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

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

#241

Post by jogjayr »

advertising wrote: post #82

Who here has frequently used facebook and then got off the platform? What's been the hardest part without it? Was it hard? Do you feel disconnected or has communication actually been affected with the people who matter to you?

Facebook quitter here. 6 years since I got rid of my account.

It wasn't hard at all. I keep in touch with the people that matter to me using email, phone calls, text, IM and Whatsapp (and then they went and got themselves acquired...)

It's arguable my social life might have been even better had I never left (missed invitations, lacking fodder for small talk with mutual acquaintances etc) but I clawed time back in my day for other things. I also don't have to worry about things like FOMO, social media generated envy, pointless social oneupmanship and the like. YMMV

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

#242

Post by pdonis »

mwfunk wrote: 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"…

> If someone can't state their point without warping the very language they use to support their point

Part of Stallman's point is that the "ordinary" language that most people use to describe things is already warped. For example, Facebook describes itself as a "social network", when what it actually is is a network for harvesting data on people. The socializing people do on Facebook is a side effect, not the network's primary purpose.

Sometimes the only way to fight warped language is by warping it back in the other direction.

> it is literally his primary rhetorical device in nearly everything he's written over the last 3 decades

Yes, because he genuinely thinks that so much of the world and our language is already warped that he doesn't think ordinary discourse, using ordinary language, will have any effect. You might not agree with his viewpoint in toto; but his behavior is IMO understandable for someone who genuinely has that viewpoint.

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

#243

Post by kartickv »

mwfunk wrote: 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"…

That's an insightful point. I also find the crude name-calling to detract from rather than support the message.

I remember once reading one of his posts on a topic where I was in strong agreement with his point of view before I began reading, but finished it alienated and pissed off. Thinking back later, I was surprised — nobody ever managed that.

If one's tone of writing is pissing off even those who agree with him, that's a complete failure of communication, and one needs to stop and re-evaluate one's communication style.

I haven't read any more posts from Stallman in almost a decade. Life is too short to read something that's more likely to annoy you than enlighten you.

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

#244

Post by kartickv »

bunderbunder wrote: post #109
mwfunk wrote: 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"…

What strikes me here in particular is that this article is mirroring most of my own reasons for being uncomfortable with Facebook, but I still find myself wanting to disagree with him. The rhetorical style makes him come across as a bully, and on a gut level I don't like to side with bullies. So I'd like to say that after some more measured, thoughtful reflection I come around to his side. But I don't. The enemy of m…

I have been struggling to identify why I dismiss Stallman and think of him as a idiot, and your post calls it out: the bullying. The assumption that if you don't 100% agree with him, you are an idiot. And the complete lack of empathy.

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

#245

Post by pdonis »

Udik wrote: post #132
superobserver wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's what Facebook users are - useds. They're targets for Facebook's platform, namely, delivering ads. You've actually made a strawman of RMS' argument by attempting to draw the false parallel between ex1 and ex2. The appropriate understanding of RMS' use of language is similar to how any philosopher might use language with idiosyncratic coinages thrown in. In other words, it is simply a manifestation of a part…

They're also users. Or, you could use the same inversion for about everything: we're not buying cars for getting around, it's the automotive industries that lure us into giving them money with stuff that can be used for travelling. We're not consumers of potatoes, it's the potatoes that use us to reproduce themselves. Facebook is, apparently, satisfying some needs. Users pay for it by giving a share of their attentio…

> Seems to be a win-win relationship.

In the short term, it may be. But RMS is looking at the long term. In the long term, he believes people will be worse off if they use Facebook than if they don't. I agree with him on that.

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

#246

Post by pdonis »

cortesoft wrote: post #149
superobserver wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's what Facebook users are - useds. They're targets for Facebook's platform, namely, delivering ads. You've actually made a strawman of RMS' argument by attempting to draw the false parallel between ex1 and ex2. The appropriate understanding of RMS' use of language is similar to how any philosopher might use language with idiosyncratic coinages thrown in. In other words, it is simply a manifestation of a part…

I really hate this argument. Sure, everyone knows that Facebook makes money by selling advertisers access to targeted users. However, it isn't like users aren't getting something in return for this. Users of facebook aren't 'useds', they are participants in a transaction. They are given a service they enjoy, and in return they grant their eyeballs for ads, and their data for targeting those ads. Now, we can argue whe…

> I think most people have a pretty good idea of how Facebook is making money.

I don't. I think most people don't even think about how Facebook is making money. They just see that it doesn't cost them any money, and they think "oh, great, I can connect with people for free!" and use it without considering the costs or the bigger picture. This certainly describes practically everyone I know personally who uses Facebook.

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

#247

Post by jdietrich »

ppopoff wrote: post #228
xiaoma wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not trying to be the bridge. He is the standard bearer. In the 90s, others such as ESR and Linus were the bridges. Stallman has always been the idealist who will hold firm to his ideal. Back in the day, like you, I thought he was extreme and kind of silly. ESR had a far more socially acceptable and commercially palatable message (which is pretty shocking in retrospect, considering the direction his writing and p…

> Nearly 20 years later, it's clear that Stallman is almost certain to be a historical figure remembered hundreds of years from now. Hyperbole much? He's not going to be forgotten, but... RMS is a hacker icon, but he's a bit obscure outside the community. RMS is legit hating on Facebook here but there's no Hollywood movie about RMS. Zuckerberg is a household name. I'll agree that RMS has done more net good thank Zuck…

Breadth and depth of fame are orthogonal.

Unless he does some remarkable philanthropy, Zuckerberg will be forgotten shortly after Tom from MySpace. Facebook isn't really fundamental to anything, it's just a business that executed an existing concept very well.

RMS may never be well known to the general public, but his reputation within his field is likely to endure in a manner similar to Euclid or Eratosthenes. GNU and the GPL are foundational elements of modern computing. Stallman had the fundamental insight that software is inherently political, then built a large part of the infrastructure necessary for humanistic software to flourish. The landscape of modern software would be utterly unrecognisable without the contributions of RMS.

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

#248

Post by jdietrich »

vacri wrote: post #201
xiaoma wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not trying to be the bridge. He is the standard bearer. In the 90s, others such as ESR and Linus were the bridges. Stallman has always been the idealist who will hold firm to his ideal. Back in the day, like you, I thought he was extreme and kind of silly. ESR had a far more socially acceptable and commercially palatable message (which is pretty shocking in retrospect, considering the direction his writing and p…

Holding firm to your ideal includes getting your message across effectively. If you want social change, which Stallman does, you have to 'preach beyond the choir'. I don't think Stallman's positions are silly. A touch extreme, but I generally agree with them. I just think his name-calling runs counter to what he wants to achieve.

RMS isn't writing for a general audience, he is writing for us. We hackers can spread the word in a palatable manner; RMS's job is to hold us to account, push us to the highest standards of ethical conduct and hold a mirror up to our hypocrisies.

The world needs pragmatists, but it needs zealots too.

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

#249

Post by wtbob »

daveguy wrote: post #60
george_ciobanu wrote: post #41

Brexit for Facebook - really? Is that all we learned from this recent referendum? Yes, it is weird to have this much personal information about so many people in the world in the hands of a corporation. But Facebook serves a real need - to connect. And they do it well. The problem is real - we need to have a non-commercial entity run this. But if Facebook dies tomorrow another company will take its place. How do we s…

> How do we solve the need while addressing these issues? I always hoped that something like diaspora[0] would take off. With blockchain technologies and ipfs style distributed filesystems it might be possible without any central organization. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)

The Indie Web camp[1] guys have ideas for how to implement pretty much all of the value of Facebook using HTTP and other stuff on top of it — no need for a blockchain, no need for IPFS, just web servers talking to one another. They have protocols for mentions, for notifications, for authorisation. It's pretty cool.

If folks would implement it, then we could each have our own feed, like Facebook offers, and all we'd need is Apache or nginx and some server-side code.

[1] https://indiewebcamp.com/

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

#250

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Retric wrote: post #126
mwfunk wrote: 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"…

It's useful to have someone out the outer edge of a issue as a benchmark. At somepoint the person who compromises less wins. Copy protection does not protect copy's it prevents them. Calling it protection is letting one side win before you start talking.

There's a term for this in the realm of public debate, which I am presently unable to recall, but the gist of it is the idea that you ask for a much greater concession than you really want in the hope the stakeholders settle closer to your ideal than if you'd simply laid your cards on the table.

By doing this repeatedly and over time we can (slowly, maybe less slowly?) change the course of history.

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