Reasons not to use Facebook • Hacker News Board

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#311

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #237

tedunangst wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the question is, what would happen if everybody actually listened to RMS and stopped using cell phones?

This is not a valid way of judging RMS or his claims. He isn't complaining about the concept of a technology that allows people to talk while on the go. Rather, he is complaining about the specific implementation of mobile tech with which we're currently saddled. To answer seriously, however, the largest effect of reduced cell phone use would be that automobiles would be much safer, for their passengers and for every…

More to the point, if people - en masse - refused to use cellphones that tracked you, someone would be selling cellphones that don't. And then RMS would presumably carry a cellphone.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#312

Post by dllthomas » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 5:59 PM UTC

paulsecwhatt wrote: post #308

apetrovic wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly is a "problem"? I don't live in US. Ordering books online and shipping them to my house used to be slow and expensive process. Now I can buy books from Amazon, for a half the price than printed books (3x the price if I account the shipping). Yeah, I can't read that book on anything except Kindle (device or Kindle app). But I know what I'm buying, and I'm ok with that. I enjoy the option to have my books…

This. Exactly. I'm sure Stallman absolutely HATES services such as Spotify. However the as I mentioned in the parent comment, the world is not black and white, and thus viable solutions will always be in a middle-ground. Nothing he could ever say would bring me from playing music with ridiculous ease in Spotify to downloading "free" ogg files and playing them in GNU Mediagoblin, or something similar. As a side note:…

They complain there about proprietary javascript. The FSF has no beef with JS - it's just another kind of software. The FSF has a beef with proprietary software, which shouldn't be surprising. For analytics they use non-proprietary javascript (piwik). They elsewhere recommend precisely that, if you're going to be gathering analytics - they talk about their use of it here: https://www.fsf.org/about/free-software-foundation-privacy-p...

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#313

Post by _ak » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #262

_ak wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your mobile carrier offered a product to find the nearest gas station/hospital/supermarket 10 years ago (at least mine in Austria did), then of course it worked like that. At least in Austria and Germany, media regularly mentions police being able to locate people's phones by sending "silent text messages". That also uses the same principle. How else? People that knew about such tools and features, but did not rea…

There's quite a difference between "we can know where you are if needed" and "we track where everyone is at all times, and provide this information to the authorities." We're at the point now where we pretty much assume that the former implies the latter. It was not always thus.

The "we track where everyone is at all times" is a fundamental principle of mobile telephony. Your carrier always knows in which base station you're logged in, otherwise you wouldn't be able to send or receive anything.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#314

Post by kretor » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:21 PM UTC

u23KDd23 wrote: post #264

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 allowed a research project to experiment on people's emotions by modifying the content displayed on their news feed. Human experimentation in doing things like this is against all ethical principles important in science. If they are willing to commit such a blatant violation of ethics what makes you think they aren't participating in something far worse? I commend Stallman for sharing his opinions on faceboo…

Universities have a lot of "ethical" requirements for experiments, that are, in a large part, over the top. We should get rid of most of those ethical requirements at universities, rather than expand them to Facebook.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#315

Post by ericfontaine » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:41 PM UTC

PebblesHD wrote: post #2

At this point in the evolution in technology, I find that Stallman is increasingly irrelevant when his commentary is basically stating every basic point of the site and then saying its bad. Don't want to use your real name? Don't join a site where the goal is to publicly connect with people you know. Don't want your privacy violated, post only what you feel comfortable with. With every new step in the advance of tech…

> Don't want to use your real name? Don't join a site where the goal is to publicly connect with people you know."

ironically, many people joined facebook with the names they used in "real" life, only later to find their accounts suspended because they didn't use their "real name". Additionally, some people joined facebook to connect with certain groups of people they wanted to interact with but coudldn't in their real geographic area (e.g. threatened minority groups or viewpoints that are thinly scatted across the globe), so they may have been allured by facebook's promise to help connect them, only to find later when facebook changes their name policy that their account is suspended.

> Don't want your privacy violated, post only what you feel comfortable with.

Facebook's data collection go beyond the information that you post, but extends to all the metadata and interactions that many users for the most part are unaware that they are giving out and may would prefer not to reveal. Had people listened to Stallman more, these interactions would more likely be handled by people's own private or community servers running free software, allowing people to share only the information that they want to be shared publicly, and keep other information & metadata private.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#316

Post by hnnewguy » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:45 PM UTC

apetrovic wrote: post #220

quanticle wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stallman predicted the rise of e-readers and the problems that would arise from DRM protected e-books.

What exactly is a "problem"? I don't live in US. Ordering books online and shipping them to my house used to be slow and expensive process. Now I can buy books from Amazon, for a half the price than printed books (3x the price if I account the shipping). Yeah, I can't read that book on anything except Kindle (device or Kindle app). But I know what I'm buying, and I'm ok with that. I enjoy the option to have my books…

>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.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#317

Post by untog » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:48 PM UTC

raphael_l wrote: post #267

spinchange wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't use Facebook, yet lead with claim that it doesn't invade anyone's privacy... Regrettably there are numerous, well documented cases of Facebook doing exactly this. They've literally been taken to court over it several times (look into "Sponsored Stories," "Beacon," etc). Even if you don't use it, they have a shadow profile of you over there waiting, with relationships pre-graphed, simply by virtue of being i…

> The site "Likes" things on peoples behalf just because they talk about it (even negatively!) with others. It occasionally automatically "friends" people because you looked at their profile and mutual friends in common. It constantly takes liberties with people's relationships, friends, and preferences, without asking. The mobile app turns on the damn mic to listen to ambient noise in the background so it can try le…

Yeah, I know of Beacon etc. but I've never heard of automatic likes or friendships.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#318

Post by misiti3780 » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

pckspcks wrote: post #247

karmacondon wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 acco…

what are you talking about? - i have a lot of friends and do not use facebook - i have an account but dont really log in - a lot of my friends dont use it. the less you use facebook, the more you realize how useless it really is - you want to keep in touch with people, use email - it has worked for a long time, and will continue to work for a long time.

photos - use google photos or dropbox

messages - who care about facebook posts anyways - they are useless

facebook groups - their are competitors in this space now

THERE IS A WAY TO NOT USE FACEBOOK, DELETE YOUR ACCOUNT AND LIFE CONTINUES WITHOUT IT

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#319

Post by hrktb » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:50 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #301

thirsteh wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook doesn't invade anyone's privacy. What do you consider the Like, Connect, etc. buttons that are tracking virtually every page you visit, Facebook user or not?

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 ever.

Avoiding sites that use facebook widget is just not realistic. You're fine with it, and that's ok, but that's not really the point.

Re: Reasons not to use Facebook

#320

Post by rquantz » Sat, Mar 14, 2015, 6:54 PM UTC

spinchange wrote: post #261

karmacondon wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You don't use Facebook, yet lead with claim that it doesn't invade anyone's privacy... Regrettably there are numerous, well documented cases of Facebook doing exactly this. They've literally been taken to court over it several times (look into "Sponsored Stories," "Beacon," etc). Even if you don't use it, they have a shadow profile of you over there waiting, with relationships pre-graphed, simply by virtue of being i…

The mobile app turns on the damn mic

I checked my iphone privacy settings because this sounded preposterous, and the Facebook app is not listed as having requested microphone permissions. Is it able to turn on the microphone without requesting permission?