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What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

nytimes.com

101–110 of 118 posts

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope people continue migrating to http://MeWe.com which has a clear privacy bill of rights at its core and zero ads. It makes money in a far more traditional approach by charging for "pages" and extended emotions etc. What is the guarantee that they stick to this and not got FB route later. Why should I trust "Sgrouples Inc."?

If they changed it would be suicide. Their whole raison d'être is around privacy and no censorship.

I'm not so sure that'll still be true once they have a critical mass of users on there. Perhaps a lot of users will have been brought on through their network, instead of through their belief in the platform. Before you know it, perhaps most of their users won't care as much as the original set!

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#102

Honestly, I hope they do! Simply put, the company is ethically bankrupt and deserve to be made an example of how not to run a social network. You can't go selling peoples private messages to Netflix (the sheer audacity of that just blows my mind!). You can't allow peoples private data to be sold to data analytics firms that are trying to sway elections. Facebook is built on the belief that people don't need privacy a…

> I hope people continue migrating to http://MeWe.com which has a clear privacy bill of rights at its core and zero ads. It makes money in a far more traditional approach by charging for "pages" and extended emotions etc. What is the guarantee that they stick to this and not got FB route later. Why should I trust "Sgrouples Inc."?

I don't replacing Facebook with another centralized network is a step forward at all.

You should own your own data, and choose to share it with one or more networks. Should be able to be friends with people on BookFace, YourSpace, ICQQ, and choose what you want to share with them. Everyone browsing their feed in the app of their choice.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope people continue migrating to http://MeWe.com which has a clear privacy bill of rights at its core and zero ads. It makes money in a far more traditional approach by charging for "pages" and extended emotions etc. What is the guarantee that they stick to this and not got FB route later. Why should I trust "Sgrouples Inc."?

If they changed it would be suicide. Their whole raison d'être is around privacy and no censorship.

What we need is a law that forces companies to get specific permission before seeing their data to any other specific entity. Terms of use change all the time.

I'm hopeful the new generation of people growing up without privacy will learn to value it as they mature and control of their internet history is something they have to deal with.

Make laws with teeth. Look at HIPAA for example. The penalties are severe and therefore compliance is strict.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#104
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m guessing because the expectation of privacy thing isn’t nearly as settled as the GP makes it out to be, and depends partly on how the public views such interactions — but the entire rant is deeply based on that point, which it aggressively and baldly asserts. In short, because it doesn’t have much substance and may actually be counter-productive.

The "expectation of privacy" really is quite settled. It's about marketing, not reality. Thinking FB will treat your "private data" as yours rather than theirs is about as realistic as watching a beer commercial and thinking that if you drink that brand of beer, beautiful women will find you more attractive. It's about as "isn't nearly as settled" as the question of whether Santa Claus is real. Just because there's a…

I find it interesting that rather than present a link, or even an argument grounded in, eg, law, you simply asserted that it’s settled and that FB is intrinsically amoral, and we all just need to accept that.

The whole purpose of government is to regulate amoral market forces to conform to our moral philosophy.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#105
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "expectation of privacy" really is quite settled. It's about marketing, not reality. Thinking FB will treat your "private data" as yours rather than theirs is about as realistic as watching a beer commercial and thinking that if you drink that brand of beer, beautiful women will find you more attractive. It's about as "isn't nearly as settled" as the question of whether Santa Claus is real. Just because there's a…

I find it interesting that rather than present a link, or even an argument grounded in, eg, law, you simply asserted that it’s settled and that FB is intrinsically amoral, and we all just need to accept that. The whole purpose of government is to regulate amoral market forces to conform to our moral philosophy.

It's an argument grounded in reason. I don't know what part of "market forces are amoral" you find questionable. Why should economics be more moral than the wind? (Personally, I think reading a moral character into the thermodynamics-like behavior of markets is the core flaw of conservative economics.)

I agree that government should (and does) regulate amoral market forces to conform to a moral philosophy (although I disagree that it's the whole purpose). But at a certain point, it becomes difficult to manage. Consider the case of "Facebook sells your private messages". Undoubtedly, somewhere in the click-through license that no one ever bothered to read is a provision allowing them to do exactly that, making it clear that what you type into their platform is theirs to resell, whether it's "private" or not. So users agreed to this. For sufficiently abstract interpretations of "agreed". It may not be ethical, but it's certainly legal.

So what does government do about this amoral market force, exactly? Do they try to come up with a rigid, legalistic definition of "private" that businesses like Facebook must abide by? And what is "private", then? My IMs? My age? My friends? The history of what ads I've clicked on before? And how does this government regulation respond to the seemingly infinite imagination and determination of market forces? Like I said, it's like thermodynamics. It's hard to make a law that says no gasses shall pass beyond this seal, except gasses that are permitted by law to pass.

And to be absolutely clear, I'm not saying we should do nothing, or that this is a Good Thing, or that government should just "stay out of the way". I'm saying that it's really, really hard. And sometimes the only way to find the bugs is to run the code.

In the meantime, public hostility to the news is working better than any regulation would have, imho. Facebook went too far and alienated users. It may not hurt them much now, but it's part of a relentless drip-drip-drip that will eventually destroy them. Erosion is also a natural, amoral force.

And until then, we have a solution - don't use Facebook. Don't use social media that you don't completely trust. Yeah, it's annoying and stupid, but it's not as stupid as thinking they're going to respect your privacy if they can make a buck selling it.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#106

Honestly, I hope they do! Simply put, the company is ethically bankrupt and deserve to be made an example of how not to run a social network. You can't go selling peoples private messages to Netflix (the sheer audacity of that just blows my mind!). You can't allow peoples private data to be sold to data analytics firms that are trying to sway elections. Facebook is built on the belief that people don't need privacy a…

"Facebook is built on the belief that people don't need privacy"

That is wrong, Facebook's leadership doesn't act that way. Facebook is built on "fuck them, we'll take away their privacy and make money".

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#108
post #92

Honestly, I hope they do! Simply put, the company is ethically bankrupt and deserve to be made an example of how not to run a social network. You can't go selling peoples private messages to Netflix (the sheer audacity of that just blows my mind!). You can't allow peoples private data to be sold to data analytics firms that are trying to sway elections. Facebook is built on the belief that people don't need privacy a…

> I hope people continue migrating to http://MeWe.com LOL, no. From company to another company, because this time, it will be different! (Hey there, https://ello.co ! ) Get your own thing. WordPess with webmentions, Mastodon, Gnusocial, SSBC, anything, but it really, really shouldn't be a single unit controlled thing.

> really shouldn't be a single unit controlled thing.

Right on - all we need is a suite of standard protocols and data format for information exchange between social networks.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#109
Didn't Cambridge Analytica shut down and re-open the same day under a new name?

A company that built its riches on the back of a spectacularly successful surveillance apparatus isn't going to go away. Especially not now that its use as a psyops tool (2016 US electon, Rohingya genocide) has been proven.

FB as a product may one day not exist, but its leaders will welcome the absence of the press spotlight so they can start working with law enforcement, military and other groups that will pay big for their knowledge.

Think Peter Thiel and Palantir.

Re: What Happens When Facebook Goes the Way of Myspace?

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I hope people continue migrating to http://MeWe.com which has a clear privacy bill of rights at its core and zero ads. It makes money in a far more traditional approach by charging for "pages" and extended emotions etc. What is the guarantee that they stick to this and not got FB route later. Why should I trust "Sgrouples Inc."?

If they changed it would be suicide. Their whole raison d'être is around privacy and no censorship.

No. Google got big literally only because a huge f-ton of nerds saw them as a new, unique, good alternative to the big tech companies and pushed their services. Remember when working at Google was a dream that spawned several movies even?

Then, Google just went and deleted "Don't be evil" from their manifesto. Literally they did that. That's like saying "Yo guys, we are evil now".

And what happened? Nothing. They are fine.

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