What's with the "likes"??

[Matt K.]

Though once can appreciate the fact that others like ones images, I am not sure what to do with this. Apparently it must be a Facebook function, and I am not sure what consequences come with this. I am not on Facebook (or twitter, for that matter; personally I think they are evil), so I am not sure what to think about this. Seriously, I think the consequences of being on something like Facebook are too far reaching, way beyond the "social community" aspect. Once I found out that advertisers use the data they buy from Facebook to "target" you, I looked at this thing very sceptically. To think what the owners of Facebook could do in order to manipulate the 'member' is almost scary ... no, it is scary. I read that there are 750,000 people in Calgary connected to Facebook. Calgary has a population of 1,120,000. So almost 3/4 of the population participates in this. Just think what a person like Goebbels could have done with a tool like this .... good thing he is dead, but I am sure there are remnants of propaganda agents around. Maybe I am just too paranoid?

[Marko]

The likes are a function of the engine that runs the forum. There are 2 kinds - ones for the board only and one for facebook.

The one at the bottom right of the posts is just for the board and has zero to do with facebook. I just clicked it now so it says 1 like - this info is just for the board...I've been thinking about its usefulness actually.
The share button to the right of that gives you the option to share any thread on your own personal facebook or other social media account. You can already do this manually of course but because so many people you know are already on facebook - much of the web software written today tries to integrate with facebook (or other social sites) in some way... I can not see this changing anytime soon.

In terms of being paranoid - it's marketing. I agree marketing can be pernicious but like death and taxes, pretty darn hard to avoid. The goal is always to separate you from your money but at the end of the day you have full and complete control over what you buy. You have much less control over how many messages bombard your senses but your hand chooses to fork over the money or not. And don't get me wrong I too value my privacy...it's just for me and most people I know, the benefits of the Internet outweigh the cons or we simply wouldn't be on the Net. We want to connect. We want to share our ideas, stories, opinions, our photographs and this cannot easily be done the way things are now without sacrificing privacy.

The King of this kind of content relevant marketing though is not facebook - It's google. They were there first and have been collecting your data since you started using their services.
There's no getting out of this Matt. Avoid facebook all you want and you will still likely see ads on your computer that relate to the subjects you are interested in. (just my 2 cents)

You can delete cookies stored on your browser after every browsing session. That would likely reduce or kill those content related messages - but then you have to re-enter passwords on all sites that require them, reset the preferences on those sites... Most people I know just live with it.

[asnow]

Though once can appreciate the fact that others like ones images, I am not sure what to do with this. Apparently it must be a Facebook function, and I am not sure what consequences come with this. I am not on Facebook (or twitter, for that matter; personally I think they are evil), so I am not sure what to think about this. Seriously, I think the consequences of being on something like Facebook are too far reaching, way beyond the "social community" aspect. Once I found out that advertisers use the data they buy from Facebook to "target" you, I looked at this thing very sceptically. To think what the owners of Facebook could do in order to manipulate the 'member' is almost scary ... no, it is scary. I read that there are 750,000 people in Calgary connected to Facebook. Calgary has a population of 1,120,000. So almost 3/4 of the population participates in this. Just think what a person like Goebbels could have done with a tool like this .... good thing he is dead, but I am sure there are remnants of propaganda agents around. Maybe I am just too paranoid?

I'm with Matt on this one.