I’m pretty much forced to use Facebook and Messenger because of school. Some teachers will grade you only if you upload your work and tag them on there, sometimes you have to repost or like videos because your project is a video and there’s a group competition based on those metrics, and because Messenger is the default mode of communication between students and teachers, as well as a way to contact people for your graded surveys.
Comment on Fediverse alternative to Facebook is what's really missing
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 1 day agoNo matter what your opinion on fb is, each time I do my presentation, it’s the main thing people ask me for. To my suprise, even my students in their young 20s are using it a lot, and it’s the main platform for people over 40. Billion of people uses it everyday so I wouldn’t call it has-been. If we could bring even a small percentage of these people to the fedi, it would destabilise the economic model social media is based on. I’m not saying I like fb, I actually never have, but we can’t pretend people are over with it.
XiELEd@piefed.social 1 day ago
DougHolland@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
I’ve avoided Facebook for so long, the idea that it’s required as part of an ‘education system’ bewilders me. Wow.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 23 hours ago
You have no idea how deep the education system is now into gafam. To study in Quebec now, you absolutly need a cell phone with ms authenticator, teams is basically mandatory, etc. I’m one of the only teacher at my college that cares enough to show use and show foss alternative to my students. For example Moodle is the most powerfull tool a teacher could dream of for grades, quizz, file sharing, assigments, etc. Yet most teachers prefer ms bullshit suite for everything…
Archer@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Awesome that Moodle is still around!
Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 18 hours ago
GroupMe (Microsoft) and Discord isn’t required for pure learning purposes, but 99% of clubs at my school use them, so I’d be unable to participate in a lot of shit if I dropped them.
Instead we just get stalked by Canvas for any assignment/classwork related purposes. Oh, and lockdown browser for online tests…
But I could totally believe teachers forcing students to use some shitty app to communicate with students and submit work.
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Report those fuckers to the school board and files complaints.
People need to protest social media as part of education and fuck schools that vendor lock in their students to M$ bullshit as well.
XiELEd@piefed.social 23 hours ago
It is not feasible unfortunately, and if I were to put that as a complaint, I would most likely be called unhinged, out-of-touch, or trying to discard a perfectly usable system. We can only raise questions and influence people as of now. Besides, the reason why Messenger is popular is because of the freebasics service which allows people to use Messenger for free.
BroBot9000@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
lol fuck that apathetic attitude.
We all need to be sand in their oligarch machines.
Schools need to teach that “FREE” does not mean free. Might be another good thing to bring up with the school board cause clearly that’s a lesson they didn’t learn.
ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 1 day ago
I suspect a lot of people use Facebook because they’ve always used Facebook - mostly older folks at this point - and a lot of the younger folks go there because their favorite association / football club / local restaurant / library are there too.
Meaning Facebook’s success today is mostly inertia: there’s no way any open-source replacement would pull a critical-enough mass of people away from Facebook to fight the inertia enjoy any meaningful success. I’m pretty sure open-source developers know this and chose something fancier and more exciting to spend their time on.