I have not been on Facebook for a few years. Friends told me I was limiting the reach of the blog because I was not on FB. So I reactivated my account and opened a new one, one for the blog, the other for family and close friends. But then my partner got hacked on Facebook and weird messages went out far and wide.
I will miss hearing from friends on FB, but I’m done. I’m closing both my accounts.
Adios, Facebook. I hardly knew ye.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I, too, closed my account, several years ago. Far too much drama. Far too much wasted time.
LikeLike
This makes me sad.
LikeLike
Congratulations. There are many good reasons to do this, and some of the reasons are coming from programmers and are joining with others to wave red flags.
Here is one effort: The Center for Humane Technology has been organized by programmers and others who have worked at Google, Facebook, Mozilla, even LYFT. The Center’s website hits you with criticisms of
Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter clearly stating, these are not neutral products, but designed to addict us–keep us scrolling, swiping, sharing, checking (on average) 150 times a day, while steering the attention, thoughts, and behavior of two billion people 24/7. The steering is aided by a personal profile of everything each of us has said, shared, clicked, and watched. The scale of actual and potential influence is unparalleled. These platforms are governed by automated decisions, algorithms, and these are easily gamed, cannot be checked with any reliability for fake users, fake news and conspiracies. In that respect they are a direct threat to all governments, including our own. Programmers are well qualified to speak of issues, make public the need for devices and software designed to protect our attention and mindscapes, to minimize screen time, halt the proliferating apps eager for our money. http://humanetech.com
Here is another effort from members of The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). IEEE is working internationally to identify socially responsible uses of automated technologies, too easily dubbed “intelligent” as in “artificially intelligent.” By next year, members from six continents hope to agree on ethical principles that give priority to human well-being in a given cultural context. Their agenda includes these issues: 1. profiling individuals, common on Facebook, Amazon and other websites, 2. protecting personally identifiable information 3. ensuring a “right to be forgotten” (clean slate, scrubbed data), 4. deploying autonomous machines (cars, robots, weapons of war) 5. identifying biased or error ridden data, and 6. negotiating a host of legal and moral hazards in mining data and designing algorithms. At the very least. we should not be naïve users of technology, believing that educational materials are free… and trouble free…or that online activity will always be affordable and available. Trump’s appointment to the FCC killed net neutrality. Congressional efforts to reverse that are stalled. The status of the e-rate for schools and libraries is uncertain.
A third, on a different scale is Cathy O’Neils little book “Weapons of Math Destruction. Another is Rachel Botsman’s “Who Can You Trust? How Technology Brought Us Together and Why it Might Drive Us Apart.” Both books assume readers are eager to learn more but not techies.
Here is a thought experiment. Suppose that the whole internet system went out of service, was sabotaged, with no immediate prospect of restoration or ingenious workarounds.
http://standards.ieee.org/develop/indconn/ec/autonomous_systems.html
LikeLike
You got it: “addict us…”
LikeLike
If the Internet went down, our economy would grind to a halt. So many industries are now dependent on electronic communications—airlines, trains, banks, online transactions, mass media. It is getting hard to remember a simpler time when we relied on human judgment, not algorithms, and face to face interactions.
LikeLike
So here’s bad news on that front:
LikeLike
Today NYS’s EBT system went down, meaning some people couldn’t even purchase food.
LikeLike
My favorite bit of useless trivia: on the day Bill Clinton was inaugurated there were about 50 pages on the internet. Very, very few of us conceive of how it would impact our lives or even understand what this thing called electronic mail was. Within a few years, even fewer of us could conceive of a life without the internet.
LikeLike
Duck and cover!
LikeLike
Laurence Tribe is a Russia conspiracy nut who accused Putin of bringing down a plane to assassinate someone who wasn’t even on the plane. He’s also been instrumental in promoting now-revealed nutjob Louise Mensch. He might have been respectable once. He sold that for his fifteen minutes.
LikeLike
Dienne,
That’s not accurate about Laurence Tribe. You disagree with him (and most everyone else) about Russian intrusion in the 2016 election. He remains, despite your opinion, one of the most respected legal scholars in the nation.
Remind me why Don Jr. had a meeting in Trump Towerin June 2016 with half a dozen Russians to “get dirt” on Clinton? Oh, yes, it was the Magnitsky Act, which imposed sanctions on Russia because Putin had poor Magnitsky murdered, and the Russians responded by cutting off the supply of Russian orphans for adoption. But Donnie didn’t get the dirt he hoped for. Next you will say that Mueller is washed up and senile.
LikeLike
I’m no fan of Tribe’s either, but the Old Grey Lady is reporting it too.
LikeLike
Dienne says all billionaires are ruthless, and she may be right.
She cites Glenn Greenwald as the authority that there is “no evidence” that Russia meddled in our elections, as it did or tried to do in France and Germany and U.K.
But Glenn Greenwald’s Inter pet is funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar who made his billions Founding eBay, to the tune of $250 million and Greenwald is paupid $500,000 a year to defend the honor of Putin.
LikeLike
I have a hypothesis about that, Diane (not a theory, as of yet).
WWII is far behind the view of this (and other) nation’s rearview mirror. Terrible as it was, there was a sense of unity created through the allied victory.
The “New World Order” has done a number on that unity, both within and between local communities, cities, states, and nations.
Elected (and not) officials might (might) try to do what’s right for their local constituencies…but big money will stand in the way if it’s against their personal interests.
The billionaires are multi-national. At best they might feel a sense of allegiance to their homelands of origin. At worst, they see themselves as world managers who are above the laws and needs of the people of any one nation.
LikeLike
Glenn Greenwald is not the only voice of reason on Russia. Aaron Mate, Michael Tracy, Jimmy Dore, and Matt Taibbi are among the journalists who have said more evidence is needed. Jeremy Corbin has urged the west avoid a rush to judgement on Russia.
But since when is the burden of proof on those who ask for evidence? Since when was the word of intelligence agencies and secret government sources sufficient proof? Does no one remember the Gulf of Tonkin or Iraqi WMDs?
LikeLike
Concerned Citizen: that’s how bad things have gotten under Trump. We’re rven cheering GW Bush on.
LikeLike
Anyone who has been without power for an extended period of time (several days, due to a storm, for example) knows what happens when there are no electronics.
At first, there is withdrawal when people are in a panic about what they will do without phones and TV, which lasts about a day.
Then, there is reconnection with the people in the household.
I saw this first hand during and after hurricane Irene. There was considerably more positive interaction (eg, face to face conversation and playing board games that otherwise rarely get played) and arguments (eg, about who is going to play X box and who has stolen whose phone charger) went way down.
It was as if a pall had been lifted on the land, revealing a beautiful vista.
There is obviously lots of good stuff on the internet. The good stuff will be there tomorrow and the day after and does not require or “demand” immediate attention.
The problem is mainly with the “live streaming” stuff (on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,Snapchat,cetc) that people think they need to keep up with and even respond to on an immediate and ongoing basis. Most of the latter is just junk, which becomes clear as time passes.
The worst is undoubtedly Twitter. Personally, I think you have to be an idiot to believe anything you read on that.
LikeLike
Having just come back from five days of “primitive” camping, floating and fishing without any electricity, no heat other than a campfire and a candle for the tent I can testify to how life is just as good, in some ways better than as with electricity. It only got down to 27 degrees one night so it wasn’t that bad. The stars on a clear winter’s night are fantastic. Canoeing down the Current River in southern Missouri is only surpassed by canoeing down the Jack’s Fork or Eleven Point rivers.
More folks should learn to enjoy life out in the woods without all of the modern conveniences especially cell phones.
LikeLike
Excellent. Thanks for sharing this, Laura.
LikeLike
Ha ha ha, it is about time that Face Book will experience its destiny.
Younger and smarter generations will abandon Face Book sooner or later because of its invasion of American Presidential in 2016.
If any educators use Face Book as a tool for communication, then younger generations will be brainwashed by all FAKE news on FB.
I am STILL saddened and frustrated by the manipulated fake news that caused chaos to USA and the uncertainty in the current global economy. Back2basic
LikeLike
Your voice is so important. Keep writing, Professor.
LikeLike
Thanks for this post, Diane.
Closed mine, too. Scary place.
LikeLike
Adieu!
LikeLike
Brilliant!! FaceBook…Total waste of time and detriment to young minds!
LikeLike
The secret to not getting hacked is a really strong, unique password you can remember. Think of a sentence. I love my cat Tony. That becomes ilmct but you won’t forget it. Then add a year you’ll remember and a symbol or two, and you’re much less likely to be hacked.
LikeLike
Facebook has been a double-edged sword for sure. A lot of crap and the other problems cited above. Though I’ve reconnected with some very interesting old friends from the pre-internet age on there, too. (Back before Facebook appropriated the word “friend”.) Actually, some remarkable people are on there, including many former students. There’s also road conditions on winter days, discussions by the National Weather Service as well as great recipes my wife has made.
Having said that, I often think about moving out into the woods and being a hermit after I retire. Things have gotten way too fast and shallow for my liking. I don’t know if I’d chuck the computer into the trash but I’d get as far offline as possible. A classic hermit. And, I have enough isolated land to do it. So much of what I read concerning the philosophy of technology is all coming true.
But then I think about getting bit by ticks and also the fact that any self-respecting hermit has to grown a very long beard. I don’t know if I could do that either. How long would I really last out there in the woods? Ha, ha… You can take the boy out of the suburbs but you can’t take the suburbs out of the boy. And, of course, I don’t know if I could get by without you, Diane.
LikeLike
“I often think about moving out into the woods and being a hermit after I retire.”
I highly recommend it! Even before one retires!
LikeLike
How about dessert?
Joan Baratz Snowden Education Study Center 2737 Devonshire Place NW Washington, DC 20008 202 412 6919 cell 202 537 3922
Please excuse typos–this message is being sent via iPhone
>
LikeLike
Facebook is the worst parts of high school ad infinitum. No surprise that it came out of Harvard.
“Facebook”
Look at me, I’m great
My life and all I do
‘Twas really just my fate
To get the best of you
LikeLike
Oops, meant to title it “Fakebook”
LikeLike
Like enthusiastically, SomeDAM….
LikeLike
In the final analysis, I walked away from Facebook because I thought it trivialized the idea of friendship, something I take very seriously. I continue to muck around on Twitter, which is only marginally better.
LikeLike
Twitter is very different from FB
With FB there is an expectation that you will share your personal life with total strangers
LikeLike
There’s that, too, I guess. Twitter tends to be more topical and news oriented, and has less information about people flossing or clipping their nails.
By the way, Diane: thanks for everything you do. This blog is a bastion of civilization, and I for one am grateful for it.
LikeLike
I agree with markstextterminal. Thank you, Diane.
LikeLike
I understand the inherent problems of FB but at the same time I use it to stay connected to family, friends and former students. I don’t put out hardly anything personal, mostly I post puns and other humorous items and then posts dealing with education. I find it to be an okay platform for communication.
LikeLike
“Twittering sweet nothings”
Twitter is for bird
And Fakebook is for fake
But both are quite absurd
And really hard to take
LikeLiked by 1 person
Twittering Tweet Nothings”
LikeLike
Or maybe it’s “Tweeting Twit Nothings”
LikeLike
I’ll be curious to see how easy you find it to “opt out”, Diane. Two of my friends encountered some major roadblocks when they closed their accounts. Got it done eventually, but it was a pita for them. That was some years ago, though. Might be easier, now.
I almost closed my account last year. Right after Trump was elected. The vitriol on the FB site was palpable and disgusting. Both left and right. Very few of the people who were arguing would’ve ever acted with such malice in face to face debate. They would’ve come to blows.
I decided it was time to leave, so I posted a link on my home page to a very well written article which had to do with FB and the ways in which it was being used to sway and control opinions, buying and living habits, etc. I told my “friends” (real and not) that I was outta here and those who know me could please call, email, or (gasp!!!) write a letter (I still like to do that).
Two good friends of mine chimed in, saying that they’d not have read that article about FB without my posting it. They also mentioned the links that I’ve supplied over the years to your blog, Diane, saying what a valuable resource those posts have been for them, in terms of creating a more balanced view of what’s going on in the field of education.
They asked me not to leave. I’m still there. I don’t buy the hype on the site and I urge others not to, as well. Guess it’s along the lines of working within the system in order to create positive change.
LikeLike
If your real friends (not the Fakebook kind) subscribed directly to Diane’s blog, they would not need links on Fakebook (or any other intermediary) to be kept in the loop.
Fakebook is basically a middleman which takes his cut and tries to get people to buy all sorts of unnecessary stuff (and ideas) that they don’t need or even want. Above all else, Fakebook is an ad agency and that’s what ad agencies do.
LikeLike
Cathy O’Neil (Mathbabe) has pointed out how insidious Fakebook’s algorithms are. It’s not clear how one even goes about separating the hype and lies from the truth. Disinformation and propaganda are the name of the game.
LikeLike
I just communicate with friends from far away and long ago. Post stuff that I think is important without editorializing about it. I know what you’re saying…but some people would rather have someone else do the legwork and report in.
LikeLike
You might be able to ignore all the garbage on Fakebook, but many people can not. And to a certain degree, you can’t entirely fault them because the Fakebook algorithms are specifically designed to ensure that people do NOT avoid the garbage — and the Fakebook algorithms do not ” care” about garbage or even know the difference between garbage and legitimate information.
But, make no mistake, the people who design and program the algorithms understand full well what they are doing.
They and the people who run Fakebook (Zuckerberg et al) are highly manipulative people focused entirely on making money.
As Cathy O’Neil says
“Data scientists working for Facebook are singularly focused on extending the length of time each of us remains “engaged” on the platform. Facebook does not optimize for truth, for learning, or for civil conversation. They measure success in clicks, likes, and comments, which happen whether or not we are having high quality conversations. The more engagement, the more data they can use to sell advertisements.”
Facebook’s Algorithm vs. Democracy
By Cathy O’Neil on Wed, 07 Dec 2016
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/next/tech/facebook-vs-democracy/
LikeLike
I find it quite easy to ignore all the garbage. Is it really that much different than commercial radio or TV, or even a newspaper or magazine?
LikeLike
You need to be sharing at least your wonderful thoughts on education and children. This is needed now more than ever.
I note you say above that, on FB, there is the expectation of the sharing of our personal lives. I for one have never used it in this way, I use it only to express my views, particularly on politics. Very few on my friends’ list are people I know IRL. The common thread is our political views, whether we’re in agreement, or because we have differing views and can discuss them civilly.
Please consider altering your use of the platform instead of abandoning it altogether.
LikeLike
Patt,
This is where I share my ideas about education. On this blog. I am not always sure and I like to hear people discuss, as that helps me and I learn more. My key to longevity: keep learning.
LikeLike
Thanks for your response. I’m following your blog and will share your ideas, as well as comment from time to time. Your last comment is one I do embrace. No matter what comes, the things you learn cannot be taken away from you.
LikeLike
Patt,
Many years ago, I went to a college reunion. One of my classmates told me this story. She was married with children, and her husband left her for another woman. She did not have a career at this time. She moped about, was depressed, then said to herself: “I have my education. No one can take that away from me.” And with that burst of confidence, she started a new life, a new career, and is living very well–and remarried.
LikeLike
I was at a city wide school tech meeting in Manhattan when Twitter was first introduced. The emphasis was on the ability of professionals to be able to exchange ideas and set up meetings, quickly and on the fly. We all set up accounts and gave it a shot. Didn’t catch on in my world, but obviously…
LikeLike
I found you on Facebook. But I too have closed my account. Too much wasted time!
LikeLike
I avoided FB for years, but got on after Trump’s election to connect to the Resistance. After a year, I deleted my account. I’ve been happier ever since.
LikeLike
Due to frustration with FB’s inability to keep itself from being used for evil purposes, and its purposeful censoring of pro-public education supporters, I deactivated my account. Within a couple of days I twice received messages that my account had somehow been triggered to reactivate – how, I do not know. So, rather than mess around, I have also made the request to have my account deleted.
LikeLike