlo said:


> ... I have never experienced Facebook being down and unresponsive to posting. Well, we will see ...


You have now. It's down for me too, and I never "use" it.




Parsifal666 said:


> I found clubs to _belong _to on Facebook, then realized all they did was eat up the hours of my day, leaving me feeling empty. Just me.



No offense meant to anyone, but I'm not entirely sure how forums are so hugely different from those "clubs" on social media.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 13, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> You really need to look into modern neural nets / deep learning algorithms. We're way past the point of "the do what they're told", they are made in a way that no one really knows how _exactly _they work. You just feed them data associated with desired outcomes, and pretty much leave the rest up to them.
> 
> 
> You have now. It's down for me too, and I never "use" it.
> ...



You have me there, my friend. Of course, here I'm anonymous (and will remain for personal reasons). FB everyone thought they knew me...they only knew and cared about the face.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 13, 2019)

Also, I don't leave here feeling empty most of the time, in fact I've often picked up something I can use, or something helpful to think about...can't say that about the other place.


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## FriFlo (Mar 13, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> You have now. It's down for me too, and I never "use" it.


Alright, then it is probably false alarm. My bad!  I just never have encountered that with Facebook. I am no regular Facebook user, so it might have happened before. Just a strange coincidence ...


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## FriFlo (Mar 13, 2019)

Parsifal666 said:


> ou might end up overall happier. I sure did.


Well, I quit posting and reading a lot on Facebook a long time ago, already. Discussing anything deep on the internet is generally a waste of time imo. If I would have been blocked for real, I would have left it for good. Now, I might occasionally post there as I did before. Maybe, one day I will leave for other reasons.
Anyway, sorry for the miss information! I don’t post things like that as lightly ... I should have thought about alternative reasons, first. It just didn’t cross my mind, that a big site like Facebook could be down (only for posting!).


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## J-M (Mar 13, 2019)

The only reason I still have my personal account is all the music related groups. Though my blood pressure shoots up every time I see another "look y'all, here's my new song"-post when it is quite clearly stated that the group is not for self promotion. Sigh...


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## FriFlo (Mar 13, 2019)

Actually, maybe they just put down services for many people to hide their true motives of blocking my posts ...
_(Caution!!! Conspiracy Theory!!!)_


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## whiskers (Mar 13, 2019)

micrologus said:


> I deleted my account a week ago and now I'm so happy.  It was a big waste of time...


I did about 4 years ago. Absolutely 0 regrets


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## Polkasound (Mar 13, 2019)

Quasar said:


> These corporate entities have become way too powerful...



The problem is how quickly and easily we give them that power. People are so addicted to being connected to and validated by others that they are willing to give up whatever it takes to achieve it. Social networking sites could fill their privacy policies with nursery rhymes because hardly anyone bothers to read them. It's this very concept of blind trust, fueled by people's insatiable desire to be connected, that entities like Facebook and Google bank on every day.

I'm so glad to have done all my social networking back in the 1990's and 2000's, before the wealth of online data mining was fully realized -- before sites we re-engineered for the sole purpose of exploiting people's information. That was a luxury we will never see again.

I deleted and/or stopped using all of my social networking accounts in 2011. It was one of the best moves I ever made. And it wasn't that difficult of a transition. This will probably sound self-centered, but unless there's a birth, marriage, or death, I have no desire to know what's going on in the lives of 99% of the people I know. The less I know, the better.

To eschew social networking in 2019 is undoubtedly bad for business, but so far my business is doing well enough without it.


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## dzilizzi (Mar 13, 2019)

I'm not a big fan of Facebook. My personal account had a generic form of my name and nothing else, only there because some of my family share pictures on it. I think the last time I was there was 3 years ago?

I have 2 fake accounts, one for a book group using my online book group name so they know who I am and the second for a couple craft groups. I wouldn't use them, but there are no boards like this where we can meet to discuss the books we are reading or the crafts we are doing. At least that I know of. I don't go there often anymore. But I am kind of amazed at the fact Facebook has connected them all up and now I am seeing weird friends recs that have nothing to do with my book group or my craft group


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## Michel Simons (Mar 13, 2019)

I only reactivate my account when there is a new release to be promoted. Not that it makes a big difference since we only have four fans.


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## OleJoergensen (Mar 14, 2019)

I fell a bit rebellious, maybe I will try, jus as a test, to write F... Fb on my profile and see what happens. I think I have to go to the baker, buy some cakes and put on the keddle. I assume 2-3 NSA agents will soon knock on my door .

To be more serious, I think Facebook are made to monitor people......


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## Lionel Schmitt (Mar 14, 2019)

FriFlo said:


> Yeah, I might quit Facebook after this. It may be a strange coincidence with their services being down, but I actually doubt it, as this seems unlikely to me ... I have never experienced Facebook being down and unresponsive to posting. Well, we will see ...


I couldn't post anything either for several hours. There were several weird issues with facebook. Some couldn't log in, some pages were gone for some, for others there were just sections missing... total mess.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Mar 14, 2019)

I find FB very excellent (except several technical problems) overall as a platform.
It's a tool... its usefulness depends on how you use it. If you use a fork to cut bread you'll loose your mind, sure.
I know of no other way to
You can send things out into a pool of other composers all over the world that you're connected with and see theirs very easily (not always so useful or interesting, still a great, often useful system) ... You can very conveniently and quickly overview the reactions and react yourself very easily. All these basic functions of Facebook that cannot be replicated in real life or via mail.
I got my 2 first bigger jobs via FB. Small chances it would've happened without it.
I heard from a very successful trailer composer that he got literally all his jobs on FB!
Again - it's a tool. It all comes down to the user.
I also know no other way to easily chat with fellow from all sorts of places over the world. The good contact and to some extent even friendship that developed would've never happened without a platform like this that makes it all so easy. Via posts or direct chatting...
You can also call (video or voice only) people you're connected with everywhere over the world for free, as long as they have some kind of microphone system. Even the most basic laptop tends to have that. 
And of course it's also great to follow an easily interact with pages. Just look at John Powell for instance. He has a FB fan page and it's great to follow. You just see posts in your feed, amongst others you're following. There are certainly *at least* 20 interesting pages for everyone. Almost certainly more. The same kind of system overall could not at all be replicated on a blog or so.
There is certainly more that I'm forgetting, but I will quite certainly never delete my profil and keep making use of it. Because that, once again, is all down to the user and not the platform itself.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 14, 2019)

DarkestShadow said:


> I find FB very excellent (except several technical problems) overall as a platform.
> It's a tool... its usefulness depends on how you use it. If you use a fork to cut bread you'll loose your mind, sure.
> I know of no other way to
> You can send things out into a pool of other composers all over the world that you're connected with and see theirs very easily (not always so useful or interesting, still a great, often useful system) ... You can very conveniently and quickly overview the reactions and react yourself very easily. All these basic functions of Facebook that cannot be replicated in real life or via mail.
> ...



Hey, I'm honestly happy it works for you, and hope you find even greater success in the future!

For me it was a life-draining loser of a site. And that was after only a year and a half of use. The whole site is so swamped with mediocre-to-just-plain-awful garbage music (and assorted other spewage) that getting your music listened to can be a sad joke, blah blah. And keep in mind, I'm not a big success, far from it...but I have a (tiny) name in the film, concert, and Rock genres. I had a nice number of fans, but all they really wanted to do was bullshit around (not a big fan of bull sessions online or anywhere else. I know, here's the pretentious blowhard of vicontrol talking about how he doesn't like bull sessions LOL!). Go figure.

But that's just me...I've been so much happier and productive without it. And my musical livelihood actually became more lucrative after I quit FB (but to be completely honest I'd already met the key players in my future career by that time..._*through email !*_).


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## Morning Coffee (Mar 14, 2019)

Facebook is the future Skynet! Bots everywhere!

I blocked and reported about 40 Facebook advertisements over a 4 day period, but they are just replaced with different advertisements, so I gave up.

Facebook had an outage today and was not working properly for hours. Apparently Facebook is under criminal investigation for facebook user data breaches with the big corporates, because, you know, all these virtue signalling companies are..........moral (cough cough). Maybe they were tying up loose ends? I've mentioned similar things here with some sample library sellers and developers, but some people don't like that.


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## Parsifal666 (Mar 14, 2019)

Morning Coffee said:


> Facebook had an outage today and was not working properly for hours.



_No!_ _*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*_


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## Morning Coffee (Mar 14, 2019)

_No!_ _*NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!*_

Both the Facebook and Vi-control websites have a nice blue glow to them. Blue is my favourite colour, so naturally, it draws me in!


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## MartinH. (Mar 14, 2019)

Polkasound said:


> To eschew social networking in 2019 is undoubtedly bad for business, but so far my business is doing well enough without it.


I think the business value of social media is vastly overestimated, based on some youtubers/podcasters reporting that tweeting out to their 5 figures of followers when they try to sell a product like merchandise or similar barely making a dent in their sales data. 



dzilizzi said:


> and now I am seeing weird friends recs that have nothing to do with my book group or my craft group


I have a fake account with only 2 friends and barely any activity, and I get a nonstop stream of "friend suggestions". You can't make it go away, facebook knows that "being connected" is what shackles people to their site. Their recommendations have absolutely zero relevance to me too. 



DarkestShadow said:


> I heard from a very successful trailer composer that he got literally all his jobs on FB!


Maybe that's literally the only place he advertises on? It's not super useful data, someone who only advertises elsewhere will get literally zero jobs from facebook. You'd need to conduct many A/B tests to get any meaningful data out of it. 



DarkestShadow said:


> I also know no other way to easily chat with fellow from all sorts of places over the world. The good contact and to some extent even friendship that developed would've never happened without a platform like this that makes it all so easy. Via posts or direct chatting...


Forums and Discord. Maybe also Reddit. 



DarkestShadow said:


> You can also call (video or voice only) people you're connected with everywhere over the world for free, as long as they have some kind of microphone system. Even the most basic laptop tends to have that.


Discord or Skype. 



DarkestShadow said:


> And of course it's also great to follow an easily interact with pages. Just look at John Powell for instance. He has a FB fan page and it's great to follow. You just see posts in your feed, amongst others you're following. There are certainly *at least* 20 interesting pages for everyone. Almost certainly more. The same kind of system overall could not at all be replicated on a blog or so.


Ever heard of RSS?


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## chimuelo (Mar 14, 2019)

I thought FakeBook was for painting yourself as a perfect example of humanity and in exchange they could sell data collected for bringing the commoners together.

In the real world there’s no free stuff, there’s always a price.
But mixing symbolism with free stuff is intoxicating, irresistible to many.

In the end, all of the kind and gentle talk or caring and human rights, free stuff, etc.
We see it’s always about the money even when they say it isn’t.
Google will help China censor their people because of the money.
Just like China helped Venezuela turn their lights back on, it wasn’t because they were sad to see people being starved into obedience, they lose 20 billion on their portfolio if the Bus Driver/El Presidente takes his billions and retires to Fiji.

Everytime someone tries to tell you what they’re all about, just check their investments.


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## whiskers (Mar 14, 2019)

Morning Coffee said:


> Facebook had an outage today and was not working properly for hours


Yep. Can't wait to read the RCA on that, if ever public.


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## Polkasound (Mar 14, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> I think the business value of social media is vastly overestimated, based on some youtubers/podcasters reporting that tweeting out to their 5 figures of followers when they try to sell a product like merchandise or similar barely making a dent in their sales data.



I was actually talking about the visibility/contactability [I'm pretty sure that's not a word] benefit of being on social networks vs. not being on social networks. When I quit Facebook in 2011, even back then, I had friends who had already begun using it exclusively for communication. They had completely stopped using email.

Reaching out to musicians and vocalists under 30-years-old is a problem for me, because very few provide an email address or phone number. They use social media exclusively, so contacting them requires a social media account. When I finally do get a hold of them, get their email address, and send them an email, I also have to text them to tell them to check their email because email has never been a part of their routine.




dzilizzi said:


> But I am kind of amazed at the fact Facebook has connected them all up and now I am seeing weird friends recs that have nothing to do with my book group or my craft group



You're seeing those friend requests because Facebook is purposely engineered to squeeze as much connecting, sharing, and liking out of its users as possible. It's all done under the guise of "enhancing the user experience" but that has been the standard line of BS for years now. Its true purpose its to generate larger and larger volumes of socialgraphic data to sell.




chimuelo said:


> In the real world there’s no free stuff, there’s always a price.



Yep! 20+ years ago, social networks were the product, and we were the consumers. We paid for it either by the hour or by the month. Ad revenue was hardly a thought at the time. Today, all social networking is "free" to use, but it really isn't free. Our information is the product, and big data brokers are the consumers of that product. We aren't giving up any money, but we are giving up our privacy.

One big thing that keeps me off the social networking grid is the merging of non-personally-identifiable information with personally-identifiable information across platforms. Google, for example, has massive amounts of data about people collected through apps and online services: Name, address, phone, what they search for online, where they travel to, how long they are away, whom they are with, whom they call and for how long they talk, what they buy, what they like, what they eat, how often they exercise, etc. It's mind boggling. Even though Google (supposedly) removes personal identifiers from this data before they sell it, I'm still creeped out by it all.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Mar 14, 2019)

@MartinH.
Your alternatives would be incredibly messy when trying to replicate FB with them.
As tedious as the following text is to read.  

You must be unfamiliar with how Reddit, forums (which forums? lol), Discord and Skype work compared to FB. 
On Discord you have to create a server first... and the, how do you create an easy friend contellation like on FB? Which server do we use? There will be thousands of different servers that are each infiltrated by a few people... let's say we want to be connected. How do I check what you are saying - where are you posting? In your own server? OK, then I have to go to that server every time I want to see what you're saying. It ain't all in one feed like on Facebook. And then there are other people I want to check. I'd have to go to their server and check them each... checking over 100 servers individually each day? How incredibly cumbersome. Not even worthy of any kind of consideration.
And what if I don't know the people already? How do I find them on Discord? There are only servers and you need to be invited to join. Madness! Posts with comment section also aren't possible. It's almost just like the chat function in facebook isolated. With more people participating. 

Forums and reddit (which is basically a huge forum) aren't an alternative . How does that work? Does everyone have their own Reddit channel or forum and I subscribe to them? Not the same, since they won't be seeing me in return. Channels and forums cannot follow others. The person behind their own channel would have to do that. Would usually just be a one sided follow, without the channel owner monitoring their following and then follow back with their account. Cumbersome! Reddit is also is much more clunky to use and far less nice looking. No wonder... it isn't optimized to be used as an alternative to FB. 

And of course you can call people for free on other platforms. Of course you can follow web pages... worthy to note that almost all brands and artists are much more active on Facebook + several websites don't have a nice and easy comment section. Even if - you'll likely first have to register on each site before commenting. All so much more cumbersome and clunky. 

Yea, you can frankenstein yourself about 80% of the FB functions together. Perhaps less... But it will be incredibly tedious and you have to switch applications all the time.

Regarding jobs on FB - we aren't talking about advertising. The guy who got all his gigs on FB almost certainly didn't get his jobs because of ads. Usually it is simply interaction with label owners that just so happens, or someone seeing your presence in certain places and taking notice... or you're already connected on FB and they check some music you posted and think: "Yikes! Wanna this specimen on board". All that cannot be replicated in other places, especially not with mails - that would be advertising (usually ignored), rather than letting the other person discover you. FB makes that convenient and easy.


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## chimuelo (Mar 14, 2019)

An Investigator for the DA found me at my gig.
I had no bills in my name at the time, no mortgage, CoOp protected participants by keeping owners names in a company you needed a court order or signature signed to get the information. 
I mean nothing had my name, except I used the Computers at the Library because my Gigastudio Boxes we’re offline.
My downfall was I belonged to Larry Seyers forum and being a dummy used my real name.
Of course I told people where I lived but kept info to private messaging.

I asked him how did you find me?
He replied if your online we know where you are.

That was 20 years ago when Scope PCI Cards were still 6 large, so I used the Lynx One, then the 2nd DAW had EgoSysWaMiRaCk with GSIF.

I was needed as a character witness by the DA.
Just so Yuze guys don’t get any ideas.


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## FriFlo (Mar 14, 2019)

chimuelo said:


> An Investigator for the DA found me at my gig.
> I had no bills in my name at the time, no mortgage, CoOp protected participants by keeping owners names in a company you needed a court order or signature signed to get the information.
> I mean nothing had my name, except I used the Computers at the Library because my Gigastudio Boxes we’re offline.
> My downfall was I belonged to Larry Seyers forum and being a dummy used my real name.
> ...


Exactly! That is why I quickly freak out about such stuff on the internet and sites like facebook. These companies have WAY to much power - even worse, most people seem to underestimate the importance of their power or mitigate the potential problem or simply give in to it.
I do feel bad, that I wrongly accused Facebook of blocking me for dubious reason, but I can only feel half guilty for not checking it more thoroughly, as I would certainly think the were capable of doing that ...


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## MartinH. (Mar 14, 2019)

DarkestShadow said:


> Regarding jobs on FB - we aren't talking about advertising.


But...


DarkestShadow said:


> *or someone seeing your presence in certain places and taking notice... *or you're already connected on FB and they check some music you posted and think: "Yikes! Wanna this specimen on board".


...having a place where people can discover you IS advertising. It's not just buying banner ads. 



DarkestShadow said:


> All that cannot be replicated in other places, especially not with mails - that would be advertising (usually ignored), rather than letting the other person discover you.


What you're describing sounds like e-mail spam, I'm not sure that qualifies as advertisement, because strictly speaking it's not even legal. 

However I'm glad you're happy with your facebook experience and whish you good look with it. I don't feel like I'm missing out without it. 



Polkasound said:


> I was actually talking about the visibility/contactability [I'm pretty sure that's not a word] benefit of being on social networks vs. not being on social networks. When I quit Facebook in 2011, even back then, I had friends who had already begun using it exclusively for communication. They had completely stopped using email.
> 
> Reaching out to musicians and vocalists under 30-years-old is a problem for me, because very few provide an email address or phone number. They use social media exclusively, so contacting them requires a social media account. When I finally do get a hold of them, get their email address, and send them an email, I also have to text them to tell them to check their email because email has never been a part of their routine.


Fair point. I know only 1 person that I can't contact by e-mail, and she's not doing anything freelance- or art-related. She's the only reason that I have my fake facebook account at all. I'm shocked that this apperently is becoming a more common thing. Abandoning these "almost common carrier type services based on open protocols" in favor of proprietary third party shit that is controlled by megacorporations is insanity to me...


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## dzilizzi (Mar 14, 2019)

My need for anonymity has more to do with my RL job. I don't need someone at work coming after me because someone found something I said offensive, even if it wasn't meant to be. Or job related advice that I'm not supposed to give in a public forum. 

My niece used to share everything on public Facebook. Getting drunk, doing drugs, sharing questionably offensive jokes going around - all the things an older teenager/college student does. I would keep telling her she didn't want to be so public about these things. She finally got smart when she started looking for jobs and realized employers look at these things now.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Mar 14, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> ...having a place where people can discover you IS advertising. It's not just buying banner ads.


Not necessarily. 
If I'm for example active in a music group and a label owner see me and checks my music because I post some interesting stuff... that's absolutely not advertising.
And the other factor is that some people with jobs simply are in the "composer-network" that exists on FB... basically part of that constellation that accepts everyone with mutual friends and music/audio affiliation. So, basically there is a good chance to be connected with someone like this on FB already... and they may simply be seeing what you post in their feed anyway. Since they decided to accept (or even add themselves) you as friend I would hardly call that advertising. Social media is for posting about stuff you do and think... which obviously includes music.,
But what ever we wanna call that - FB makes it quite convenient. 
Of one should not limit oneself to that platform.


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## Polkasound (Mar 14, 2019)

MartinH. said:


> Abandoning these "almost common carrier type services based on open protocols" in favor of proprietary third party shit that is controlled by megacorporations is insanity to me...



I don't like it either, but I think people do it for the sake of convenience. Within the last ten years, at least half of the polka bands who maintained websites have abandoned their sites in favor of using Facebook. Facebook costs nothing, requires no maintenance, requires no technical knowledge to use, and generates instant feedback from fans. For many bandleaders, these conveniences outweigh the fact that their promoting no longer reaches the general public.

Even though a lot of my friends, fans, and fellow bandleaders have jumped on the Facebook-only wagon for giving and receiving information, I still maintain a website and use email exclusively. I've been using email since 1994 and running my website since 1996. A social media presence with fan interaction would certainly be a boon to my business, but I'd still prioritize my email accessibility and web presence.


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## Polkasound (Mar 14, 2019)

DarkestShadow said:


> If I'm for example active in a music group and a label owner see me and checks my music because I post some interesting stuff... that's absolutely not advertising.



Actually it is, depending on your perspective.

About twenty years ago, I had an opportunity to soak in the wisdom of a renown music promoter shortly before he passed away. One of his key pieces of advice was to always keep your name out there. Everywhere people look and listen, make sure they see and hear you. So following that advice, your posting in the music group is advertising. Even if your intent is not to promote yourself, you're still promoting yourself. Anything one does which garners attention which could intentionally or unintentionally lead to a business gain can be considered advertising. And it can be something as innocuous as a passing thought posted on VI-Control.


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## ghostnote (Mar 15, 2019)

I actually like facebook to stay in touch with my real life friends, but I also got licensing inquiries trough PMs. I think it's great if you don't take it too serious and ignore all the unnecessary stuff.


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## Lionel Schmitt (Mar 15, 2019)

Polkasound said:


> Actually it is, depending on your perspective.
> 
> About twenty years ago, I had an opportunity to soak in the wisdom of a renown music promoter shortly before he passed away. One of his key pieces of advice was to always keep your name out there. Everywhere people look and listen, make sure they see and hear you. So following that advice, your posting in the music group is advertising. Even if your intent is not to promote yourself, you're still promoting yourself. Anything one does which garners attention which could intentionally or unintentionally lead to a business gain can be considered advertising. And it can be something as innocuous as a passing thought posted on VI-Control.


Ah, the modern day illness of making specific terms incredibly wide and all encompassing... paying for a banner on Vi is advertising, just like someone posting a passing thought.
If the term would actually be so wide (good that it isn't) noone would know what is meant with advertising...

Rule on a forum: No advertising at all! - Polka and likers: "So, I can't post anything??"
Lulz. 

Just because something can have a certain effect doesn't mean it that thing. Otherwise going a festival or so is dating. Because it can certainly lead to that. Not a reason to call merely going to a festival dating.
Same goes for mere online presence and accidental discovery by people with a job.


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## Polkasound (Mar 15, 2019)

DarkestShadow said:


> Ah, the modern day illness of making specific terms incredibly wide and all encompassing... paying for a banner on Vi is advertising, just like someone posting a passing thought.



This is exactly why I started my post with "...depending on your perspective." From your perspective, it's not advertising. From a music promoter's perspective, it is.

I respect your opinion that the definitions of words cannot or should not extend beyond whatever Oxford prints in their dictionary, but the connotative use of words is very common in modern vernacular.

A simple post to a music forum can be all the following:

Recreation - because its fun
A brain exercise - because you're formulating thoughts
A typing exercise - because you're increasing your keyboard typing skills
Advertising - because your music is reaching the public
Networking - because you are connecting with others in your field

Sometimes when someone posts something on VI-Control about one of my libraries, it generates a sale. The post was not intended as an ad, but it worked like one. So yes, the mere mention of product in an online forum is, connotatively speaking, advertising.


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