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Stallman: "Facebook is an international parasitism project."

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

#101

Post by ben1040 »

joering2 wrote: post #69
feralchimp wrote: post #33

I was an outspoken Facebook-hater for a long time. Perhaps my most quotable moment on HN to date was saying "I have no love for their product or their business model, but their engineering is diesel." My wife recently convinced me to give it another try. I didn't use my complete name, and was judicious about the information I associated with my profile. And yet, I proceeded to connect in a deep and healthy way with s…

> connect in a deep and healthy way with some people that I'd fallen out of touch with You must have had fallen out of touch for a reason, hadn't you? I think this is the major reason why I am not using Facebook to find and connect with my old friends. If those connection would have been worth keeping up with, I am sure I wouldn't have lost them at the first place. Now, of course there are stories when some family me…

>You must have had fallen out of touch for a reason, hadn't you?

This is exactly what made me realize it was OK for me to drop Facebook.

I was unreasonably worried that I would again lose touch with these people who were my friends back in college. We fell out of contact after graduation, and then rediscovered on Facebook years later. These were folks with whom I didn't have a whole lot in common at all - maybe I might have lived on the same dorm floor with them, or maybe we were study pals in data structures class, or something else similarly un-meaningful.

Then there were the people I actually cared about and made efforts to keep up friendships. I looked through my phone contact list, and realized not only did I have telephone numbers and email addresses for every last one of them, but I had made use of it often. Facebook was not how I communicated with the people that matter anyway.

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

#102

Post by kposehn »

anon808 wrote: post #43
VMG wrote: 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…

I don't think the original comment is saying there's something wrong with liking camp, but there's something wrong with people liking camp because they're supposed to like camp. of course we can't look into people's hearts and see if they actually like something or they're just liking it because they're supposed to like it, but if you pay attention and see how much care people put into doing things, it becomes obviou…

> there's something wrong with people liking camp because they're supposed to like camp

It is very easy as an outside observer to decide that someone must like something you dislike because they feel they are "supposed" to.

Kind of like sushi. If you're grossed out by it, you've probably watched people eating it and having fun while saying to yourself "well, they only like it because they're supposed to...it's trendy right now, that's all".

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

#103

Post by rbarooah »

babarock wrote: post #51
rbarooah wrote: post #29

Many of Stallman's complaints about Facebook ( http://stallman.org/facebook.html ) apply equally to Google. Does anyone know whether he regards them in the same light?

Does it really matter? As much as I agree with rms on the matter, I don't want him to become the High Judge of what's good and what's evil .

Wanting to know his opinion doesn't make him the High Judge.

I'm curious because slthough I'm critical of Google for various reasons, I think it's hard to make a case against the value that Google search has brought to the world.

In the particular thread about Facebook RMS is pretty absolute in his boycott. I wondered whether he'd be more nuanced with Google.

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

#104

Post by tedunangst »

pavanky wrote: post #70
fudged wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To many people, Facebook is the default communication channel. To delete your Facebook account is like to be offered a free iphone + unlimited contract and refuse it; the idea of removing your name from the social phonebook is beyond the comprehension of many people. And subconsciously, you're removing value from other people's valued medium/experience. By not having account, you must have some opposition to somethin…

How is this different from someone saying, I am offended you don't smoke weed, or I am offended, in this country of XYZ religion, you are not ?

If you don't smoke, that doesn't prevent other people from smoking. If you're not on FB, that does prevent other people from messaging/whatever you on FB.

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

#105

Post by noduerme »

omegant wrote: post #79
partytime wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other oppressive and authoritative thing about it -- completely aside from the whole surveillance and tracking aspect -- is that it obliterates the past. There was a time when, if you just met someone at a bar or some event or while traveling, there was still a bit of mystery to them. You had to interact with them a bit more until you found out about their family, their friends, and where they've been in life. No…

It is very interesting that very same lack of privacity that is experienced with facebook is very similar to the kind of privacy you "enjoy" on small comunities( you can find recent articles on how is living in the malvines and it is pretty much a facebook live). Maybe is due to the fact that we are a social species, and group sizes have been mostly small till not so long ago, that you can explain the facebook succes…

Great point...I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I'm from LA but I moved to a village in europe with just over 1000 people. I see the same people every day, and everyone talks about each other's business. I've thought a bit about how FB is sort of trying to recreate this, and the ways in which it's failed.

It can be somewhat oppressive to live in a place where everyone knows your business, even if they're all nice people. I think the difference boils down to walls and boundaries. I have a porch in front of my house where only friends will likely drop by, if I'm sitting out there. Unlike with FB, random people I barely know would be uncomfortable suddenly showing up on my porch and standing there without saying anything interesting. I have a yard in back where my girlfriend and I can be alone. If the phone rings at a bad time, or someone knocks while we're out back, we don't feel compelled to get up and answer it, or even to find out who it was; whereas with FB, we would feel bad ignoring someone completely, since they'd know we had a record of the contact. Conversely, if we're out in public and waiting in line at the bakery while the people in front of us are having a super-long 20 minute chat with the baker, we wait patiently because it would be obscenely impolite to interrupt; but we don't eavesdrop or intrude on the conversation, as we could with FB. If I'm cornered by someone in town I don't really want to talk to, I can talk for a few minutes and then leave; comfortably knowing they won't see live status updates of where I'm walking.

Maybe a better way to say it is that small towns, for all their gossip, have a decorum and a sense of human dignity that facebook simply hasn't developed, and maybe never will.

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

#106

Post by schraeds »

noduerme wrote: post #87
gavinlynch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"but there's something wrong with people liking camp because they're supposed to like camp" Huh? Don't understand what you are talking about... A quick study of human history and psychology will show that this is a bedrock of human behavior. For good and ill, it is what I would regard a well-accepted facet of human nature. We wouldn't be the species we are without the pressures of 'social norms'

Actually, a quick study will show you that it's the (by definition) minority of people who rebel against social norms and mass movements, the people who aren't followers, who have been the drivers of civilization, the catalysts for new ideas, the creators and inventors. I think it's safe to say most of those people hated or would hate summer camp. People who really love camp might be poster children for human herd be…

... If you use facebook you don't have unique ideas or are less likey to found the next great startup? Get over yourself.

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

#107

Post by rbarooah »

jrockway wrote: post #48
rbarooah wrote: post #29

Many of Stallman's complaints about Facebook ( http://stallman.org/facebook.html ) apply equally to Google. Does anyone know whether he regards them in the same light?

Take a guess: https://www.google.com/webhp?q=stallman%20google

Most of that seems to be aimed at ChromeOS - which is predictable.

I'm more interested in what he thinks of Google as a service.

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

#108

Post by 9999 »

ebiester wrote: post #89
9999 wrote: post #75

Stallman is right. What Facebook provides is a completely unoriginal set of social networking tools wrapped in a mediocre presentation layer that requires you to surrender some of your most precious human rights in order to access it. Their users are their product. They sell you to advertisers and even more unsavory corporations like Zynga that are looking to lure you into a constant dopamine feedback loop to sucker…

...easy enough that my parents can use? That doesn't introduce a cognitive load of "oh shit how do I do that again?"

If it's a decentralized system and it uses a free and open protocol, there could be many different clients. I am sure many of them would be very easy to use, and as far as cognitive load goes, Facebook's many capricious and poorly considered UI sea changes over the years have created countless cases of "oh shit how do I do that now?"

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

#109

Post by mburshteyn »

noduerme wrote: post #10

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…

I actually started using Facebook primarily to keep in touch with people from summer camp.

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

#110

Post by dasil003 »

davidhollander wrote: post #81
noduerme wrote: post #10

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…

Calling Facebook an oppressive and authoritarian camp violating freedom seems extremely hyperbolic. Doesn't this disservice the experience of those who have actually died in oppressive and authoritarian camps? Is the mental pain individuals experience when using freely provided and voluntary services equivalent to the physical pain individuals experience when coerced to perform actions against their will via threats…

He wasn't talking about those camps though. He was talking about American summer camp.
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