So, in our series about people attempting to cyber-grapple-hook you into creepy e-social-networks, here comes the google+. I have already rejected demands to offer my privacy in holocaust to whatsapp and viber, and I have already emptied my flamethrower at all those who tried to bring me to facebook, twitter and, even earlier, myspace.

I do sometimes get emails of people's machines insisting that I am super needed on linkedin, and I gather (I fucking hope) that this is just an automated process of contact-list-rummaging and mass advertivement sending. But now, what is that.

Got what seems to be an invite thing (more likely an automated announcement that I have been automatically added to someone's list), but I don't know what it is about. How does this google+ thing rate on the facebook scale of horror ? Does it allow for some extent of privacy ? Does it flail its tentacles everywhere ? Or is is just like a forum profile thing ? I am familiar with most cyber-networking monstruosities, and scrupulously steer away from them, but the google+ thing was under my radar. Should I be afraid ? VERY ? How does it compare with its cousins ?

I have nothing (well, not much) against these systems by default, but I cannot stand things such as insta-visibility to all the people I've ever been in contact with, friend/unfriend dychotomies, activity pressure (you didn't "like" me eating a pie, you traitor!), biographical stalking, etc. How tame is that creature, in those respects ?

But segragating people into explicit, discontinuous, categories is already something I have issues with. it formalizes and "cristalizes" differences that are, in reality, more mobile, fluctuating, and seemless. Makes it impossible to manage subtle progressive changes without making them "a thing", with defined thresholds and on/off status switches. It explicits the untold which in our lives stays untold for a reason (temporary distancing, etc).

Anyway, my question was more about the specific google+ specificities. Is it a bit less intrusive and cognitively perverse than facebook stuff, or is it the exact same crap by a different brand ?

Can't say much for Google+, still not using it.

Just wanted to chirp in about the whole LinkedIn thing. I occasionally consider signing up since I can actually see it as a sort of tool. Who you know and networking is an increasingly important factor in getting a job.

But every time I'm about to sign up I start getting mails that <insert person name> would really like to have me join them on linkedIn. This sort of upsets me. Not because I don't like invites, but because I fear the reason I'm getting the mail is the same as earlier with LinkedIn where they scraped your email contacts and spammed everyone you had on your contact list automatically for you, many times people weren't even aware it happened. This sort of behaviour annoys me to no end and such puts me off signing up. (well that and a general aversion to signing up for anything in general)

So far I've received no badgering mails from Google+ to sign up and friend people, though I do use GMail and the line seems a bit blurred, as they do have chat system setup built into both GMail and the Google+ app.

I am registered to google+ but I believe there is nothing to see there, and it doesn't conveys any form of communications from 'out there'. I think it is some kind of requirement to use hangout in the most optimal fashion on my pc.
So far, cyber-squatting Facebook and NOT using linkedin has been more painful than being registered to G+.

Google+ may have its issues, but two of the problems I have with Facebook don't apply to Google+.

First, Facebook discriminates based on the browser you are using. Try to view a page with the "lynx" web browser and it gets redirected to the unsupported browser page. What should happen instead is that the web server should serve the page to the browser and it's up to the browser what to do with it.

The second is that Facebook's policy requires so-called "real" names, which is commonly interpreted to mean one's legal name. Furthermore, if enough people don't like you, they can report your name and you lose access to the account until you provide proof that your name is legal. (Google+ dropped its "real" name policy in July 2014.) This is a problem for many reasons, which are too numerous to list here, so I will just link to it:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F?oldid=29490

Therefore, Google+ is not nearly as bad as Facebook.

"Here comes Google+"
Google+ came out 3 years ago.

"What now!?"
https://ello.co/

Social networks are mostly good for promoting someone's business and as glorified chat systems It made me remember why I never use Facebook on my phone. The moment I try to go on Facebook site, it forces me to install some app without giving any option to NOT use that app.

about linkedin, i have an old microsoft mail, we can use this via outlook dot com
for some dumb reason some guys invited me to follow them or add or something like that, its all dutch people so these dudes know i am dutch so i get invites from dutch people on linked in.

The fun part is these guys exist, yes they actually do and look legit, now it comes:

I know something is messing up cause these guys have excellent grades, good educations, and since i am an poor old dumb poorly schooled dude (lbo only) yes thats not very high, plus the grades were shitty 5x a 6 and only one 8 for english,i know that these smart alecs cant be the ones that invited a dumb mother like me.
I fear that in the nearby future you loginto your mail with a silly name like: rambo34567 at hotmail dot com
and you will see a message calling you by your real first and last name including geographic info of where your house 'lives'.

Afteral thats what the goverment ultimately want: to be able to know who is posting what at where and at any time, when they eat sleep sht and do all other things, and thats kinda worrying.
Imagine you, sitting relaxed behind your station, gaming , checking mail, beiing on socialmieda or whatever, you are picking your nose whan all of a sudden a meesage pops up telling you that its bad to pick your nose so much ...
that will scare the sht out of you, so you nervously turn around and a voice from the headset says, dont woory there is no one behind you (yet) but there will be if you keep picking your nose.
and remember, we know anything before you even know it :D

Big Brother is watching you ! same here, youtube needs it, so i had to follow up , cause in rare ocassions i want to comment on very funny videos and you need some account.

normally i dont do google plus, dont do social media, i mean something with such a weird abreviation cant be okay :D
(first letter of social and media, unless its one word, then it wont count)

Slight problem with that though, was even when having registered with Gargle...I mean Google+, there were still times when it wouldn`t let users comment/reply.

Worse, when folks used to leave comments on my youtube clips, there regularly wasn`t an option to "reply to comment" so I had to just comment on my own clips, which of course, the user it was intended for wouldn`t receive any notification that I had done so, but I would do lol.

Also, on the occasion that someone did comment, the notification area of youtube would come up red, where I would click that & get a Google+ link to read who had sent what. Once on Google+, I could only read small comments, anything longer & I had to go back to the youtubes.

Sillier still, once I read the comment on Google+, I then click to reply & it would then send me back to youtube to reply, loading the clip all over again.

tbh, that was just a hideous mess hehe


Since they did all of this, i rarely go to youtube any more & I used to every day prior to Google+.

goggle.... i mean google :D, is a big mess and also very crappy,
like mickeysoft is these 2 really deserve another, ow add adobe to these 2 and you have a wonderfull threesome.
voila the digital 3 musketeers are born :D
And the good news is there is part for another 4th musketeer, so maybe another crapcompany can take the role of
d'Artagnan (the 4th musketeer)

Worst thing about Gooble uhm Google , is the fact that it either 'hates' FF, or FF is dumb, cause the comments not loading bug on youtube is still not fixed ....they have some 'solutions' but these dont work for me and maybe for more.
Seems nasty google changed the commenting system or so and dumb ff wont load, it keeps spinning forever.
This has been for quite a while now and many updates are already been made but the comments wont load, forcing you to use ie11 or chrome i have both but i have FF set as default browser since version 3, so i am a ff user for a very long time now.

I saw articles of Merkel being the person of the year, the person that has made the biggest impact, well if there were one for software then Win10 from Mickeysoft would have won this one :D it has made largest impact for beiing crappys Spy/Malware OS of 2015.

If you have a gmail you automatically have a picasa/photo/youtube/G+/blogger/play account.. you are searchable to the extent that you have a reserved spot and all it means is someone you mailed or mailed you added your psudo page to there circle.

as for privacy since its forced you have none... since you cant fully kill it, you have none... facebook is so damn privacy conscious mine is invisible unless i invite you and then even then im invisible to everyone you know.