Time to remove Facebook social sharing? February 20, 2025 8:22 AM Subscribe
The "social sharing" option on posts (the single little icon off to the right if you haven't turned them off in your preferences) was first added in 2011, with Twitter and Facebook. Twitter was removed in September 2023. I think, given everything, we should also remove the Facebook option. And in general I'd prefer to have zero than one, no matter what the "one" site is. I don't have a strong opinion about what sites, if any, should be there. But perhaps we could come up with a consensus on two or three new options. (I've had some small discussions with the admins about this and they suggested a MeTa post to discuss.)
I agree, in a technical capacity, sharing should go.
posted by bowbeacon at 8:41 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]
posted by bowbeacon at 8:41 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]
I agree in a five gallon capacity.
posted by lucidium at 8:42 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
posted by lucidium at 8:42 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
Apparently I have had this turned off since before I can remember, so I don’t care. I would guess that this functionality is used infrequently and it would be better to just keep the (hypothetical new) site simpler.
posted by snofoam at 8:54 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]
posted by snofoam at 8:54 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]
How hard would it be to replace it with Share options for BlueSky / Mastodon? Are there other services that could be useful for sharing?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:57 AM on February 20 [6 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:57 AM on February 20 [6 favorites]
I finally deleted my Facebook account last week, so it certainly doesn’t affect me. Also, I don’t think posting stuff on Facebook is super helpful, especially if it’s political. The algorithms and the ability to mute people means my stuff about American politics wasn’t being seen anyway, even by friends.
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:05 AM on February 20
posted by caviar2d2 at 9:05 AM on February 20
In 2025, if you're active on a social media platform and you're routinely sharing links from outside that social platform, I wonder if Metafilter-supplied social sharing buttons are even necessary for you. Web browser apps on desktop and mobile provide dedicated sharing functions. Who's using the site's buttons instead of their browser's buttons?
Does Metafilter do any kind of click tracking to see how often those sharing buttons even get used?
posted by emelenjr at 9:33 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
Does Metafilter do any kind of click tracking to see how often those sharing buttons even get used?
posted by emelenjr at 9:33 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
Yeah, I was also about to ask how often those buttons get used. If I want to share something, I copy-paste the link. The only reason I use share buttons when I'm on my phone is that they usually have an easy option to copy the link. Do we have statistics on these buttons?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:15 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 10:15 AM on February 20 [3 favorites]
I'm in the US, which is a chaotic, terrifying, hot mess. Facebook is horrid,m but it's where the people are, so we use it for our Indivisible group. It's not morally pure, and I DGAF. Reaching people right now is critical. The group leader and I have discussed it; bluesky doesn't work well for organizing a group.
posted by theora55 at 10:15 AM on February 20 [9 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 10:15 AM on February 20 [9 favorites]
I wouldn't bother removing them, but I might not also bother putting them in the new version of the site unless we know they are being used.
How to encourage more social sharing was something that came up with the steering committee but like most things got eaten alive by the budget crisis -- although even there, we tried to put in place fundraising assets that were meant to be used on other platforms. So, in general, social sharing = good. In specific, these buttons might or might not be good. In more specific, it would be good to expand the roster of sharing options, if sharing options are actually still useful.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:23 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]
How to encourage more social sharing was something that came up with the steering committee but like most things got eaten alive by the budget crisis -- although even there, we tried to put in place fundraising assets that were meant to be used on other platforms. So, in general, social sharing = good. In specific, these buttons might or might not be good. In more specific, it would be good to expand the roster of sharing options, if sharing options are actually still useful.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:23 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]
I would suggest that, with a new codebase coming, making changes of any kind to the current site should not be a priority at all unless something is actually broken. Maybe, as jacquilynne says, don't include FB sharing in the new site, but in general it may be time to stop thinking about "how do we change the current site" and time to focus attention on "what do we want the features of the new site to look like?".
posted by pdb at 10:31 AM on February 20 [6 favorites]
posted by pdb at 10:31 AM on February 20 [6 favorites]
I don't see any benefit in keeping this, it drives traffic off to Facebook who in return will ensure nobody actually sees the metafilter links that get posted. It is not a fair exchange.
If you look at how the big social sites handle links to other social media, they almost all default to some kind of info-panel summary as an attempt to keep you from leaving the site.
An easy to implement middle ground might be to toggle the option off for everyone, and remove it for logged-out users but leave the option so anyone who wants it can toggle it back on. Then as jacquilynne says, just don't bother to implement it on the new site.
posted by Lanark at 10:35 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
If you look at how the big social sites handle links to other social media, they almost all default to some kind of info-panel summary as an attempt to keep you from leaving the site.
An easy to implement middle ground might be to toggle the option off for everyone, and remove it for logged-out users but leave the option so anyone who wants it can toggle it back on. Then as jacquilynne says, just don't bother to implement it on the new site.
posted by Lanark at 10:35 AM on February 20 [4 favorites]
I'd just remove it.
If somebody wants to share something, they can do what we did in the old days: copy the URL, apply rot-13, post it on IRC, and send your 100 closest friends a page with a riddle that resolves to the URL of a newsgroup post with the server, channel, and timestamp of the IRC post.
posted by signal at 10:40 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]
If somebody wants to share something, they can do what we did in the old days: copy the URL, apply rot-13, post it on IRC, and send your 100 closest friends a page with a riddle that resolves to the URL of a newsgroup post with the server, channel, and timestamp of the IRC post.
posted by signal at 10:40 AM on February 20 [2 favorites]
Turn it off if it's trivial to do so (even just by blanking that column in the DB). Don't implement it in the new site.
posted by jedicus at 12:21 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 12:21 PM on February 20 [2 favorites]
Does Metafilter do any kind of click tracking to see how often those sharing buttons even get used?
No, we don't.
posted by loup (staff) at 12:30 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
No, we don't.
posted by loup (staff) at 12:30 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
I would suggest that, with a new codebase coming, making changes of any kind to the current site should not be a priority at all unless something is actually broken...it may be time to stop thinking about "how do we change the current site" and time to focus attention on "what do we want the features of the new site to look like?".
Strong agree.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 12:35 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]
Strong agree.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 12:35 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]
Having share links feels like a legacy from the early days when people were newer to using web technology.
The only reason I use share buttons when I'm on my phone is that they usually have an easy option to copy the link. Do we have statistics on these buttons?
Would it be more helpful to have a button on mobile that copies the URL? Then you could share it wherever you wanted. On my iPhone Brave has a Copy Link feature, Chrome doesn't.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 12:43 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]
The only reason I use share buttons when I'm on my phone is that they usually have an easy option to copy the link. Do we have statistics on these buttons?
Would it be more helpful to have a button on mobile that copies the URL? Then you could share it wherever you wanted. On my iPhone Brave has a Copy Link feature, Chrome doesn't.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 12:43 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]
I'm in the US, which is a chaotic, terrifying, hot mess. Facebook is horrid,m but it's where the people are, so we use it for our Indivisible group. It's not morally pure, and I DGAF. Reaching people right now is critical. The group leader and I have discussed it; bluesky doesn't work well for organizing a group.
theora55, you got me there ... my FB profile is in the "we'll give you 30 days to change your mind" phase of deletion and I think I have 2 days left. Your comment may be the one thing that makes me change my mind.
You are absolutely right that being off FB has left me out of community organization discussions, even though I am in contact with many of the community organizers by text, email and bluesky. FB is still where that community action is. FB is how hundreds of people from my tiny, very right wing town, made it out to protest this week. FB is how we are hearing of people in need in our community. Fundamentally, being *actually helpful* is more important than being morally pure or using a morally pure platform (IMO, in this context; maybe there are hypotheticals where I am wrong, just speaking generally).
posted by fennario at 12:43 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]
theora55, you got me there ... my FB profile is in the "we'll give you 30 days to change your mind" phase of deletion and I think I have 2 days left. Your comment may be the one thing that makes me change my mind.
You are absolutely right that being off FB has left me out of community organization discussions, even though I am in contact with many of the community organizers by text, email and bluesky. FB is still where that community action is. FB is how hundreds of people from my tiny, very right wing town, made it out to protest this week. FB is how we are hearing of people in need in our community. Fundamentally, being *actually helpful* is more important than being morally pure or using a morally pure platform (IMO, in this context; maybe there are hypotheticals where I am wrong, just speaking generally).
posted by fennario at 12:43 PM on February 20 [3 favorites]
Would it be more helpful to have a button on mobile that copies the URL?
In pretty much all contexts on all sites everywhere I am a huge fan of having a button on mobile that copies the URL. I would endorse this.
posted by kbanas at 12:52 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
In pretty much all contexts on all sites everywhere I am a huge fan of having a button on mobile that copies the URL. I would endorse this.
posted by kbanas at 12:52 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
Would it be more helpful to have a button on mobile that copies the URL? Then you could share it wherever you wanted. On my iPhone Brave has a Copy Link feature, Chrome doesn't.
Yes, that would be nice. It's a little less hassle than copying the link manually, and also doesn't (shouldn't) include any # anchors and so on that might be present in my actual currently loaded URL).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:47 PM on February 20
Yes, that would be nice. It's a little less hassle than copying the link manually, and also doesn't (shouldn't) include any # anchors and so on that might be present in my actual currently loaded URL).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:47 PM on February 20
Share links were huge traffic drivers in the early 2010s when FB would show them in your feed, but they're much less impactful now as fb has retargeted the algorithm.
posted by theclaw at 2:02 PM on February 20
posted by theclaw at 2:02 PM on February 20
I do like the ability to look up folks usernames on other sites, in profiles, so I would want to keep those references to other social platforms in the new site but think the copy-url is a better approach vs platform-specific sharing buttons.
posted by janell at 2:43 PM on February 20
posted by janell at 2:43 PM on February 20
Copy link button sounds potentially useful (probably for future site but it wouldn't be hard to do). My understanding is removing changing which sites we have in the sharing area, and probably if the area appears at all, is a simple configuration change and so wouldn't involve any real work. I think sharing to Bluesky (and things like Tumblr etc) would also be zero dev work. But since Mastodon is federated with different instances, that might require some dev time.
posted by skynxnex at 3:01 PM on February 20
posted by skynxnex at 3:01 PM on February 20
I would suggest that, with a new codebase coming, making changes of any kind to the current site should not be a priority at all unless something is actually broken...it may be time to stop thinking about "how do we change the current site" and time to focus attention on "what do we want the features of the new site to look like?".
Strong agree.
I've had the social sharing buttons turned off ever since they arrived and don't really care whether or not they are implemented in the new site. It's possible the platform being used for the new site already has this function available, so it's no harm to include them, but we definitely should not try and remove them from the existing code because that will probably break other things and waste resources much better used toward the new site.
posted by dg at 3:07 PM on February 20
Strong agree.
I've had the social sharing buttons turned off ever since they arrived and don't really care whether or not they are implemented in the new site. It's possible the platform being used for the new site already has this function available, so it's no harm to include them, but we definitely should not try and remove them from the existing code because that will probably break other things and waste resources much better used toward the new site.
posted by dg at 3:07 PM on February 20
My understanding is removing changing which sites we have in the sharing area, and probably if the area appears at all, is a simple configuration change and so wouldn't involve any real work
That's how I would code it if we wanted it for the new site, but I would be surprised if it were that easy in the current codebase.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 4:39 PM on February 20
That's how I would code it if we wanted it for the new site, but I would be surprised if it were that easy in the current codebase.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 4:39 PM on February 20
I added a button on mobile that copies the URL of the post on the new site. (On my local development environment for now.)
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 5:58 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 5:58 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
I seem to recall that, somewhere in that social link sharing area of the page, there used to be a handy "shortened link" hyperlink. It would give you a mefi.us link like
mefi.us/a/324334
that would redirect to the page. Unlike other offsite link shorteners, the mefi.us shortener preserves the user's privacy against third-party analytics, and won't fall prey to other shorteners going out of business.
posted by brainwane at 6:12 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
mefi.us/a/324334
that would redirect to the page. Unlike other offsite link shorteners, the mefi.us shortener preserves the user's privacy against third-party analytics, and won't fall prey to other shorteners going out of business.
posted by brainwane at 6:12 PM on February 20 [1 favorite]
This is the first time I've ever Quoted For Truth, but QFT: Fundamentally, being actually helpful is more important than being morally pure.
posted by emelenjr at 2:35 AM on February 21
posted by emelenjr at 2:35 AM on February 21
Does the Chrome iOS sharesheet not have the “copy” option?
posted by bowbeacon at 5:38 AM on February 21
posted by bowbeacon at 5:38 AM on February 21
If it stays (or is added to new codebase), my vote is for more places to share than just Facebook. Having only one is almost tacit endorsement of that site.
If it goes, I like the idea of not worrying about it now, and just not adding it to new codebase.
My preference is for it to go for all the reasons others have already mentioned.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:20 AM on February 21
If it goes, I like the idea of not worrying about it now, and just not adding it to new codebase.
My preference is for it to go for all the reasons others have already mentioned.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:20 AM on February 21
I seem to recall that, somewhere in that social link sharing area of the page, there used to be a handy "shortened link" hyperlink.
Yes, in the post when this feature was introduced, Mathowie explained that it was only in the Twitter share link, since that was the only character-limited site and he generally wanted to discourage the use of short URLs. I assume that link to the shortened URL was went away when the Twitter share link was removed.
It's beyond my expertise to know whether the separate domain for short URLs is helping/hurting for SEO, etc., but I'll just point out that (at least on the current site) the old URL structure still works, so you can also manually shorten a URL by removing everything after the number. All 3 URLs below end up at the same place.
mefi.us/a/324334
ask.metafilter.com/324334
ask.metafilter.com/324334/Final-exam-question-about-how-infotech-can-help-oppressed-poor-people
posted by yuwtze at 8:32 AM on February 21
Yes, in the post when this feature was introduced, Mathowie explained that it was only in the Twitter share link, since that was the only character-limited site and he generally wanted to discourage the use of short URLs. I assume that link to the shortened URL was went away when the Twitter share link was removed.
It's beyond my expertise to know whether the separate domain for short URLs is helping/hurting for SEO, etc., but I'll just point out that (at least on the current site) the old URL structure still works, so you can also manually shorten a URL by removing everything after the number. All 3 URLs below end up at the same place.
mefi.us/a/324334
ask.metafilter.com/324334
ask.metafilter.com/324334/Final-exam-question-about-how-infotech-can-help-oppressed-poor-people
posted by yuwtze at 8:32 AM on February 21
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posted by loup (staff) at 8:24 AM on February 20 [1 favorite]