I work IT at a regional 911 center. We're fine but I sympathize with those who are back to pen and paper dispatching. Hard for most current dispatchers to realize the way we did it back in the day.
The mastodon.technology had some interesting folks. I've migrated my account to the mastodon.social instance. Moving accounts on Mastodon is pretty easy so that's a positive.
"Facebook is where you find out your highschool friend is super in to a MLM, your uncle has drastic political views you don't share, and that your historical social class and network is largely irrelevant to your life a decade later."
This is probably the most accurate description of Facebook I've seen.
You're not surprised by this? In spite of all the talk in the article about how this was "not that easy" the real reason probably lies in this bit near the end:
"Why can’t Facebook just stop collecting your browsing history entirely? Well, it could, but a large part of Facebook’s business depends on collecting this kind of browsing data, so it would cripple a big revenue stream."
As long as Facebook's business model involves monetizing your data, they are going to slow walk any feature that might impact this.
While we often confuse religion with the practices of the idiots fawning over politicians here in the US, there is beauty to be found in the wisdom of the ancients on occasion.
I'm in my 50's and I've been a ham for over 30 years. I understand where you are coming from. I do also operate FT8 and have thought to myself at times how nice it was to be making contacts without having to listen to people ranting.
That said, there are plenty of hams who don't want to complain about politics, we just notice the curmudgeons more. I've had some great HF SSB QSO's lately that never touched on politics.
Some of the more technical modes tend to appeal to hams that are more interested in the technical side than the hams that frequent HF SSB or VHF FM.
There are many bands and many modes. If your VFO lands you on a QSO that you don't want to hear, QSY to another and call CQ.
I spun up a new Ubuntu Desktop VM on my work machine and then went home and updated my personal laptop. Love the new look and have had no issues so far.