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Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

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Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#261
post #254
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only admirable if you agree with those convictions. Otherwise you have to end up admiring people like the Westboro Baptists and the KKK.

False equivalence. But do go ahead and give us your argument for how hypocrisy is more admirable.

It's not. Babarock said that living in your convictions is itself admirable. But I disagree - if your convictions are bad, living by them is bad too.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Comparing parents to genocidal dictators is quite a bit more hyperbolic than the OP.

I suspect the point of contention is lack of clarification of definitions and terms, particularly regarding 'freedom', the OP's phrase 'heinous violations of freedom', and the concept of violations of freedom in general. I would define 'freedom' in a very narrow and non-metaphysical sense, as 'the ability to make choices free of threats of violence by others'. I derive this definition by asking the following question…

I see. So you were going for some sort of indirect reductio ad absurdum argument. Not without merit, but it will go over people's heads 99.99% of the time and not because they are all idiots.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#263
255 comments and nobody mentioned Diaspora?

The project is small and mainly full of geeks now, but so was Wikipedia when I started promoting it. Everybody told me it would never succeed then, but they all use it now.

More relevant to this discussion, it provides a Free (as in freedom) alternative to Facebook. As long as no free alternative exists, Facebook has something going for it. Once you have an alternative, you can kick Facebook. (Also relevant, Eben Moglen, who co-wrote the GPL with Stallman, inspired Diaspora).

Yes Diaspora is small. Wikipedia also once had only 10,000 articles.

I recommend joining. The community is smaller than 800 million, but you can connect with me so you'll have at least one awesome person in your network there.

And you own your data.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#264

When I was a kid, my parents sent me to camp, even though all I wanted to do was sit home and write text adventures in BASIC. I hated camp. I hated the kids, and the counselors, and most of all I hated how everyone acted like if you didn't like it, if you weren't having fun, then there was something messed up about you . Facebook = camp. The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most peop…

Thanks for this. It concisely and exactly sums up my feelings in a nutshell.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#265
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The most oppressive and authoritarian thing about it is, at root, that most people appear to enjoy it and not see any problems with it, while you view it as this heinous violation of your freedom and imposition on your private space. While many of my friends enjoy Facebook and I'm still to lazy to upload a profile image and mainly use it to find out where the next birthday party is located, I really can't say that…

> Some people just like camp And that, my friend, is the tyranny of the majority. It is the people who just like things the way they are who opt willfully to take the side of the-way-is. You attacked, wrote a comment, preserving the status quo simply because you happen to find yourself with that preference, rather than considering the much more existential plight of the minority.

Out there, somebody just doesn't like the internet, and you are making him sad by participating.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any serious concerns about privacy because of Facebook, but I do want to point out an aspect where Facebook's privacy controls don't apply. If someone takes a photo of you, they can upload it to Facebook. If they tag you, you can remove the tag. The photo will be there regardless of whether you accept/remove any tagging, and it will be outside the jurisdiction of your privacy controls. The uploader contr…

What you say is true, but it would still be true if Facebook didn't exist. It will always be true because Internet.

Still the discussion is - because facebook.

Saying because internet here effectively becomes throwing hands in the air and saying "it makes no difference - so why bother?"

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#267
post #263

255 comments and nobody mentioned Diaspora? The project is small and mainly full of geeks now, but so was Wikipedia when I started promoting it. Everybody told me it would never succeed then, but they all use it now. More relevant to this discussion, it provides a Free (as in freedom) alternative to Facebook. As long as no free alternative exists, Facebook has something going for it. Once you have an alternative, you…

I created a Diaspora account a while ago because I thought it would be a usable alternative and maybe I could get some friends to follow. Well, it isn't.

It started with my profile picture being public, there is no way to disable that.

Then I did not understand the aspect of "aspects" because at least in my language no-one ever uses that word in any way remotely related to a social network. I still have not fully understand the idea. I think it is way too intellectual and not natural.

You do not get recommendations for "friends of your friends you might know". Of course it would be a privacy issue, I know that. But this is a crucial feature, if not THE crucial feature of a social network.

And one thing I was looking forward to and what I thought would let me find likeminded people in this network, the ability to follow tags, seems to be restricted to my pod. Or maybe there is just no-one using it and thus there is almost zero content.

The name is standing in its way too. Reminds me of the "pirate party".

And I am a technology lover, hacker in mind, etc. Diaspora is not remotely close to being something I would recommend my friends.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#268
post #177
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with this actually, for several reasons! You're speaking about the Facebook of yesterday. Within the last year, they have introduced several features which remove the control of your privacy, and distribute the information gathering to your connections. But first, in regards to the Facebook of yesterday, you will find many resources that describe how few people actually change their privacy settings or eve…

> your friends can volunteer information about you indirectly by using "smart lists" I didn't even know about this, but it illustrates that merely signing up exposes you to potential privacy violations. We recently became aware of how much of a liability it is for employers to look at Facebook profiles, because they may learn intimate details about a person's sexual orientation, religion, politics, etc. The only solu…

Didn't Facebook also keep 'shadow profiles' of people not on the platform? So even if you're not signed up but your friends have tagged photos of you etc, Facebook can still infer things about you.

Not sure if this is still the case.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#269
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look, our adult society is pretty good at accepting behavioral outliers Boy, do we disagree. Never before has political correctness and "fitting in" been so exalted. In fact Facebook is a direct consequence of this behavior. Consider that many people don't see Facebook as a privacy issue once they've weighed everything carefully and not because they're idiots. Not idiots, but completely ignorant as to what they are a…

> Facebook is a direct consequence of this behavior The only reason that people join Facebook is to prove how politically correct they are, or to 'fit in?' Really?

Perhaps "direct consequence" isn't the right wording but I do feel there's a valid point about the homogenization of thought, which things like FB (inadvertently?) steer us toward.

Re: Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

#270
I see how it may seem like facebook is parasite project in a scenario of using facebook that is most common (sharing photos, liking, tagging pictures, having friends,..). But users that use facebook platform like that are all doing it by their consent. If user chooses to do so it may leave the platform at any time.

While in parasitic relationship there is one side that is being parasited without consent and other that is parasite. If we must compare facebook and its most common users with realtionship in nature it is more like symbiotic relationship.

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