61–70 of 85 posts
The main issue from this and other similar articles about facebook which I've read seems to be the lack of control that users have over how their information is used and who it's given to. I still believe that the solution to all of these problems would be an open source peer-to-peer version of facebook, where you have complete ownership and control over what information you make available and who gets to see it.
Yes FB is definitely becoming less useful. For example, it used to be that if I listed my employer and set it to "friends only" then that was that. Now, if you visit my profile, it's still friends only - but if you go to my employer's public page, my name is (actually was) listed there! Same with all my previous employers, the colleges I attended, my interests, etc etc. Hometown too maybe! So I have removed all of th…
FB also seems to get less useful over time as you add more people. Initially, when you have a few people you know really well and get on with, you can post quite freely knowing that it's unlikely to come back and bite you. Later, as you gain a truckload of acquaintances you have to be much more measured and it winds up feeling like you're running some sort of discount PR agency.
One can't live like this for too long, you have to be yourself instead of a filtered, cleaned-up politically correct version of yourself.
I left similar sounding comment on the blog above. I wonder why the article's owner removed that comment! Looks like he hasn't accepted any comments. Why enable have 'Leave a reply' if you don't want to accept any comments?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Money has proven to be very effective in bending ethics. Many people would do worse for a fraction of Mr. Zuck's money. I think judging him as a evil exploiter with weak ethics is a little harsh.
> I think judging him as a evil exploiter with weak ethics is a little harsh. Why? Doing something bad doesn't become OK just because you got paid a lot of money to do it. Indeed, a reasonable definition of ethical behaviour would be doing the right thing even when faced with significant incentives not to.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think judging him as a evil exploiter with weak ethics is a little harsh. Why? Doing something bad doesn't become OK just because you got paid a lot of money to do it. Indeed, a reasonable definition of ethical behaviour would be doing the right thing even when faced with significant incentives not to.
I have never been forced to choose between becoming a billionaire and holding onto my ethical convictions, and I suspect you haven't either. I'm not comfortable with either of us standing in judgment of someone who has.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If I join a club and they sell my information (where I live, who referred me, what actions I perform in the club) to another company that is an entirely different matter." I agree, and it has nothing to do with the discussion at hand: facebook does not do this, and never has.
Perhaps I don't understand what they do then? If they sell screen time for advertising and bundle it with my information how is that any different?
One of my friend is canceling his FB account this Saturday on similar grounds. http://kumarbhot.blogspot.com/2010/05/decision-to-move-away-... FB is becoming the big brother of Internet day by day. I left similar sounding comment on the blog above. I wonder why the article's owner removed that comment! Looks like he hasn't accepted any comments. Why enable have 'Leave a reply' if you don't want to accept any comments…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an interesting departure from Metcalfe's Law [ the value of the network is proportionate to the square of the number of nodes in the network ]. Perhaps Metcalfe's Law applies up to a certain size, and then tails off thereafter. There is a limit on the number of people that us humans can reasonably be expected to have friendships with. I have a feeling that it is substantially smaller than the number of 'frien…
For FB I suspect that the ideal would be a network with lots of nodes but few connections; I want to be able to find my friends but I don't want them to be connected to so many that they have to sanitize their posts/thoughts.
I think, Mr. Zuckerberg is a more evil exploiter with weak ethics than I'm willing to accept.
Money has proven to be very effective in bending ethics. Many people would do worse for a fraction of Mr. Zuck's money. I think judging him as a evil exploiter with weak ethics is a little harsh.
Does a hitman who kills for a thousand dollars have weaker ethics than a hitman who kills for a million dollars? Would the million-dollar-hitman deserve less jail time?
I'm cool with deleting my account - but not at the price of losing contact with many "friends".
Is there a middle ground? Or a replacement service?
Maybe we can build an app to 1) Copy basic Facebook data, 2) Delete the Facebook account, and 3) set you up on a new system that does respect privacy.