Another one of my FB friends who was a member of the old crowd is my boy Shannon King who went under the user name "Yukio" and who also went on to become a college professor and a published author.

Below is an article he posted which was written by Peter Birkenhead and which I found very timely.

"I was about to write that I don’t think white people understand how much we are about to lose as a consequence of Black people losing electoral power, that we don’t have anywhere near an adequate appreciation of how much everybody in this country has benefited from the Voting Rights Act and the seismic political, legislative and cultural shifts it set in motion (there’s no Obamacare without the VRA — hell, there’s no Obama,) that almost everything we do every day has in some way been affected for the better by the democratization of political power and the corresponding investment in the public good represented by the VRA and its countless direct and indirect ripple effects (wether or not you send your kid to Head Start you have a hundred reasons to be grateful that other people send theirs,) and that I doubt very much that many of us would like to go back to a world lacking, for instance, the countless contributions, innovations and inventions of Black scientists, academics, engineers and artists subsidized by grants and institutions that would not themselves have existed but for the pressure exerted by people who could finally vote and have their votes weighted fairly.

But then I remembered who we are, and how not once since the Voting Rights Act passed has a majority of us voted for a presidential candidate who supported the immeasurably better future that it ushered in, or the many better futures it would still no doubt have delivered.

I remembered that we are white people, and that there is nothing — absolutely, positively nothing — that we aren’t willing to go without if it means Black people go without more."

Good 'ole (aka Shannon King), you going back more than 15 years.

Here is a conversation "On Percival Everett" from 22 years ago. It is hard to imagine we had conversations like this here. I took it for granted, because that is what we did on the Internet back then... before Facebook launched and all the Black people flocked there.

It only took a few years to reach that level imagine if we continued to the same trajectory for the next 22 years! Today Yuki posts on interesting things on Facebook and Mark is richer for it.

@aka Contrarian I guess I'm sounding like a broken record griping about Brothers supporting Facebook.

1. We (Black people) simply do not support Black platforms anymore, and this lack of support has only increased over that past 20 years

2. A Platform like Facebook can do so much demonstrable harm yet we double down in our support.

So, if it is not obvious, I'm a little salty about this. I'm not losing any sleep over it, cause I'm gonna continue to do what I do regardless.

There are however, indications that the tide is turning, so there is reason for optimisms 🙂

@Troy Well, as I previously stated, the articles that I occasionally re-post here are posted on FB not by the people who wrote them, but by others who are quoting them.

I share some of the provocative ones here sometimes to just start conversations...

Oh, don't get me wrong -- I appreciate you doing that @aka Contrarian Please keep it up.

I was just lamenting the fact that some of our favorite posters have left for Facebook and others who view themselves pro-Black but are actually more pro-Zuck.

Obviously, I haven't been around here long enough to know of any former posters. It is great that they are still producing content.

Would be great if those indiciduals were still posting here but we know the net effect of the white man's ice.

Even the most intelligent, educated, astute & well-written/spoken brothas & sistas fall for the ice.

Amusing to me is Black folks who talk sh8t about the same white folks who own the platforms they are using to host their content i.e. Fa*ceb**k, Y*uT*be, Gram, Tok, X, etc.🤣

There's always the hope that Black folks will find their way out of depending on white folks & become independent & autonomous.😎

For many people, FB is a sounding

board. A chance to get on your soap box and blow off steam to a vast, ready-made audience. It is many-faceted and convenient for millions of people who have nothing better to do when it comes to occupying their free time. It's escapism and is very accessible. It also provides a way to connect with friends and strangers.

To me, since I no longer have a lot of mobility, hangin around there is just something to do...

I've always been curious why the guys on this site always express so much disdain for FB, but have no problem with YouTube, which to me is not that different from Face Book. They both just need to be taken with "a grain of salt".

16 minutes ago, aka Contrarian said:

I've always been curious why the guys on this site always express so much disdain for FB...

Personally, I do not have disdain for FB. Just never had a reason to use the platform.

Also, I don't find appealing the thought of people I haven't seen or talked to in 40+ years tracking me down.🤣😎

11 hours ago, aka Contrarian said:

I've always been curious why the guys on this site always express so much disdain for FB, but have no problem with YouTube, which to me is not that different from Face Book.

I have distain for most of these platforms, and the reasons are complex. Your description of facebook; "FB is a sounding board. A chance to get on your soap box and blow off steam to a vast, ready-made audience..." is accurate, but simplistic (all due respect to your wisdom and intellect).

Facebook and Meta (Youtube) do not operate in isolation they entered a WWW where there was a vibrant and growing community of Black-owned and Black-centered platforrms. In a variety of ways these companies have completely destroyed this.

In the earlier years I even helped Facebook accomplish this, but I had no way of understanding what was happening. I also understand that even if I did know it would not have made any difference--because it makes no difference today. It is not just me, some disgruntled website owner whose posters now suckle at Mark's teat. There have been many books written about how bad Facebook is--even Facebook's own employees describe the problems.

Look, Facebook (and Goole and Amazon) IS THE WEB for most people. A hand full of companies control what you see hear and read. Their rage driven algorithms fan the fire of dissent for profit.

I have more than 22K followers on FB that I earned through engagement on Facebook (helping FB build an audience). Today if I post something less than a handful of people will engage with it--don't even think about posting a hyperlink to a website. Even If I paid to boost a post (yes, I was naive enough to try that) I still did not get the same type of traffic that I used to get during Facebook's early days. Facebook used me. like they use everyone on the platform.

You've read about Cambridge Analytica, right? Surely, you've read about Facebook's adverse impact on mental health, especially teens. Then there are the issues of abusing our privacy, and on... Facebook is much more than a "sounding board."

I know most people do not get this and if they do, they could care less. I also appreciate, being an active contributor to the WWW for more than 30 years, that I have a perspective that most people do not have. I get that. It is just painful to watch, as Black people are hurt the most and are completely oblivious to what is happening.

I could go on about YouTube, or rather Google (Alphabet) as well.

3 hours ago, Troy said:

A hand full of companies control what you see hear and read. Their rage driven algorithms fan the fire of dissent for profit.

Such is the nature of capitalism.

These social media platforms are not very old. We can clearly see how money was poured into turning them into behemoths.

Human nature tends to gravitate towards the most popular. Only a minority of people goes against the grain.

Again, that's why McDonald's has sold more hamburgers & French fries than any other fast food chain.😁😎

I appreciate you all's perspective on this subject but why, then, do you

give so much weight to YouTube which you regularly post clips from, either because they support your views or contradict them.

To me, YouTube, aside from its musical offerings, has always been a haven for crackpots and snake oil salesmen.

I'm not defending FB, I'm just holding it up as a mirror that reflects Life's vicissitudes. In a perfect world, it wouldn't exist.

1 hour ago, aka Contrarian said:

To me, YouTube, aside from its musical offerings...

I mainly use YouTube as a music library.😎

2 hours ago, ProfD said:

Human nature tends to gravitate towards the most popular. Only a minority of people goes against the grain.

You have to factor in what available. McDonalds is arguably the worst of the hamburger fast food joints -- but they are everywhere and they spend a ton on marketing.

Imagine of 90% of the restaurants were McDonalds: In this imaginary world most people loved McDonalds and extolled their virtues of providing nourishment to the hungry without have to get out the car. Singing the praises of being able to get square pieces of pressed marine biomatter between bread at midnight. This is what the WWW has become today.

@aka Contrarian YouTube IS a haven for crackpots and snake oil salesmen. They are also for all practical purposes a monopoly and is the #2 most visited website only beaten Google. I've been a user of YouTube for more than 20 years -- before Google brought. If was great for helping people serve videos when disk space was expensive.

Google was allowed quickly allowed, unencumbered, to serve as a platform for music piracy. YouTube quickly amassed a catalogue that eclipsed iTunes. In the past doing this, like Napster, were shut down, yet Google was allowed to rack up Billions. Remind me how musicians make money again?

One of my up-coming projects is to pull all my videos off YouTube and serve from my own server. I have already gotten rid of Google Adserver (don't you hate going with websites with all those shitty and intrusive ads? Thank Google for that), Google Ad Manage, Google Analytics. Next is YouTube and I will have the planet's only website completely free of Google.

2 hours ago, aka Contrarian said:

I'm not defending FB, I'm just holding it up as a mirror that reflects Life's vicissitudes.

No, FB is in no way shape or form reflective anything real -- that is a trick bag.

58 minutes ago, Troy said:

You have to factor in what available. McDonalds is arguably the worst of the hamburger fast food joints -- but they are everywhere and they spend a ton on marketing.

Imagine of 90% of the restaurants were McDonalds: In this imaginary world most people loved McDonalds and extolled their virtues of providing nourishment to the hungry without have to get out the car. Singing the praises of being able to get square pieces of pressed marine biomatter between bread at midnight. This is what the WWW has become today.

Right. Unless it's 100%, people still have a choice (10% per your example).

They don't have to consume the same biomatter & social media platforms.😁

Just because so many other people do is not no excuse. It only justifies being lazy.😎

5 hours ago, ProfD said:

Just because so many other people do is not no excuse. It only justifies being lazy.😎

I’m not so sure about that bruh. BTE, my 10% figure is probably in the right ballpark.

If 90% of the people use something and 10% use something completely different. The 10% are fringe, marginalized, outside the main stream, “different.” And as such, they exert no influence and others wonder what’s wrong with them.

So no, Google search is not a monopoly but for all practical purposes they are. Meta does not have a monopoly on social media among Black people middle-age and older but effectively it does.

And because this companies have monopolies they have a great deal of power, which day exert to our detriment.

Again, the people on these platforms, using them every day posting pictures of their grandkids liking some rant against Thomas Sowel or sharing some cute puppy meme could care less about what I’m saying. But that doesn’t invalidate what I’m saying.