Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#91

Post by wiz21c » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:53 PM UTC

wonder_er wrote: post #8

I can't quite believe the argument that Facebook is Big Brother, because the first suggestion the author suggests is "stop using Facebook". In 1984, I believe the most compelling attribute of "Big Brother" was that he/it could not be willfully turned off. So, for this to be an appropriate analogy, Facebook would need to be able to legally compel you to have the app on your phone, and if you illegally removed the app/…

What you say about BigBrother not bein able to be willfully turned off sounds very true to me.

What certainly can't be turned off willfully now is the Internet; not FaceBook or Google. So the question is : is the Internet BigBrother. The idea of internet or even its hardware infrastructure is certainly not BigBrother. Now, the combined power of GG, FB and others certainly is a problem. And I'm sure there are people with the capability to combine their powers. Now, the questionis who can exert sufficient power over GG and FB ? I can think of the POTUS but wall, I'm sure it's not that simple. But intenet is certainly the machine of global surveillance...

But everybody knows that.

The question for me is : will internet inevitably becomes the monster we're fearing ? Personally I don't know, so I'm careful. But the fact is that we're becoming a society based on metrics and that scares me because it de-humanize us...

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#92

Post by yotamoron » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:53 PM UTC

I deleted my fb account more then 2 years ago. Life is so much better now.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#93

Post by rogerthis » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:55 PM UTC

To put things in a different perspective, imagine how much information about a farmer had an ancient imperor? How fast or effectively he could move the feelings of the people? Or order his army to attack or change tactics? Or how many months or years a pope from Middle Age would take to spread some dogma to all faithful?

When I relate these questions to what we have today I can't help but think that if we do not pay attention we'll head to a world with less and less freedom.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#94

Post by DenisM » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 6:58 PM UTC

SubiculumCode wrote: post #53

"Passively Listening" I will say this. The frequency of occasions is increasing where I've mentioned to my wife or son a product or service out of the blue only get served an ad with that product within the next 24 hours. Sure, it could be coincidence. I could be that the product was suggested subliminally to me via a campaign, etc. But some of these things are very specialized (plastic mold press), and not related t…

Be sure to make a control - talk away from phones.

One explanation of what you see is that having talked of something you have likely primed yourself to pick out this particular thing from the sea of ads.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#95

Post by Atheros » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

chrischen wrote: post #36

In these articles there are a lot of statements where Fb denies doing certain things specifically, such as storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows. I’m generally curious about if companies usually lie about practices like this, especially since company policy can change internally at any time without oversight. What happens if they are caught lying? Doesn’t seem to be breaking the law in any way…

> storing audio recordings when the app is used to tag TV shows.

And if they were truly not storing audio recordings but rather building a spectrogram of the audio and uploading that then their lawyers would argue that they were telling the truth. Even though the effect is the same.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#96

Post by TeMPOraL » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:10 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #20

Deimorz wrote: post #9

Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more. As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google: --- One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address. You've never heard of the restaurant…

Ironic isn't it. Google is a threat, but the media focuses on a random memo. Not dismissing the memo, but it pales in comparison to Google's larger scope.

Unfortunately, the outrage of people about some issue is usually inversely proportional to its importance. This seems to be a general fact about humans.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#97

Post by darrmit » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:19 PM UTC

I don't find Facebook useful for much and find that it brings the worst out in people, therefore I don't use it.

I do find Google useful but choose to use it very sparingly - no search, no mail, no maps. I do use Drive, Docs, and Photos (for now).

The problem I'm running into is some of Google's services are so exceptional compared to alternatives that it's becoming problematic to use alternatives. Maps is an example of this. In some ways Chrome is an example of this (when considering it as a platform/OS instead of just a browser).

I get the irony that their services are exceptional because of the data they collect, but that's sort of irrelevant.

But at the end of the day, I ask myself how much this matters in the absence of a VPN at home and on mobile when ISPs and cell providers are partnering up with advertisers and government agencies.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#98

Post by beagle3 » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:24 PM UTC

dannysu wrote: post #35

Deimorz wrote: post #9

Personally, I think Google is just as terrifying, possibly more. As an example, just take a fairly normal life situation like going out for dinner with some friends, and think about how much of it goes "through" Google: --- One of your friends sends an email to 6 others, to ask if everyone's free for dinner on Friday. 5 of the 7 people involved use gmail or a google apps address. You've never heard of the restaurant…

Facebook is like a Casino. They'll try to maneuver to keep you engaged and contain you in their bubble. However, if you're able to leave or cut your usage, they extend no influence whatsoever. (Don't have mobile apps installed, block their trackers, don't use Facebook login, etc) There are lots of ways to communicate outside of Facebook, including other messaging apps that help you form social networks outside of it.…

> However, if you're able to leave or cut your usage, they extend no influence whatsoever.

My friends often upload pictures of me, tagged with GPS coordinates and user; And even though most have stopped tagging me (as I have asked), Facebook often does offer them to tag me, which means that Facebook has enough pictures of me to identify me in random pictures (even though I never uploaded a single one myself).

Google collects information from users themselves, and have some info from people mailing them (if you are not on google yourself, it's likely more than half your emails are still coming or going to a google server).

But Facebook has co-opted your friends and family to spy on you, all day every day. Very much big brother.

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#99

Post by ryanwaggoner » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:26 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #81

dTal wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither is "fundamentally evil", and also both are. They are both corporations attempting to keep you in their ecosystem, using similar methods, that fundamentally make their money from targeting ads to you. There's no evil overlord at the top of either company (I hope) - their evilness must be judged by how likely each of them are to lead us into a techno-dystopia. And the more you consolidate to Google, the closer…

> There's no evil overlord at the top of either company (I hope) We'll have to disagree here. I think Zuckerberg is an evil, amoral person to his core. This hardly needs reposting, but I can't recall Brin or Page ever going on the record calling their users "dumb fucks".[0] [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuc...

This is such a stupid argument. He was what, 20 years old? And FB was a tiny nothing at that point. And let's face it, he probably wasn't wrong to think that users were dumb to upload private data to some random POS website.

I'm sure you never said anything at 20 on IM with a friend that could be used in isolation more than a decade later to show that you're an evil person, right?

Re: Big brother is here, and his name is Facebook

#100

Post by hutzlibu » Sat, Aug 12, 2017, 7:31 PM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #73

lobotryas wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google can be as evil as Facebook Personally I believe Google _IS_ much worse than FB for one simple reason: it's much easier to avoid FB than Google. With FB the story is simple. You'll miss out on some news/invites from FB-centric friends, but it's pretty easy to go without (or to even find new friends who aren't as hooked on FB as needed). "Avoiding" Google in your daily life is much, much harder. Their free mai…

If I can affect just one person here today... Please please please stop using Gmail for important communication and account recovery (banking, mission critical services you maintain, etc etc). Use a paid service from a reputable company who does that one thing only and does it well. Too many Gmail horror stories.

"Too many Gmail horror stories."

share one pls?