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Which? do post a lot of myth busting things on FB. I think that is the biggest reason for them to be on there – to be the voice of reason in a sea of nonsense.

People use FB. A lot. I think it would be remiss of Which? not to have a presence on there.

Well, males aged between 18 and 34 form the majority, but the UK as a whole has far fewer than you might imagine.

But it’s how FB operates in general that leaves me questioning if W? should have any part of it.

“Zuckerberg built a website called “Facemash” in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used “photos compiled from the online face books of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the “hotter” person”.[17] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours.[18] The site was sent to several campus group listservs, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy.”

So he started as he’s continued. He apparently stole the original idea from three Harvard seniors, who sued him for several millions – and won.

I’ve lost count of the numerous times FB has ‘promised’ to do something, then failed and explained it was ‘a technical hitch’. It’s only very reluctantly agreed to take any action at all against purveyors of hate speech, And some of what it has done is laughable.

“Facebook has ordered the end to an academic monitoring project that has repeatedly exposed failures by the internet giant to clearly label political advertising on its platform. The social media goliath informed New York University (NYU) that research by its Tandon School of Engineering’s Online Transparency Project’s Ad Observatory violates Facebook’s terms of service on bulk data collection and demanded it end the program immediately.” The justification? It was on ‘privacy grounds’.

It took FB until October this year to take a stand against Holocaust deniers.

So I see any participation with FB as dancing with the devil. That tends not to end well.

I recently learned of a couple of people around 30 years old whose lives revolve around fakebook.

They believe Covid is a government conspiracy to control us and all the figures are made up. They also believe the government will force their way into our homes to vaccinate us.

They both had Covid before anyone else in the country so they are immune. Whether their ‘immunity’ is the reason or not I don’t know, but they refuse to wear face masks.

This is the sort of fake news and garbage they get from fakebook and are unlikely to see any truthful facts on the likes of Which?

Jon,
Question 2 of the above survey is:
Who were you most interested in engaging with when you joined the Facebook Members club?

This is why I abandoned the survey. I will revisit it tomorrow.

I have nothing to add to Malcolm’s and Vynor’s comments on the survey.

I share Wavechange’s and Derek’s view on the inclusion of the Facebook community in Which?’s outreach.

As far as I know you are an Associate Member with AGM voting rights. You can easily become an Ordinary Member (50p at risk if CA fails though). I’m not really sure what advantage that gives but as I repeat from time to time I believe Ordinary Members become such as they show an interest in the affairs of the CA and should be able to have some say in how it operates. However, in practice I’d think any subscriber after a year should be able to have some say – if Which? ever live up to their promise of engaging with its membership.

This sort of discussion, and mild criticism, is exactly why I would like to see a Convo restricted to (all) members only so “frank and full” discussions can be held between the CA and its membership rather than in public view.

Thanks, Malcolm. I am quite content to remain in my present status.