Is this site a Social Media ? If it is and you don’t like them why are you using them ?
It is until some anti-social people occasionally stop by to spread strange ideologies. Luckily, the moderators eliminate them pretty promptly.
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Car Talk community is a moderated, topic-specific forum. Similar to DriveAccord(Hondas) and Automotive Forums.
Fakebook and $hitter* are anarchy by comparison, where ‘alternative facts’ fester like mold on an old hunk a cheese…
*I call it what it IS.
Thank you!
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I work IT and see the dumbest things on social media. This ranks from fake news and stupid ideas to utterly bogus scams that NO ONE should fall for! I see businesses hacked and experience data breaches because some employee is doing something stupid on social media at work.
People fall for scams this terrible all the time on social media. I mean it isn’t the Honda Civic and it isn’t even a Mercedes. It is a Chinese Power Wheels copy sitting on boxes in a warehouse and yet people still take the bait by the TENS OF THOUSANDS or more.
If I want a car answer, I either come here or a forum just for that type of car. The Facebook groups are always a disaster with people making crappy mods that just ruin a car in the long run. Someone was also wanting to use a 55 gallon drum of waste motor oil, transmission fluid, gear lube, etc. as a gasoline additive to increase mileage and power!
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cwatkin:
Glad we see eye-to-eye on this ‘social’ media issue.
I also believe that it has affected political discourse around the world, and even how we vote.
It is best on this Forum to avoid any political posts as they will start arguments and receiving flags.
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Yes, definitely! I think these platforms have hacked the human brain for sure. Zuckerberg is all about power and control over others as well. FB wasn’t started with the idea of uniting people and bringing them together. I suggest watching “The Social Network” and “The Social Dilemma” if you haven’t.
Facebook has been the greatest enabler of cybercrime if you ask me. It is a pretty open secret that the profit indirectly from all the fraud on the platform so do nothing to police it. I report scams all the time and get a message that they do not violate community standards. I guess you can run a business this way when you have bought and paid for influential politicians.
The sad part is that people don’t slow down and think about what is actually going on. They just blindly stumble into all kinds of nonsense.
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Don’t worry - I didn’t state any of mine, or others, positions when I pointed that out.
cwatkin:
They post a news item on Facebook without even considering where it came from!
Like “newsbreak” or “rumble”.
I always make a habit to look underneath the link for the source, and quite often, avoid clicking on it. So many folks’ opinions and decisions are influenced by such nonsense.
Yes, and something “FREE” like a Range Rover being given away for liking and sharing the post gets a lot of people. You aren’t going to win a car on Facebook but people won’t stop participating and spreading these scams. Facebook does nothing to stop it either. These scams also target other high value or desirable items besides cars but that is one of the most popular ones.
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This is another forums I frequent:
If I shouldn’t link to them I apologize, just wanted to share an example of another wrencher forum out there, using an older non-Rich engine.
I have spoken direct message to their admins regarding ways to stop the membership-bleed, but they have said they don’t plan on anything in the short term.
It’s too bad, because they get a lot of ‘bots’ over there, posting really generic questions about cars, no makes, years, or models. One even posed the question “how much room for storage is there under the front seats” or such.
I could smell that bot a mile away, and did mention it to admins.
Sadly, this is what proper forums, like CarTalk’s and AF, are up against in the Fakebook climate. It’s even worse on UseNet - the “internet before the internet” - which upon looking through older threads, used to be a most cerebral and intelligent venue to hang out in.
The Fakebook climate is a huge problem. It is like they have it structured to create all these problems.
My worst was when I was on a power tool page and I was asking about the capabilities of a pump. I used units of power and other BIG WORDS that people on Facebook couldn’t understand. My post was flagged and removed for “Discriminating against those of lesser educational attainment” or something like that. I couldn’t believe it. We never would have made it to the moon with that mentality. It seems we are in a race to the bottom.
This meme kinda sums up the Facebook mentality world we live in.
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With Facebook, I deal with customers who have to be convinced not to send $40,000 via international wire transfer to scammers. One woman bought a $40 printer at Wal-Mart, looked up a fake support number, and called thinking it was the maker of her printer. It wasn’t and before long she was on the way to the bank to send them $40,000 they claim she “stole” from them. They had gotten into her bank and moved money between her two accounts. It showed $40,000 extra in one but she didn’t look to see the other was down by that amount. The bank had to argue with her and then she called me. Also, she left the computer on for at least another solid day after she was informed it was a scam with the scammers just really having their way mining data and doing further damage. Then she called me after they didn’t just “go away.” By then the damage was done. I ALWAYS tell people who have done this to pull the plug on the computer (some don’t know how to turn it all the way off or put it to sleep) and then call their banks to get everything locked down, then to call me back about fixing the computer.
Anyway, it is like common sense has all but vanished these days. How do people continually fall for these? Another common one is where someone “wins” a high value item like a car, boat, camper, etc. and is told to send several thousand dollars in GIFT CARD CODES to the scammers. They just string the poor people along with additional smaller requests until their bank or a family member stops them. Even then there is usually an argument to convince them it is a scam and not real.
It is like there is no common sense and I feel social media just feeds into this mess.
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I agree that social media–which is actually anti-social much of the time–does feed into the proliferation of scams and other types of misinformation. But, poor judgment has always been with us. In the days before social media and the internet, scams were spread via print ads, such as this gem from the '60s:
Edited to add that I just recalled another scam from my childhood, namely The Irish Sweepstakes. Impressive-looking tickets were sold–by word-of-mouth–with promises of an incredible jackpot. The overall problem was that the enterprise was a scam–even in Ireland–but it was compounded in The US by the fact that lotteries were then illegal in The US, and there was no way that somebody could collect his bounty–in the very unlikely event that he actually won anything. Books have been written about this word-of-mouth scam which persisted for decades:
This is nothing new. In fact there are many nominations for “The world’s second oldest profession” and con-men is one of those. Mercenaries are another. Actually there is evidence that brewing mead and beer might actually be the “world’s oldest profession” and not what we all think of it as being. That one might actually be on the list of the second oldest.
This is nothing new and PT Barnum was right. This nonsense dates to antiquity but the internet has just made it a lot more common. A lot of the common internet scams are actually just a modernized version of scams that date back 1000’s of years. The sick child scam is a classic example.
“Advance Fee Fraud” which is commonly used by the Nigerian price scams is common in these scams where a high value item like a car is being “given away.” You “win” the car but need to pay them $5000 in gift cards or similar first to pay “shipping fees”, “taxes”, or some other made up nonsense.
Starting today Hyundai/Kia is rolling out a free software “remedy” for the easy-to-steal models.
It makes the remote lock/unkock key fob function as an immobilizer.
Kudos to Hyundai/Kia for–finally–doing the right thing for the owners of those flawed cars.
A bit mind boggling that this ability was there all the time, and it took all this frustration (for owners) and embarrassment (for H/K) for someone to get the bright idea.
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I agree, but for some unfortunate owners, it was much more than frustration. It was actual car theft for some people, with all of the inconvenience and additional cost that is normally involved when one’s car is stolen.
We will probably never know how many eligible owners take advantage of that software upgrade. Think about it…
if thousands of Honda owners have ignored multiple recall notices regarding free replacement of shrapnel-producing airbags, there will likely also be a significant number of Hyundai/Kia owners who ignore the updated software notice because it is inconvenient (??) to take their car to the dealership, or… God-only-knows what their avoidance rationalization might be.
I have one of the vulnerable models (2017 Tucson).
I put in a hidden kill switch soon after I bought it, as the last 2 cars I owned with auto trans were stolen (76 Nova, 85 Accord).
Soon after I heard about the “Kia Boys” I added a steering wheel lock for visual deterrence
It’s Darwinian. Only the strong survive.