social media & farming? - Yup.

[leashedForLife]

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I'm not on Twitter, but many folks are - some wear denim overalls & drive massive harvesters, others raise fiber rather than corn, or make artisan cheeses or salsa or breads.

here's a shepherd with a significant following -
The Tweeting of the Lambs: A Day in the Life of a Modern Shepherd | The New Yorker

I think it's good that farmers & ranchers are more visible - urban dwellers are far too removed from their food sources, & reminding them that it's not all done by robots in a warehouse is important. Living, breathing plants & animals - & for that matter, soil - make their food, & an army of humans does a lot of work to plant, feed, grow, create, process, package, & send it off.
Fiber for clothing or gear is also a far-distant concept for most folks, other than hobby knitters & other crafters who use cotton, wool, silk, & other natural fibers to make their goods.
Horsehair & rawhide for bridles, girths, ropes, & other practical & decorative gear is a traditional craft in the western states; they can be both beautiful & durable, & are often more comfortable for the horse, too.
The hide of an aged horse or cow that died of natural causes is incredibly hard-wearing & far-more valuable than the hide from a 2-YO beef steer.

- terry

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[arealhuman]

Fair play if social media is your thing, and it has its benefits, but the users are the ones being exploited (and in most cases, non-users too). I avoid near FB, Twitter, Instagram blah blah blah as much as I can, but I realise the web and people's mobile devices are riddled with their trackers and creepy surveillance tools.

 

[leashedForLife]

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I've avoided FB like the plague since... Nov?, i think it was, 2012.

4-plus months ago, I was blackmailed into logging onto my FB acct in order to enter a drawing for a free pass to a 4-day national dog-trainers conference - & even AFTER * LOGGING * IN, i couldn't open the drawing-entry page.
Teeth-gnashing, swearing, & some angry complaints to the website-owner ensued. I was intensely frustrated - i logged in, & all for nothing. Wa-a-a-ah!...

- t

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[Josie]

To balance it out .... it also has lots of upsides to when used in the right way

 

[leashedForLife]

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FB is powerful as a sharing platform for rescues, shelters, etc, b/c of the number of eyeballs it draws, but the incessant drive to monetize users' personal data is both maddening & scary.
IMO, of course - some think that's paranoia. . I think it's realistic.

- t

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[Flobo]

Everyone around me just groans when I start ranting about FB etc and how insidious it all is and I'm not allowed to get started on my 'paranoid' theories about Alexa and Siri,(or whatever their names are) haha!!

 

[arealhuman]

Everyone around me just groans when I start ranting about FB etc and how insidious it all is and I'm not allowed to get started on my 'paranoid' theories about Alexa and Siri,(or whatever their names are) haha!!

I share these views, and they're well supported by evidence, but I think everyone just gets overcome with the convenience of it all (and nobody reads the small print!). I could start a whole topic (but won't ) about Snowden, Schrems et al and I fail to understand why the majority of people fail to see the risks involved with wider internet use and the free handing over of their data. I also get amused when people clear their cookies and browsing history, thinking that the record of their internet use is now gone!

 

[leashedForLife]

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there's a movement afoot in Calif to return control of their data to users, & limit data-mining -
naturally, 'net companies & IT industries are saying it's unnecessary, unwieldy, unfair, etc.


If Facebook can't protect user data, California lawmakers may step in ...
California has a plan to police Facebook
Mar 22, 2018 -
Silicon Valley operates in a regulatory Wild West. But with repeated and high-profile data breaches piling up, its days of unchecked authority ...

Understanding Facebook's Widening Crisis Over User Data - NBC ...
https://www.nbclosangeles.com/.../Understanding-Facebook-Cambridge-Anaytica-Use...
Mar 23, 2018 -
As more details emerge about the data privacy scandal surrounding the Trump-connected firm ....
Copyright Associated Press / NBC Southern California.

Facebook Will Stop Funding Opposition To A User Privacy ... - NPR
https://www.npr.org/.../facebook-will-stop-opposing-a-user-privacy-initiative-in-californ...
Apr 12, 2018 -
Called The Consumer Right to Privacy Act of 2018, the California ballot ... responsibility for a data scrape of 87 million users by British political ...
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The bill will also force websites to identify & halt bots spreading disinformation -
QUOTE,
"Rep Marc Levine introduced LINK: AB 1950 in January, [requiring] social-media sites to identify & verify all social media advertising purchases as linked to verifiable humans.
'AB 1950 will regulate bots and prevent the spread of misinformation', he said. According to Levine, the tech industry is unable to regulate itself."

source:
California Wants to Govern Bots and Police User Privacy on Social Media

I hope it passes - of course, tech-industry lobbying is fiercely opposed, but as Calif goes, so goes the USA - eventually... so we may yet rein in the nonstop suctioning of personal data.

- terry

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[leashedForLife]

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there's also this -

Senate Votes to Overturn FCC’s Net Neutrality Repeal

Yay! - It's likely to be overturned by the House of Reps, but outside D.C., several states, Calif among them, have filed lawsuits vs the FCC over the loss of net-neutrality. // Again, a sprig of hope.

- t

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[arealhuman]

GDRP in the EU is a step in the right direction, too, although FB have taken steps to limit their compliance.