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Reasons not to use Facebook

stallman.org

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Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#71

Post by crdoconnor »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

>I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly.

I consider the Snowden revelations a cast iron validation of his so-called paranoia. He was in a small minority back then, and the revelations proved him right. That counts for a lot.

>Just like I wouldn't listen to Usain Bolt

Who should we listen to then? You?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#72

Post by tedunangst »

kragen wrote: post #57
revicon wrote: post #54

While I agree w/ some of the points Stallman makes, essays like this that rely on hyperbole to rile up readers turn me off and detract from the issues the author is trying to bring attention to. One example: Stallman states "Facebook's mobile app snoops on SMS messages" and links to this article: http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=128859 "... during installation, the Facebook mobile app for Android platform…

It is not correct to say that you can choose to enable this permission or not; or, rather, it is true only in a narrow technical sense — if you choose not to enable this permission, standard Android will refuse to install the Facebook app. And what legitimate reason could Facebook possibly have to request that permission in the first place? There may be some examples of hyperbole in that article, but the example you…

Phone number verification? I have an iPhone, which doesn't ever let apps read text messages, which actually would be nice sometimes when my banking app would like to verify it's running on my phone, as opposed to somebody else's phone.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#73

Post by skwosh »

tome wrote: post #43
Frondo wrote: post #33

My problem with essays like this is that they don't address the more critical underlying point: most people don't recognize privacy as a human right, and most people don't realize why privacy is important and worth protecting. To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable . That's the deeper problem at work here. With more people on board to why privacy matters, articles l…

> To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable. So what's the correct position, and why?

For me the correct position is to recognise that the law isn't fixed and absolute, but dynamic (as interpreted through the courts) and evolving.

Without privacy (or with pervasive surveillance), we might never have achieved the critical mass required to overturn historical legislation regarding blasphemy, homosexuality, drug use, etc.

In other words, privacy provides the necessary sand-box for the evolution of law.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#75

Post by valvar »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

I think, that if you look a bit closer, you'll be able to discern exactly why Stallman's 'BS' is deemed more acceptable than Watson's 'BS'.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#77

Post by tbirdz »

tedunangst wrote: post #58
__david__ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're probably on a Mac, which comes from the BSD heritage. Try "man diff".

HISTORY A diff command appeared in Version 6 AT&T UNIX.

C'mon Ted, you knew what he meant, there's no reason to be that snarky.

For anyone who does not know, __david__ is most likely referring to the GNU coreutils and GNU diffutils, which do indeed credit Richard Stallman in the AUTHOR section, not any BSD, AT&T or other versions of those utilities.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#79

Post by colmvp »

Frondo wrote: post #33

My problem with essays like this is that they don't address the more critical underlying point: most people don't recognize privacy as a human right, and most people don't realize why privacy is important and worth protecting. To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable . That's the deeper problem at work here. With more people on board to why privacy matters, articles l…

> To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable.

I know it's impossible, but I really recommend people who have that opinion to watch the TED talk by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#80

Post by manigandham »

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #45

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly. I completely disagree with him on essentially everything he writes about these topics. Granted, he's an incredible programmer who contributed immensely to the development of our modern operating systems and the tools we use, and people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRI…

I'm with you. Seems like FUD here with this post, there are a few decent ideas about privacy but its a social network and used for connecting to people. Maybe they can relax the real name policy some more but I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem.

There are effective privacy controls in place now and things like being served ads is such a silly issue to complain about... it's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?

What is the overall point at the end of this? Basically we should all just be anonymous forever? Facebook is just a decade old, society/culture is still catching up and we really don't need all this doom/gloom every time. And yea, I didn't know who this guy was until this post.

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