Yes I think FB people like it for exactly the reasons I dont. It works for small snippy posts. People who are scared of more than a couple of lines of text love it.
Now it's important not to knock that. Our education systems have been deliberately downgraded to make people stupider and easier to control. Bless the net for providing much of the missing critical thinking and readeing power with book reading exploding
) But still with 40% of our youngsters leaving school functionally illiterate beyond a short sentence, real reading and discussion power is a minority sport.
Which it wasnt until state schooling got going and forced the last families into it at gunpoint! because our masters want us educated THEIR way.
So FB fills a need as Twitter does for short, easy text bites.
But forums can do some of that too - LiveThread - Shoutbox - and many gossipy threads thrive on short posts. Which can balance the 'heavier' writers like me
so we get a nice balance of both kinds. The shorty stuff can be good community glue as well.
As for protecting one's precious thoughts I absolutely agree. But I do not think this is to be solved by software. Software privacy can help - have special topic or theme forums that work in affinity.
But beyond that it comes down to the carbon input alongside silicon. That is, human stuff. After all if people keep burrowing into tiny private similarity nooks they'll never learn to communicate better. Sooner or later someone in that tiny private nook is a bit rude and all hell breaks out as naked shivering bunnies are incapable of coping.
Interestingly victimy people are very prone to bullying once they feel safer - because they havent learned the boundaries that make contact without bullying possible.
I make one huge and very simple rule on my forums. You don't do rudeness on another member. Say what you like about anyone outside the forum but members are sacred. Which I enforce rigorously and I spell out what I mean. Not even words like 'stupid' allowed. I feel/ I think instead of You are ...
Works well with us but it does need human attention. On a bigger board once you make it known what the standard is - a few strong and obvious examples - and encourage Reports it could work there too. Ultumately less work than the uproar you get if people dont learn manners.