Live data from Hacker News

Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

stallman.org

71–80 of 376 posts

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#71
post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

I do not use "democrap" or "republicant", as they do not promote the discussion or understanding in any way.

However, I did adopt Stallman's "Copy Restriction" (instead of "Copy Protection") and "Digital Restriction Management" (instead of "Digital Right Management") - because they are a much better description of what the concept actually is for 99% of the people.

I started doing this after I told someone that I will not buy a Depeche Mode CD I wanted and was holding in my hand in the store, because it has copy protection; they looked at me completely puzzled, asking "Why wouldn't you want your copy to be protected?", and a little more inquiry revealed that they believed it was a somehow more robust (by virtue of being "protected") than non-copy protected CDs.

Language is a very potent medium of control. You are, indeed, used by facebook when you interact with it, and introducing it into the language is a way to bring it to the surface. He's not using "useds" to be clever. He's bringing it to the surface. It might look stupid to you, but I assure you that you are not immune to this kind of bias (and neither am I). I know that's why he does that, because I've heard him personally explain that when attending one of his talks.

In fact, if you look at the works of Kahenman & Tversky, you see that equivalent questions worded differently get opposite responses from people who we expect to know better (e.g. doctors, pilots, ...).

Stallman is basically trying to counter the (essentially unlimited) bias that the media has against what he believes, and I don't know of any tool that does that better than the rhetorical device(s) he is using.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#72
If you want to run Facebook but want to be privacy conscious (any more suggestions? - this is what I do):

1. Create a separate browser profile for accessing Facebook

2. Run uBlock Origin

3. Don't install the mobile apps - use the mobile web interface

4. Turn your Facebook privacy settings up to 11 (the new max privacy settings are actually good/reasonable) - you can set it up so that you can't be found in search[0], can't be tagged in unwanted posts[4][5]

5. The cookie used to track you via the like buttons is called datr and is set on *.facebook.com if you want to block it in privoxy / squid etc.

6. If you access Facebook using the onion website[1] over Tor[2] they won't know your location or network info

7. Don't like anything and fill in as little information as possible

8. Don't add people you don't know

9. Review apps that have permission to access your profile and info regularly[3]

[0] https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=privacy&section=search...

[1] https://facebookcorewwwi.onion

[2] https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

[3] https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications

[4] https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=expan...

[5] https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=timeline&section=sugge...

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#74
post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

> ...because he wants to shoot himself in the foot as soon as possible.

So... it's almost like he's shooting the foot that feeds him?

(Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#75
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For that, I was under the assumption that the 'People you may know' on facebook was also who had been looking at you on Facebook, so the driver might have been looking you up.

How would he look me up? He didn't know my name. Can lyft drivers see the full name of the people who they pick up, or just the first name? If they can see the full name, then MAYBE he looked up my friend, then looked at his friends list and found me. I find that extremely unlikely. I've also seen a lot of very, very strange "you may know" suggestions for people that I've only met in passing, and again without full n…

If your and your driver's phone have sent GPS coordinates to facebook it is pretty easy to link you together.

Or you can be linked by the recorded sound.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#76
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not wrong. edit: Per emsy's suggestion: I mean that he is just articulating that if something is free, you are the product , except he(stallman) articulates it by changing the noun to reflect his viewpoint. also, I just deleted facebook.

if something is free, you are the product Does that hold true for useds of Gnu, also?

Yes, we're used for development, marketing, and QA.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#77
As much as I dislike Fb (though I am a user and their tracking is disabled through Ublock), Stallman articles are usually "Old man yells at cloud" thing)

So yes, I do use Fb, I do use closed source software and I have better things than to care about my "alleged" freedom. I get more value from those than they get from me, I assure you.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#79
post #71
post #34

If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point, it makes it very hard to feel like anything they're saying is credible. Example 1: someone is trying to convince me to vote Republican. They go through the Republican platform issue by issue, and compare/contrast it to the Democrats' stand. However, every time they use the word "Democrat" they instead say "Democrap"…

I do not use "democrap" or "republicant", as they do not promote the discussion or understanding in any way. However, I did adopt Stallman's "Copy Restriction" (instead of "Copy Protection") and "Digital Restriction Management" (instead of "Digital Right Management") - because they are a much better description of what the concept actually is for 99% of the people. I started doing this after I told someone that I wil…

I think you'll enjoy this lecture by linguistics professor George Lakoff: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5f9R9MtkpqM

Among other things he speaks of the think-tank-driven concerted effort to influence political support by using language invoking specific metaphors to frame important issues.

Like "Tax Relief" for dramatically reducing taxes for the rich etc.

Changed how I process political speech and pretty much any media-supported narrative.

Re: Reasons not to use (i.e., be used by) Facebook

#80
post #72

If you want to run Facebook but want to be privacy conscious (any more suggestions? - this is what I do): 1. Create a separate browser profile for accessing Facebook 2. Run uBlock Origin 3. Don't install the mobile apps - use the mobile web interface 4. Turn your Facebook privacy settings up to 11 (the new max privacy settings are actually good/reasonable) - you can set it up so that you can't be found in search[0],…

Good writeup

I think 5 is solved by 2 as it blocks the Like buttons everywhere, no?

Post reply on HN