Reasons not to use Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#241

Post by spinchange » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:02 PM UTC

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…

To understand why people value Stallman's views so much, it is helpful to have a deeper and more thoughtful understanding about the man's work. See, it isn't about 'the code' nearly as much as it is about the political and ethical values he's spent decades imbuing into code and its licensing. Stallman is fundamentally about upholding freedom for users (basically, citizens in general) in the computer age. As far as I can gather, everything the man does and says in service of this central ideal. His consistency, persistence, and adherence to these principles, coupled with the great technical and advocacy work he's done is valuable and respected by many, even if they disagree or don't fully support his worldview. Since Facebook is simply a multiuser application run on over a network, accessed by computing devices running software, I think he's entirely qualified to talk about it, and when you couple the social and societal implications of Facebook, it's absolutely within his bailiwick as someone who advocates around the political and social implications of software.

>The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies

No, no. He absolutely understands. He disagrees with it. You do not and find his principles silly. That's fine, but TL;DR just because you think it's complete BS doesn't mean it is.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#242

Post by kartikkumar » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

Although I can get the rationale of most things he says, I’m not sure that he’s always offering sane alternative options:

> Don't be tracked — pay cash.

I’m wondering how he imagines this would pan out. Is RMS also against banking, since banks mine your data too. Does he suggest stuffing your mattress full of cash? (serious question).

In the US, where credit ratings are essential to be able to make any sizeable/significant purchases (car, house etc.), I’m wondering what he suggests as being the alternative. Or is he just supposed to reject all purchases that aren’t feasible with cash?

I’m curious if he’s opposed to Bitcoin too.

I’m not familiar enough with his writings to discern whether he’s simply a dissenter or also someone that has a view towards sane, realistic solutions.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#243

Post by frostmatthew » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:03 PM UTC

SeanDav wrote: post #218

There seems to have been a sea change in opinion of many HN posters here, especially among the more recent visitors to HN. A couple of years ago Facebook was considered by many here to be an invasion of privacy and just not worth the effort. That general opinion seems to have changed for some. A lot of newer posters seem to be of the opinion that lack of privacy is a cost worth paying for convenience and will apologi…

> defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy

People post things to Facebook with the intent of sharing that information with others. I'll admit there may have been some valid criticisms that their privacy settings are/were difficult for some people to fully understand but that's certainly not a blatant invasion of privacy.

As for taking information and using it for targeted advertising that's no different than what companies like Google or Amazon do (which have historically had a higher "reputation" on HN). If you want to consider such practices blatant invasions of privacy that's fine, but there are certainly far bigger offenders out there.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#244

Post by leni536 » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:06 PM UTC

FanaHOVA wrote: post #234

leni536 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was wrong with mailing lists? > It's the easiest way to keep up to date with my gym group, motorcycle group etc. Of course it is the easiest if they use a Facebook group in the first place. They could use a mailing list (or Google group) and you could keep track of it with any mail service (even your own) of choice.

Mailing list? What year is it? Barely anyone outside of the tech world still uses emails regularly.

> What year is it? Is this supposed to be an argument?

> Barely anyone outside of the tech world still uses emails regularly. It's not true according to my experience.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#245

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:07 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #80

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…

> 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.

The problems come when the policy is weaponized by people looking to harm people who have a good reason to use a certain name.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#246

Post by vinceguidry » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:10 PM UTC

jcrawfordor wrote: post #207

_nedR wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This, exactly. Stallman is taking a stand here. We might think that he is a dangerous extremist for his actions and stances (Not using proprietary software, mobile phones, javascript-enabled websites). But what he is actually doing is sacrificing his life to make his points (which are for the most part completely valid). I would guess, even he knows that most of his ideals are impractical in today's world, but he is…

As someone who interacted closely with RMS for several days recently, I think I should set the record straight on one important fact. RMS absolutely uses cellphones. He just doesn't own one himself. Instead, he borrows the phones of the people around him, and his assistant collects those people's phone numbers in order to call him. What this says about his philosophy probably depends significantly on how irritating y…

This reminds me of that article that made the rounds a little while back about the Amish. How they absolutely use technology, they just have a different perspective on it than we do. It strikes me that Stallman does the same for principles. What we think his principles are is not the same way he considers them.

I have his book, and his practicality has always struck me, juxtaposed against his idealism, it just looks really strange. You don't expect to see him doing certain things. But then you ask him about it and he's got a perfectly reasonable explanation. I've read so many stories about people that have interacted with him in precisely that way.

Both Stallman and the Amish take a very long view. Every decision they make carries the entire weight of the future and must be considered in that light. They both fight against the constant march of modernity. They are institution builders.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#247

Post by pckspcks » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:12 PM UTC

karmacondon wrote: post #227

SeanDav wrote: post #218

There seems to have been a sea change in opinion of many HN posters here, especially among the more recent visitors to HN. A couple of years ago Facebook was considered by many here to be an invasion of privacy and just not worth the effort. That general opinion seems to have changed for some. A lot of newer posters seem to be of the opinion that lack of privacy is a cost worth paying for convenience and will apologi…

Facebook doesn't invade anyone's privacy. They aren't going into your house and rifling through your things. People post things on facebook because they want other people to see them. If you don't want to do that, then don't use facebook. You can't stop other people from talking about you, or from taking pictures of you or relating stories that involve you. That's always been a part of social life. If you consider th…

There is no way to not use Facebook.

Let me repeat that: THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT USE FACEBOOK.

Everyone's photos: Mine, yours, Stallmans, get posted to Facebook, annotated with our names (which is increasingly becoming easy enough to do with ML -- the human component will increasingly decline). If at least one of your friends uses Facebook, Facebook has profile information on you.

Stallman doesn't have a Facebook account, but things posted to Facebook identify where Stallman is, who his friends and peers are, who he interacts with, etc.

Signing up for a Facebook/Google Scholar/Researchgate/etc. simply gives you some level of control over the visibility of the information collected about you. If you care about your personal brand, there is strong reason to do it. It's almost blackmail. But if you don't do it, you're still on Facebook; simply without the EULA, and without any control.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#248

Post by vezzy-fnord » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:14 PM UTC

FanaHOVA wrote: post #234

leni536 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was wrong with mailing lists? > It's the easiest way to keep up to date with my gym group, motorcycle group etc. Of course it is the easiest if they use a Facebook group in the first place. They could use a mailing list (or Google group) and you could keep track of it with any mail service (even your own) of choice.

Mailing list? What year is it? Barely anyone outside of the tech world still uses emails regularly.

2015. You're dead wrong. People, young and old, regularly use email for communication and subscribing to publications. Most people will use email regularly just by sheer virtue of it being the predominant identifier used for registering to just about any website.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#249

Post by realusername » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

jfoster wrote: post #200

realusername wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is not only the privacy inside Facebook but also outside facebook. People are generally aware of what they give inside Facebook but I'm not sure most people expect Facebook to store their entire web history with dodgy techniques.

True. Through the "Like" buttons on pages and such, I presume? Do we know for sure that they are keeping that full log?

Yes exactly, the like "button" is in reality an IFrame. And there is also Facebook Comments and Facebook Connect. There is no proof that they are keeping the full log as far as I know but since their advertising business is eager to get more information about their users, there is a strong incentive to do it. In any case, they are probably logging every request to Facebook so they could use that in the future if they wanted to.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#250

Post by lotsofmangos » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 2:20 PM UTC

cwyers wrote: post #211

kragen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People value Stallman’s opinions on these matters so highly because he has a remarkable history of being right about them ten or fifteen years before it becomes clear to everyone else that he was right, and he takes the risk of saying what he sees even when it will offend people. In fact, that’s why he’s famous; he’s certainly a good hacker, but the world has quite a number of good hackers who aren’t famous because t…

Stallman's work has enabled a vision almost exactly the opposite of what he wanted - the gratis nature of free software has been a far greater impact than the libre. It's enabled cloud computing by making OS and software licenses scale out affordably, letting everyone leverage low-cost commodity hardware in the place of big iron. In terms of libre, though, the closed-source PCs that ran Windows that Stallman still wa…

Predicting trends and successfully influencing trends are two different things. However, the free software movement has been one of the most successful experiments in mass communism in history.