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Reasons not to use Facebook

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Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#351

Post by Intermernet »

bootload wrote: post #346
Intermernet wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't common knowledge at all. When I tried telling people about ECHELON I was told it was a crack-pot conspiracy theory, despite the evidence being available. There were a few people who actually extrapolated the technical abilities to their possible extents and realized what was possible, indeed probable, but they were not the majority. Despite Nicky Hager's testimony before the European Parliament in 2001, her…

"Saying this was common knowledge in 1996 is attributing your specialist knowledge to the entire population, who couldn't, and still can't, really be bothered by said knowledge." Bad effects from smoking were know for years, same with the effects of asbestos, DDT. These days, it's fracking, global warming, junk-food and lack of exercise. These ideas were all and are currently in the media. People being the irrational…

The effects of smoking, Fracking, DDT, asbestos, global warming and junk-food have all had industry campaigns defending them. The only one in your list that hasn't is lack of exercise. This isn't to say that everything is a conspiracy driven by industry, but to illustrate that popular belief is often driven by popularist campaigns.

I would say that truth doesn't change belief, and unfortunately, it's belief that people act on.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#352

Post by orbifold »

manigandham wrote: post #335
orbifold wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a business model is not viable without mass surveillance and unprecedented amount of privacy invasion, maybe one should try to come up with better alternatives. Luckily Facebook is already being unbundled and I'm sure with changing technology the need for a centralized hub for social interaction over the internet will fade away. One way could be via the development of new protocols, like an improvement of Email, t…

99.9% of people dont care about all that. They want an easy way to connect with friends/family and even strangers. They dont want to pay for it though so they're willing to be served ads. The model works just fine. And I keep hearing this all the time, if there are better alternatives than what are they? Facebook has thousands of employees, most just like you and me. They are not an army of evil people planning destr…

I don't use facebook and I block their social media buttons. I have less control over friends of mine posting pictures of me on facebook or the fact that facebook is able to read SMS send to peoples phones that have their App installed.

I'm fully aware that people don't care about privacy and abusive corporate practices, which is why it falls on the shoulders of the few that do care to come up with compelling alternatives, that respect users privacy. As you mention those alternatives would probably not be profitable (because you can't rely on ads). If they came in the form of new protocols (just like Email or SMS) and free software to implement those protocols it wouldn't matter as much.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#353

Post by dredmorbius »

tedunangst wrote: post #118
darklajid wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Facebook need to verify a phone number? It's a social network, used for jokes, farmville and whatnot. Most people I know that are on FB don't even use their 'real' name. IF someone provides a telephone number in his account details, FB can treat it like a string. I understand why FB would like to 'verify a number', but why should we allow that to happen? Why is this a valid reason to ask for permissions on…

If you don't let people use two factor auth, they bitch about your lack of security. If you let people use two factor auth, they bitch that you're collecting phone numbers. Can't win.

False dichotomy.

If the ONLY 2FA you offer is predicated on phone-number sharing then people have a legitimate right to bitch about it.

I've been locked out of my G+ account (due to accessing it via Tor): https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/2w618r/how_to_... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9060922

I found that:

1. The account recovery stuff wasn't set up properly.

2. Google won't provide access to back-up codes at all unless you provide them a phone number. https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/EmEk18bL...

No, it's not a "you can't win" situation. It's a case of not offering reasonable choices.

(Discussed in context of Google as, while I cannot keep Facebook from sucking up my personal information, I can avoid putting it there myself.)

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#354

Post by dredmorbius »

EGreg wrote: post #298

Why is "user" replaced with "used" everywhere? It isn't a typo, it's Stallman's NLP-style punning?

See the footnote in the article (also noted multiple times above):

"We call them "useds" rather than "users" because Facebook is using them, not vice versa."

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#355

Post by naturalrecursin »

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…

Makes me sad reading comments like these.. You fail to understand so many things. People like Richard provide a much needed balance, and honestly I applaud his efforts.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#356

Post by dandelion_lover »

apetrovic wrote: post #322
hnnewguy wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I know what I'm buying, and I'm ok with that. Apparently you don't, because you aren't really buying anything. You're licensing it. You don't own a thing in your Amazon library. They can, and have, taken books "back" based on user-agreement violations. Yes, it's convenient for you to have all your books, synced, in one place. But there are negative implications of having all that information controlled.

Ok, I know what I'm renting and I'm ok with that. I pay less money to have quick access to books I like. If in some time in future Amazon suddenly became evil and deletes all my books from my library (let's for the sake of the argument forget that I actually have a backup for all these books), I'll... I actually will not give a fuck. I'll just stop using Amazon for anything . And buy (or rent) these books I want to r…

Thank you for the presenting your opinion in details. I see your point. What I do not like in this approach is that I find it to be similar with "I have nothing to hide" argument (see also the comments below).

You personally may not have any (unexpected) bad consequences because of such choice. But please look at the analogy. Giving to a three-letter agency a possibility to collect and store all private information about you, gives them an incredible power over the population as a whole, taking away the democracy from all the people. Looks like a tragedy of commons, by the way.

Giving to a commercial company a possibility to own all your books, gives them a power to do whatever they want including censorship and maybe manipulating people.

tl;dr: you personally may not have any side effects, but the community as a whole will.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#357

Post by apetrovic »

dandelion_lover wrote: post #356
apetrovic wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, I know what I'm renting and I'm ok with that. I pay less money to have quick access to books I like. If in some time in future Amazon suddenly became evil and deletes all my books from my library (let's for the sake of the argument forget that I actually have a backup for all these books), I'll... I actually will not give a fuck. I'll just stop using Amazon for anything . And buy (or rent) these books I want to r…

Thank you for the presenting your opinion in details. I see your point. What I do not like in this approach is that I find it to be similar with "I have nothing to hide" argument (see also the comments below). You personally may not have any (unexpected) bad consequences because of such choice. But please look at the analogy. Giving to a three-letter agency a possibility to collect and store all private information a…

Well, no, I'm not in "I have nothing to hide" bandwagon. But I'm trying to have some balance in my life. I'm not using Facebook, I don't use Google+, but I'm using gmail. From the desktop client, not from browser, so I'm not always logged in in Google services, for example.

I'm also trying to have some balance in ebook story. Is DRM bad? Yes. But for me it's necessary evil. My understanding is that between having vibrant ebooks/ereaders ecosystem with DRM and not having ebooks at all (or having it in some geek niche), Stallman and co would choose the niche part. I strongly disagree with that.

The whole discussion started with a comment about Stallman "being right about ebooks and DRM". I still can't see where Stallman is actually right and where is the problems. Even you talk about some possible power to enforce censorship and manipulate people. Yeah, it's possible. But there's also a possibility where that scenario doesn't happen (because Amazon have very strong financial incentive to prevent that scenario)

And about some three letter agency... You don't fight three letter agency by not buying DRM-ed books. You fight these agencies by changing the system. There's very little difference between having some ebook in the cloud and buying plain old non-DRMed dead tree book online (or even in the book store) with your credit card. You have and use credit cards, right? Or you use only paper money, in brick and mortar stores, to avoid any chance of collecting and storing private information about you?

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#358

Post by eropple »

hrktb wrote: post #319
eropple wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of things about which I'll get up over, and there are plenty of companies feted around here that I think are moral crimes in progress, but this isn't one and I think you've got the arrow of responsibility backwards. You're using websites and applications that have opted into using Facebook's infrastructure for the ends that benefit them, and as a side effect they are sharing the details of their traff…

How do you know, and thus conciously choose, if a site has a facebook widget without visiting it ? You could use adblock or something similar on the desktop or android, but then you need to know about it first, and it opens another can of worm regarding site revenues etc. Also if you're an iOS user you'll just have to live with it or abandon Safari for more limited browsers, and avoid opening any webview from any app…

> How do you know, and thus conciously choose, if a site has a facebook widget without visiting it ?

Black-hole everything coming from a Facebook domain?

> Also if you're an iOS user you'll just have to live with it or abandon Safari for more limited browsers, and avoid opening any webview from any app ever.

Convenient, then, that I don't use iOS. (I use Android, and I do have an /etc/hosts file to kill some things I don't want to see.)

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#359

Post by aros »

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…

Your entire rant can be summed up in to, "Why doesn't everyone think the same way I do?"

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#360

Post by aros »

manigandham wrote: post #333
icebraining wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_enforcement 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? Hum, charge people? What is the overall point at the end of this? "Don't use Facebook." I thought that was clear.

Fine, the real name policy is a fuzzy issue and not really fit for discussion here. Charging people doesn't work since most people want the convenience and ability to communicate with friends but don't want to pay for it. Not a viable model for Facebook. I'm sure you don't just browse the web and offer to pay every site you visit do you? "Don't use Facebook" is not the point, this is all about fear of privacy in gene…

People are paying to use Facebook. Are you suggesting that they aren't?
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