Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

betabeat.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 109 posts

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#81

Post by Splines »

md224 wrote: post #13

I'm kind of amazed at some of the completely unsympathetic responses on here and on the original article. There are two distinct issues I see here: 1) whether or not Moglen's tone/attitude was appropriate, and 2) if his arguments were valid. Personally I think he was a bit harsh on her and could have at least expressed his feelings in a more diplomatic manner. She's a journalist calling about a story, not someone on…

most of what gets shared on Facebook is fairly innocuous, if not utterly mundane.

It usually is, until it isn't. By then, it's too late.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#82

Post by kstenerud »

dhugiaskmak wrote: post #78
bigiain wrote: post #2

"Banks aren’t the problem, he said; the users tempting banks with their Twitter and Facebook postings are the problem. As are reporters who write about privacy issues with social media without first closing their Facebook accounts." You know he's right, don't you?

You know he's right, don't you? He's half right. Banks are also the problem.

Banks are only a problem because this opportunity is available to them. Of course, that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for their actions, but it wouldn't even be an issue if users weren't actively encouraging and tempting them with such juicy information that would help their bottom line in risk assessment.

To him, the bank's position is obvious and unworthy of mention. The lack of PERSONAL responsibility is what leads to these kinds of disasters, and that's what people just don't get. Much like people don't want to feel responsible for the greed leading to and maintaining the crazy tort law system in the USA today.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#83

Post by kstenerud »

icebraining wrote: post #52
jQueryIsAwesome wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would be like an American who complains for the violence of Mexico but buys illegal marijuana and cocaine. He is the cause; but all he does is hoping that others will stop the violence some other way rather than he quitting drugs.

But he's not complaining, just reporting. If I'm fat, is it immoral for me to say that obesity is a problem? Frankly, I find his position ridiculous. He's essentially saying journalists have to be these beacons of virtue above everyone else if they want to report on bad things that are happening.

It's fine to say that obesity is a problem, but it's hypocritical to berate Burger King for contributing to obesity when you eat there three nights a week. It's even worse when you excuse it, saying that your circumstances are special somehow.

The reporter, similarly, is looking for fuel to blame the banks for their evil practices, when she herself is contributing to the flow of evil information.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#84

Post by dhugiaskmak »

kstenerud wrote: post #82
dhugiaskmak wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know he's right, don't you? He's half right. Banks are also the problem.

Banks are only a problem because this opportunity is available to them. Of course, that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for their actions, but it wouldn't even be an issue if users weren't actively encouraging and tempting them with such juicy information that would help their bottom line in risk assessment. To him, the bank's position is obvious and unworthy of mention. The lack of PERSONAL responsibility is…

Of course you got robbed, you left your doors unlocked!

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#85

Post by jonhendry »

Confusion wrote: post #74
nl wrote: post #11

This article makes me angry, and the groupthink of most the replies I read here supporting Moglen make me angry too. You know what causes a real ecological disaster? Washing Machines. Yes, FUCKING washing machines. They use too much of one of the worlds rarest resources (clean water), contribute to global warming and pollute the waste water with phosphates. On the other hand, they have freed up half the worlds workfo…

Clean water is not fundamentally a scarce resource. Almost nothing is. The only actually scarce resource, and the one everything depends on, is energy. Given enough energy, we can clean all the water we want and distribute it anywhere we want. Given enough energy, we could recycle everything down to the smallest granule of rare earth metals. We would only get into trouble once we would be using all of the stuff at th…

Um, no. You might as well say that scarcity of energy is the only thing between us and free ponies for everyone.

Even if energy were free, there'd still be the question of paying for the facilities to purify the water. The kinds of places where clean water is scarce now tend not to have much money, or much clout, with which to get such facilities built. More likely you'd get wealthy people wasting vaster quantities of clean water, while the poor remained without clean water despite the theoretically easy availability of the required water purification equipment.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#86

Post by jonhendry »

joezydeco wrote: post #66
bravura wrote: post #42

Dr. Moglen: Well you called me, you know what the problem is. People lost their homes. People lose their money. People lose their freedom. (??? -ed.) Could someone elaborate upon these? I am not aware of these incidents. (In particular, the first two.)

There have to be hundreds of social media-related incidents that came up in the middle east during the Arab Spring uprisings. This one came up first on a search: "Man gets three years in prison for insulting Islam on Facebook" http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/10/arab-spring-in-egypt-man-g...

And the same result would likely have occurred had he said the same thing on a street corner, or in a pamphlet he handed out at a bus station.

The problem here isn't Facebook, it's the government that he lives under. But Facebook did give him a much larger audience than he might otherwise have had.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#87

Post by kstenerud »

MrScruff wrote: post #68
andrewcooke wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i can't see the logic in your reasoning here. just because legalisation would improve the situation doesn't mean that people who continue to buy drugs illegaly are not also responsible for the problems in mexico. a problem can have multiple causes, and multiple solutions. but that does not mean that you can choose one solution as the "correct" one and discard all the others. the typical american who buys drugs cannot…

I don't buy that line of argument at all. You're claiming that if you can establish some line of cause and effect then anyone in that chain must take moral responsibility for the outcome. That's like saying an author who writes something that offends Islamists is responsible for any violence perpetrated on them, since they had the choice of not publishing. The moral responsibility for acts of violence lies with those…

Criminals will be criminals. They are responsible for their own actions. But if you're contributing to their coffers, you're only encouraging them. You don't even have to frame this in terms of morality. They're doing something you don't like. Do you want to help them or hinder them? Sometimes hindering them involves denying yourself. This is how boycotts work.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#89

Post by kstenerud »

dhugiaskmak wrote: post #84
kstenerud wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks are only a problem because this opportunity is available to them. Of course, that doesn't absolve them of responsibility for their actions, but it wouldn't even be an issue if users weren't actively encouraging and tempting them with such juicy information that would help their bottom line in risk assessment. To him, the bank's position is obvious and unworthy of mention. The lack of PERSONAL responsibility is…

Of course you got robbed, you left your doors unlocked!

"Of course you got robbed, you left your doors unlocked!"

Yes! Exactly that! Except in the case of Facebook your negligence hurts your neighbors.

Re: In which Eben Moglen calls out a reporter for having Facebook

#90

Post by lurker14 »

anon1385 wrote: post #43

Changing Threats To Privacy From Tia To Google (Blackhat 2010) by Moxie Marlinspike http://www.securitytube.net/video/1084 How many people here would be excited about a law that required everyone to carry a government mandated tracking device with them at all times? Probably very few people right, no-one's really excited about that. How many people here have a cell phone? Right, probably everybody in this room has a…

This post breaks line-wrapping for the whole page.

I suspect that long string of italicized text is to blame. Please remove the italics (which also make the words hard to read).

Post reply on HN