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

stallman.org

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

#251

Post by pdonis »

morgante wrote: post #144
simbalion wrote: post #81

Stallman is my hero. All social media is terrible, and all of it is impossible to profit from, and I bet all of it will eventually fail. Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform. Anyone who is interested in social blogging should have their own website (wordpress.com is free) with RSS support so people who like what you wr…

> Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform. Newspapers never made money, they just made money from side businesses that were tacked onto their social media platform. TV shows don't make money, they just make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their shows. Just because you don't like a business model doesn't me…

> Newspapers never made money

Sure they did; they sold subscriptions, and if you didn't have a subscription and wanted a copy, you bought one.

> TV shows don't make money

Sure they do; practically nobody gets broadcast TV any more, it's all paid cable or paid satellite or something of that sort. Granted that's a very indirect way of paying for individual shows, but now you can even do that directly with, for example, Netflix.

> Advertising has been a successful business model for literally centuries.

I agree that advertising has been around for many centuries, but it hasn't been a business model for most of that time; it's been a cost of doing business. According to Wikipedia[1], the first newspaper to have paid advertising was in 1836. And the first businesses to make money solely from advertising revenue (which is what "advertising as a successful business model" means to me) are much more recent than that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_advertising

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

#252

Post by morgante »

pdonis wrote: post #251
morgante wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook doesn't make any money from social media, they make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their social media platform. Newspapers never made money, they just made money from side businesses that were tacked onto their social media platform. TV shows don't make money, they just make money from side businesses that are tacked onto their shows. Just because you don't like a business model doesn't me…

> Newspapers never made money Sure they did; they sold subscriptions, and if you didn't have a subscription and wanted a copy, you bought one. > TV shows don't make money Sure they do; practically nobody gets broadcast TV any more, it's all paid cable or paid satellite or something of that sort. Granted that's a very indirect way of paying for individual shows, but now you can even do that directly with, for example,…

Just because advertising isn't their only revenue source doesn't mean that it wasn't intrinsic to maintaining the profitability and viability of numerous media organizations.

> And the first businesses to make money solely from advertising revenue

Strictly speaking, that means Facebook is also not using an advertising business model.

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

#253

Post by kartickv »

vacri wrote: post #166
geff82 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

RMS, to some extend, is like the pope. He often says strange things, where many people do not instantly agree. But he won't change his message just to please you, which is what we are used to get from most people, especially politicians. You can count on him and his, at heart, very humanist views. I recently was at one of his keynotes, and we all, including me, could only laugh at his over-and-over usage of words lik…

The problem is that saying "Swindle" instead of "Kindle" works when he's talking to people who already agree with him, but is seen as adolescent crap by people who don't agree with or don't understand his message. It's preaching to the choir. "Digital Restrictions Management" is a good semantic switcheroo, but "Swindle" is just name-calling. I've read his reasons for it, but really, it just makes it harder for people…

It also invites retaliation, like "freetard", which drags the level of the debate down to school kids taunting each other on the playground.

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

#257

Post by shopkins »

nikcub wrote: 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],…

As an alternative to #7, you can also like and fill in as much as possible, as a kind of obfuscation. Among my other exploits (according to FB), I've lived in Alert, Nunavut and Istanbul, was divorced twice before age 16, and overcame a small bout of ass cancer while starting my lucrative pole dancing career. Oh and I love the Spice Girls (not to mention every pop band from the 90's).

I don't know that this actually throws off Facebook's ad targeting and such, but it certainly makes them work harder.

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

#258

Post by creatonez »

beagle3 wrote: post #71
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"…

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 agree with you. Language is an incredibly important part of a social movement. When you strip away the orwellian-ness of terms, you expose the true meaning. Manipulating language like that just isn't the same thing as using slurs like "democrap". Terms like "useds" highlight an important part of the true nature of advertising companies like facebook, but terms like "democrap" are simply insults.

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

#259

Post by avindroth »

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"…

There are instances where people use wordplay to gain an emotional/rhetorical advantage in a debate. For the seasoned, this might be irksome at best, but I agree, repeatedly hearing "Dumbocrat" can get old and I, for one, will quickly lose respect for that person. But comparing Stallman's use of the word "used" to conventional, quite childish wordplay seems like a very, very far stretch.

Stallman is redefining those people we know as "Facebook users", because in this case, "user" is not a correct term. A user is someone who uses a product to gain utility. By using a product, you gain something from the experience. A used is someone who is on the opposite end, where you are on the losing end of the deal.

In a relationship between Facebook the corporation and the Facebook "user", who is gaining more utility, and who is on the losing end? Stallman argues that Facebook "users" are on the losing end. Thus they are appropriately termed "useds", with evidence backing his redefinition.

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

#260

Post by creatonez »

nsgi wrote: post #214
beagle3 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Still don't understand the problem with the terms in your second paragraph. Copy protection protects CDs from being copied. Digital rights management manages the rights of the IP owner. These are just as valid. Then you have claiming Win32 is a subliminal message about winning rather than an abbreviation for Windows...

It's not that there's a problem with the real terms, it's that stallman's alternative terms better highlight the actual nature of the things he describes. Those phrases are quick substitutions with the potential to make someone think more about the topic. Simply getting people to think about a topic is important for a social movement.

If someone in 1984 had started coining alternative terms the way stallman does, the amount of thoughtcrimes would skyrocket.

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