Reasons not to use Facebook

by jestinjoy1 • 11 years ago

605 352 11 years ago

PebblesHD2• 11 years ago

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 technology and the Internet of things, services such as, but not necessarily including Facebook will have access to an ever expanding array of information about our lives. This information can be used for good as well as bad, but this doesn't mean we shouldn't persue it.

logn2• 11 years ago

Almost none of his complaints strike at essential features of a social network. Real names, censorship, tracking un-submitted text, etc are all just evil and not part of any functionality users care about.

cloakandswagger2• 11 years ago

Being able to search and find people by their real name is actually a feature I value very highly in a social network.

krisgenre• 11 years ago

One of the annoying things about Orkut was that most people used to change their name to something hippie and it became very hard to identify them when they messaged (scrap?) me.

__david__2• 11 years ago

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

That sounds nice and simple, but it's sadly not enough. You also have to worry about other random people in your life uploading your info (even unknowingly):

http://www.jwz.org/blog/2013/06/facebook-shadow-profiles/

http://www.zdnet.com/article/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-...

I shudder to think about what info they've amassed about me even though I've never had an account.

Argorak• 11 years ago

I only have a test account through my company that does not even have my name and that I used only once. The suggestions they mail are eery - e.g. they suggested my girlfriend from 12 years ago which I haven't spoken to for ~6 years to that account.

neotek• 11 years ago

I think you're firstly mischaracterising what Stallman is saying, and secondly forgetting exactly who Stallman is.

This isn't just a list of attributes with "NO" written next to it, Stallman's outlaying precisely why those attributes are detrimental to privacy and how they erode the freedoms he believes in. He even gives specific examples and links to source articles.

Someone who hasn't ever really considered the implications of using Facebook, like a teenager who's come of age in a world where sharing everything about yourself is the norm, reading this article might make them think a bit more about what they share and why, and what the implications might be. For that reason alone there's value in what Stallman has to say.

And in any case, this is who he is. It's not like he doesn't understand the evolution of technology - hell, he helped more than most to evolve it - and it's not like he doesn't understand why you and I use Facebook. He just doesn't agree with our motivations, doesn't feel it's worth the corresponding privacy trade-offs, and has made it the work of his lifetime to be an advocate for the privacy we're so eager to give away.

serf• 11 years ago

At this point in the evolution in technology, I find that Stallman is increasingly irrelevant

Funny, because after all the NSA/Snowden/Confirmed-backdooring-everywhere hooplah I feel as if his view points--especially those having to do with machine ownership and the need for free software to get to that point--are increasingly relevant.

TaylorAlexander• 11 years ago

Agreed. I appreciate Free Software a hell of a lot more now that I know the US government basically has secret control over any US tech company they are interested in. Free software isn't immune to outside influence, but it feels a hell of a lot safer than blind trust in companies we know are compromised.

Just recently the complaints about all kinds of bad software behavior having me seeing why Stallman has been right all along.

Think about the idealized versions of software we see on certain movies and TV shows, or even art. They're all cluttered and free from ads or exploitation - because that's what people really want. I understand people need a way to pay for their site, but we've gone overboard with surveillance and monetization of the user.

yuhong2• 11 years ago

Personally I am not for real name policies, but I do believe that these problems should be fixed properly if possible, which is why I consider employee gagging the worst part of the Google+ nymwars for example.

bzbarsky• 11 years ago

Don't join a site where the goal is to publicly connect with people you know.

That's all well and good until your child's school starts requiring you to do so to sign up for parent-teacher conferences, say.

There's all sorts of stuff being done via Facebook that really shouldn't be totally public but is because some _one_ person has decided to put it all out there, violating the privacy of all the other people involved.

Yes, this happened before Facebook. The difference is that Facebook actively tries to get people to do such things.

enraged_camel• 11 years ago

>At this point in the evolution in technology, I find that Stallman is increasingly irrelevant

In your HN profile you say that you are a college student and are "still learning the ropes of how the world works." And yet you arrogantly dismiss the ideas and opinions of one of the leading professionals in your own field, who is at least a couple of orders of magnitude more knowledgeable and accomplished than you.

Allow me to give you some unsolicited advice: the best way to learn about how the world works is to be humble, keep an open mind and avoid dismissing what smart people say as "irrelevant." Just because someone is smart may not make them right, and you definitely don't have to agree with them, but you can still learn something from them if you make a genuine and honest effort.

PebblesHD2• 11 years ago

Still learning is not a barrier to finding the ideas of any particular person antiquated. Look where we are with wearable technology and integration into every part of our lives, and the applications this access has in areas like medicine, then feel free to imagine this ageing pioneer of open software standing in the corner shouting "no no no it has my data it's evil I don't want to be monitored". While he would have an entirely valid point it defeats the entire goal of the technogy.

and then you arrogantly... Maybe, and that's your opinion, but sadly you responded to such arrogance with condescending 'advice' attacking my perspective instead of proposing where either I or he could have changed out points.

ericfontaine3• 11 years ago

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.

cddotdotslash• 11 years ago

Yes, Facebook tracks you and complies with government requests in the countries it operates in. Is anything new or is the author just spreading FUD?

Yhippa• 11 years ago

Would he be better off creating a minimal verified profile to de-legitimize other fake profiles? I know he would never do that but it's an interesting thing to consider in today's world.

Let's say you're not averse to social media/networking. Do you go ahead and claim your name so that someone with a list of compromised or usernames don't grab it before you do?

kashkhan• 11 years ago

wouldn't it be easy for facebook to deactivate the current fake account?

gaadd33• 11 years ago

Algorithmic filtering can affect history, not just hide history. Facebook's filtering algorithm suppressed news about the thug riot in Ferguson until after it became national news.

Calling all of the protestors in Ferguson "thugs" seems pretty off base. I'm surprised he characterized everyone there like that when his previous few points seemed to be in favor of the ability to protest the government. I guess he only feels that way when it's not in the US?

It's interesting he drew that conclusion from the article he links to, given that they mention prior to things such as twitter it would only be characterized on the news as a place to avoid due to "looters, thugs, troublemakers" in a minor segment.

cloakandswagger2• 11 years ago

I didn't interpret it that way. There was a large riot that happened in Ferguson and I'd say it's fair to characterize looters and vandals as "thugs".

logn2• 11 years ago

I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt in that the link where he writes "thug" is to an article that has this line:

"We" hear it only through official statements, often dismissing local concerns, painting them as looters, thugs, troublemakers.

So I don't think he was speaking from his point of view but from how it might have been presented to a common person.

tree_of_item• 11 years ago

You misunderstood, he's calling the cops thugs, not the protestors. If you read the rest of his website you will see that he refers to police as "thugs" regularly:

US citizens: call on Obama to curb militarization of thugs.
Everyone, call on Pasco to fire and prosecute the killer thugs
"Flood Wall Street" protesters have been acquitted of charges; the thugs' order for them to disperse was ruled unconstitutional.
It is good that they were acquitted, but there must be some penalty for thugs that violate protesters' rights.

and so on.

_ak5• 11 years ago

And that is one reason why he is so terrible at communication. Nobody understands what he really means in that particular case, unless you were able to derive his specific meaning of "thug" from his previous writings. Inventing your own private sociolect and using it in published texts is a bad idea.

zghst2• 11 years ago

I am appalled with how much people get away with and maintain their innocence.

Fdndjxjxr• 11 years ago

Stallman always refers to police as thugs. In essence he is saying that the police were responsible for what happened. His political notes are actually quite good:

https://www.stallman.org/archives/2015-jan-apr.html

zo13• 11 years ago

"Calling all of the protestors in Ferguson "thugs" seems pretty off base"

Well, if he's referring to peaceful protestors, sure no one can agree that it's okay to call them "thugs". Because there is absolutely nothing wrong with peaceful protesting.

Now, on the other hand, if he's referring to violent protestors that damage property, loot, incite violence, and hurt innocent people. Then yeah, he's well in the green to refer to them as "thugs" because he's describing what some would consider "thuggish" behavior.

GigabyteCoin2• 11 years ago

A friend of mine was turned off of a potentially new employee the other day because the candidate exclaimed that they recognized a customer from their instagram profile and that they followed it, loved it, etc.

The customer was obviously embarrased, exclaimed that he had not used instagram in over a year, and promptly left the store.

This left an uneasy feeling in my friend (the store owner). Which confused me to be honest. What did that customer expect when they placed their picture and basically entire lives on a public website with geotagged images? The new employee was told to be talkative with all clients as they worked in customer service, and so they attempted to strike up a conversation or at least a similar interest in the customer's publicly viewable leisure activities.

That was how the candidate discovered him on instagram in the first place by the way. It was because he only posted pictures of the local area.

atmosx• 11 years ago

Oh men. Working with people is extremely complicated, yet very educative if have the right mindset.

That was an accident IMHO, better not judge by one case scenario. I know a lots of guys and girls, especially youngsters who would love to hear about their facebook/twitter/instagram profiles.

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

Yeah, kind of a dubious move on your friend's part - how was the potential employee supposed to guess that the customer would feel embarrassed, in a bad way (as opposed to 'oh that picture was so embarrassing, haha')? Seems to me as it does you that it's the customer's reponsibility to own whatever s/he posts publicly.

I guess some people think that their followers on social media must all be personal acquaintances/relatives and are then weirded out to discover that some complete strangers may take an interest in them, but that's their problem Obviously there are exceptions to this, it wouldn't be cool to start an argument with someone over old Twitter comments or to say 'oh hey, I say you on the revenge porn subreddit.' It's sad that I even need to delineate such boundaries, but there you go.

Aoyagi2• 11 years ago

I believe a lot of people think Internet is an entirely different dimension. "What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet" or something.

keithpeter2• 11 years ago

"The customer was obviously embarrased, exclaimed that he had not used instagram in over a year, and promptly left the store."

Was there a significant age difference between the luckless candidate and the customer? Just guessing.

GigabyteCoin2• 11 years ago

Maybe 10 years, not much of an age difference as far as I know. They were all under 40 I imagine.

abdias2• 11 years ago

Considering that Zuckerberg is a great admire of China and apparently socialism[0], it doesn't come to me as a huge surprise that these "ethics" are guidelines for Facebook.

“I’ve also bought copies of this book for my colleagues,” Zuckerberg was quoted as saying by a Chinese news website. “I want them to understand socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

[0] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/12/08...

jacobolus• 11 years ago

I’m no fan of Zuckerberg or the CCP, but that’s ridiculous. Hosting a Chinese official at the Facebook office and telling a Chinese news site that he gave some copies of the Chinese president’s new book to his colleagues isn’t any kind of useful evidence about Zuckerberg’s personal political beliefs or Facebook’s governing principles.

abdias2• 11 years ago

It wasn't presented as evidence for any claim. "Apparently" isn't a claim.

The correlations between the ideology and what happens with Facebook is synonymous though, so it's neither far fetched. But I guess you need to have some historic understanding to see that (and that's a little too broad to present in a comment field).

(edit: for admin: I up-voted this post and got an "user mismatch" error as response page - perhaps something the devs want to look into).

zghst2• 11 years ago

I can be disgusted at this can I?

vvpan• 11 years ago

You say "socialism" like it's a bad thing.

killerpopiller5• 11 years ago

the zuckerberg variation might be even more totalitarian like the ones before! The STASI would have loved facebook for what it is.

zo13• 11 years ago

Well, to some it is a bad thing. Then again, we do all have our own opinions. And we, as a society, have not yet achieved consensus/agreement on whether socialism is good/bad.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

Objectively it causes harm, far more so than it brings benefits. Hence it is, objectively, bad.

tomjen32• 11 years ago

If everybody read important books by people they disagreed with, we would all be better of.

joesmo• 11 years ago

"socialism with Chinese characteristics"

He means communism, which is essentially a tyrannical dictatorship. Not surprising indeed. What a scumbag. Supporting communism is no different than supporting naziism.

Frondo3• 11 years ago

My problem with essays like this is that they don't address the more critical underlying point: most people don't recognize privacy as a human right, and most people don't realize why privacy is important and worth protecting.

To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable.

That's the deeper problem at work here. With more people on board to why privacy matters, articles like this will be more of an "oh, yeah!" instead of a "so what?" kind of thing.

tdmule• 11 years ago

I disagree, I think a great many people are willing to trade some privacy for convenience and contact.

Even if we take privacy as great thing, isn't staying in touch and making connections with some people who would otherwise slip away also a great thing?

For example, a childhood friend messaged me recently on Facebook informing me of his upcoming wedding. Getting his message and engaging an old friend in a conversation is a compelling (at least to me) trade for some privacy.

Frondo3• 11 years ago

I don't think we actually disagree.

Valuing and protecting one's right to privacy, while still being visible to the public, are compatible issues; a person can disclose some information (I'm Frondo, I live at the North Pole, Santa is my friend) while retaining other information for friends/loved ones/no one else/not online.

In my other online life, I do put myself out there quite a bit, but the information I put out is of my choosing. I have been contacted by old friends from time to time, and it delights me.

But I'm also not on any of the social networks that do image tagging, so e.g. there's no automated system linking my image to a profile among them. (As far as I know, facebook won't go so far as to tag non-users with non-facebook urls...)

Privacy ought to work like other rights that we don't necessarily exercise at every opportunity; sometimes I bite my tongue even though I could speak freely, sometimes I stay home even though I could associate freely, sometimes I post information about myself even though I could keep it hidden away.

Puts• 11 years ago

Why would you have to choose between privacy and convenience? You can have both. The idea that they contradict each other is just spin from companies like Facebook.

If I were to follow you with a bullhorn shouting messages at you, it probably wouldn't be considered illegal, but It would be extremely rude. And the same thing with these internet companies. Just because they can track and follow you, pushing messages down your troth, does not mean they have to, because it may be legal, but it's simply rude.

As a society we've lost the moral compass on the web, or rather we've never had one. Internet is like a third world corrupt country where you either take advantage of others your self or you are being abused. Now we have to start building a climate were you don't feel like you're missing out by treating your customers fair and with respect.

nly2• 11 years ago

You've built a strawman. You can have both privacy and keep contact with lost friends and loved ones.

tome2• 11 years ago

To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable.

So what's the correct position, and why?

Frondo3• 11 years ago

"Whether you've done anything wrong, what you disclose is up to you."

It is the correct position because privacy is a human right, just like the right to free speech or the right to a fair trial.

jon_black• 11 years ago

There are many source online that refute the "nothing to hide" argument, and they can go into quite some details. Suffice it to say, you have a right to privacy. If you wish for something to stay private (for example, to protect yourself from harm) you have that right. Whilst in most free societies it's seldom required, there may come a time when tyranny takes over. If you've already given up your right to privacy, you'll find few protections left. History has many example of tyrants that, given the data mining capabilities of today, would have probably caused even more harm and suffering.

bottled_poe• 11 years ago

Right and wrong are subjective terms, plus perceptions of those terms will change.

skwosh• 11 years ago

For me the correct position is to recognise that the law isn't fixed and absolute, but dynamic (as interpreted through the courts) and evolving.

Without privacy (or with pervasive surveillance), we might never have achieved the critical mass required to overturn historical legislation regarding blasphemy, homosexuality, drug use, etc.

In other words, privacy provides the necessary sand-box for the evolution of law.

crdoconnor3• 11 years ago

There will always be times when the moral and just thing to do is to break the law. Without privacy, you are not free to break those laws.

If you're happy living under a police state in meek compliance then you have nothing to hide. If you'd turn over Anne Frank to the authorities in a heartbeat then you have nothing to hide.

If you ever plan on doing the right thing by disobeying the authorities, at any point in the future, then you need privacy now. Later might be too late.

bostik• 11 years ago

"You do not get to decide what is wrong now, nor what may become wrong in the future. Unless you have a valid reason to invade my life, stay out."

In particular, please note: the concept of right or wrong is orthogonal to what may be legal or illegal. Both lines are constantly changing and re-evaluated by the society around us.

pdkl95• 11 years ago

I suspect one of the reasons this "done nothing wrong" fallacy persists so well these days is how "privacy" has come to replace the word "freedom".

Using "privacy" tends to imply some amount of shame, as if the you didn't (or shouldn't) have the freedom to do that act in the first place. The reason why people see that they have "nothing to hid", is that they have already self-censored themselves away from doing any supposedly-shameful activity.

I've always liked a line from KMFDM's song "terror"[2]

    "They can't use our shame against us"

Until people learn this lesson, shame will continue to be used as a threat, and people will continue to see the "logic" in the "nothing to hide" argument.

[1] http://www.kmfdm.net/lyrics/terror.htm ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVhu3pn1Ou0 )

lazaroclapp• 11 years ago

Privacy and freedom are different concepts, though. A world in which the government can monitor all of your phone calls, but it not allowed by law to stop them or prosecute you over their contents still preserves freedom very strongly, without any privacy (assuming the law constraining the government is enforceable, and extra judicial or spurious prosecutions are not a tool commonly available to the state). A world in which technology (or lack thereof) makes wiretapping impossible, gives a lot of privacy to people, but if you can still be arrested because of distributing a leaflet, it provides little freedom.

Thing is, even in a world where freedom of expression were inviolable (and it isn't quite this world, so in reality, privacy helps support freedom of expression), we'd still want privacy to be a human right. Animals don't behave the same when they know they are always being watched. Pervasive surveillance inhibits thought, breeds abuse and unnecessarily limits human behavior.

Also, in the end, we have the right to have things to hide. We have the right to say and do things we are ashamed of, or aren't sure are right, or we are not ready to defend under scrutiny of society at large. We have the right to share thoughts with others that we are not ready to defend from strangers, even if the law prevents such strangers from hurting us because our thoughts. Society needs to be able to discuss heresy, and revolution, and treason, because what for one generation is treason and heresy, for the next might be justice and freedom. But it also needs to be able to have some of those discussions in dark, private places, because a lot of great thoughts will only ever bloom in the dark. Even if mass surveillance worked (it doesn't), even if abuse could be curtailed (it can't), even if it gave us a world without crime (it won't), the price to pay would be a world where our thoughts are constrained by the fear of other's seeing them in their underdeveloped raw form.

b2hdx• 11 years ago

http://kazerad.tumblr.com/post/99022123468/shepherd-of-the-m... This post goes further into the shame idea and explores how communities use shame to self-censor and censor others from doing any supposedly-shameful activities, and on top of that explains some of the importances of anonymity in a way that I think most people on HN haven't considered before.

colmvp• 11 years ago

To most people, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" sounds reasonable.

I know it's impossible, but I really recommend people who have that opinion to watch the TED talk by journalist Glenn Greenwald.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcSlowAhvUk

g_delgado14• 11 years ago

I'd like to add to this by saying that Ed Snowden's documentary, Citizen Four, is a great and informative film.

Qantourisc• 11 years ago

Maybe I toughed of a simple reply for this phrase ? "And who is to say what is wrong ? And will it stay that way ?" Opinions ?

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

~400 million people in EU disagree with you; that's one jurisdiction where privacy is a human right, and this is not just some abstract concept but the basis of legislation you can invoke to force companies to cough up the data they have on you and/or demand it be scrubbed from their databases, even if you originally shared it voluntarily.

tomp2• 11 years ago

No we don't. I personally think that EU's approach to privacy, especially when it comes to the internet (e.g. "right to be forgotten", "cookie law"), is completely fucked up. While EU's dysfunctional governing game (i.e. multiple countries with immensely different cultures, goals, histories and levels of development trying to act in unison) explains such things as the tax loopholes, no freedom of speech and the Euro, even this can't explain the mistakes in internet laws.

Furthermore, history will not be on EU's side in this regard. Right to be forgotten and restrictive data storing laws will have to be revoked eventually (when we have robots - "Remind me what I was talking about on that dinner during Mauritius vacations!" "I'm sorry Jessica, that was more than 3 years ago, I don't remember."). Euro won't survive without a fiscal union / federation (like the US).

Even the restrictions of data export don't help us much - sure, the companies legally can't export data to the US, but don't worry, GCHQ will!

msh• 11 years ago

Well a lot of people in the eu, maybe even most, still buy into the "if you have nothing to hide" argument. That's at least my personal experience in Scandinavia and the UK, might be different in other countries.

fit2rule6• 11 years ago

The corollary to this ridiculous argument: "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide" .. is this:

  If you've done something *right*, you will be the target of those you offend.

When "right" can be defined variously as any one of: a) done something to reduce the effect of the criminal military-industrial complex on society, b) exposed corruption in the ruling elite, c) fought stringently for the rights of minorities who have been oppressed, d) fought valiantly to expose ecological and economic criminality on the part of the industrial elite, &etc.

Just because they say its for fighting criminals doesn't mean that it won't be used to fight revolutionaries and upstarts who mean to bring justice to a destitute world. Every single technology under the sun can be used for good, or evil purposes - the only thing that makes the difference is the intention behind those who wield the technology.

And as of right now, there is no way to monitor/control/adjust the intentions of the super-surveillance state: they, real people behind the masks, simply have too many secret powers.

evincarofautumn• 11 years ago

In the U.S., we aren’t even granted an explicit right to privacy. The closest we’ve gotten to a ruling on the matter is that time William O. Douglas wrote “…specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. […] Various guarantees create zones of privacy.”

paulsecwhatt3• 11 years ago

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 CRITICISE HIM?")

Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No.

Just like I wouldn't listen to Usain Bolt if he were trying to teach me the biological mechanisms behind doping, I can't see why Stallman's opinion is considered so correct in these matters.

IMO his ramblings about personal liberties and freedom being infringed by everything under the sun from Amazon to Google to Facebook are oversimplified and childish. The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies. When Facebook makes you use a real name it's not because theres some "Mr. Evil" at the top level plotting to steal your freedom, it's because it leads to a better working social network.

Just his description of AirBnB is ridiculous: "Airbnb requires you to run nonfree software (an app, or Javascript). It puts you in a data base easily available to Big Brother (just like a hotel)."

That's an immensely stupid argument, because any _viable_ company that wants to provide a service that a consumer other than Stallman himself will use will "infringe" on those two idiotic requirements.

TL;DR. Just because he did something amazing in one field/area, doesn't mean he is not spewing complete BS. For a similar example, see: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-jam...

hobs• 11 years ago

There is literally 100 different links on that page, and you disagree with all of them? Stallman is an ideologue 100%, but if I had to choose Facebook or Stallman, I know which side I am on. (and I dont produce OSS or follow their belief system)

Facebook wants a real name because it makes them money more readily when they can identify you more easily and determine your value, not whatever "a better social network" means.

Just because Usain Bolt may not have a degree in biology, if he is also saying factual things, that does not make him wrong.

walterbell2• 11 years ago

Real names help Facebook to combine offline purchase activity (Axciom) with online activity.

michaelmior3• 11 years ago

Actually, there's literally 78 different links on that page ;)

kragen7• 11 years ago

People value Stallman’s opinions on these matters so highly because he has a remarkable history of being right about them ten or fifteen years before it becomes clear to everyone else that he was right, and he takes the risk of saying what he sees even when it will offend people. In fact, that’s why he’s famous; he’s certainly a good hacker, but the world has quite a number of good hackers who aren’t famous because they didn’t notice the political and social aspects of what they were doing the way Stallman did.

I am not going to bother to rebut your examples in detail, but I will say that I seriously doubt that you were present when Facebook decided on its names policy or that you have much access to information about what effects it has had, and you seem to think companies didn’t exist before 1995.

MCRed5• 11 years ago

Can you give an example?

For instance, I was aware of Stallman in the 1980s, read his writings back then, didn't think they were correct, and the future he predicted has not come to be. Yes there are some of us who are that old. Specifically, he said that without the virility of his license, there would be no free/open source software and that all software would be locked down and proprietary.

The entire open source movement is a disproof of stallman's position from that period.

He has repeatedly claimed that companies won't contribute to open source, and so you have to force them to with the GNU license, and yet history has disproven this one.

Given that this is pretty much the central tenant of his ideology, and it has been markedly disproven over the past 30 years, I too wonder why people listen to him.

golergka• 11 years ago

I am not going to bother to rebut your examples

Well, this kind of attitude tells more about your argument than the rest of the comment.

cwyers• 11 years ago

Stallman's work has enabled a vision almost exactly the opposite of what he wanted - the gratis nature of free software has been a far greater impact than the libre. It's enabled cloud computing by making OS and software licenses scale out affordably, letting everyone leverage low-cost commodity hardware in the place of big iron. In terms of libre, though, the closed-source PCs that ran Windows that Stallman still wars so vigorously against are far more free-as-in-freedom than the cloud computers running mostly "free software." Same with all the Android phones that run a GPL'd kernel but are far more locked down than Windows. The Affero license and the anti-Tivoization clauses have been shutting the barn door after the horses have left. The free-software movement has been pivotal in providing lots of free software in the gratis sense, and that free software has enabled a far less libre computing paradigm than what came before. So you'll excuse me if I am unsure what his remarkable history of being right has been.

muyuu• 11 years ago

I disagree with Stallman on many things but I cannot see anything wrong with that collection of real issues about Facebook, and also with the general message that most people should avoid using Facebook completely or use it exclusively with fake identities and several other provisions.

stinos2• 11 years ago

This. For instance the "Psychological Harm" chapter. That is not even an opinion, rather a fact, so I feel the OP's 'disagree with essentially everything he writes about it' is too strong - you cannot disagree with facts. Actually a lot of what Stallman writes on that page are just facts, and a lot of them also apply to tons of other services on the web. Maybe not all at once though which why he picked FB I guess.. Still in debate with myself though on whether I agree with his strong opinion on it or whether it's even worth having such a strong opinion on it. There are way worse things in the world than FB.

rdtsc2• 11 years ago

Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No.

And whose opinions are correct on the topic? Who should we listen to then?

Opinions are opionions and we can all evaluate them. Hopefully we can evaluate them objectively regardless who came up with them.

he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies.

He doesn't huh. Ok, if it is so obvious, can you list the things he doesn't understand.

it's because it leads to a better working social network.

Granted, pretty much every single loss of privacy rule (or law) has been under the guise of "oh but this is good for you actually".

_viable_ company that wants to provide a service that a consumer other than Stallman himself will use will "infringe" on those two idiotic requirements.

Really? Ok let's see, I launch my editor, I type in some code, then save it and compile. I just got a service provided to me by the authors of those programs and it might seem idiotic, but I value that service and value that I ran free software and didn't have to send my name to anyone to register that I did that.

michaelmior3• 11 years ago

You said that your editor is free software, meaning that no one made money on you using it. I'm not sure how this refutes the point about a "_viable_ company." (Given that viable necessarily includes making money.)

nitrogen• 11 years ago

Does this make his opinion on Facebook or privacy or freedom any more correct or valid? No.

Respect for Stallman's opinions derives not from his code, but from his consistency in adhering to his (extreme) principles and correctly seeing how those principles are affected by new developments in technology.

He's right about DRM because DRM, not because Emacs. Time will show what else he's right about. Living like Stallman does may not be practical, but that doesn't make him wrong.

crdoconnor3• 11 years ago

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly.

I consider the Snowden revelations a cast iron validation of his so-called paranoia. He was in a small minority back then, and the revelations proved him right. That counts for a lot.

Just like I wouldn't listen to Usain Bolt

Who should we listen to then? You?

valvar• 11 years ago

I think, that if you look a bit closer, you'll be able to discern exactly why Stallman's 'BS' is deemed more acceptable than Watson's 'BS'.

manigandham6• 11 years ago

I'm with you. Seems like FUD here with this post, there are a few decent ideas about privacy but its a social network and used for connecting to people. Maybe they can relax the real name policy some more but I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem.

There are effective privacy controls in place now and 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?

What is the overall point at the end of this? Basically we should all just be anonymous forever? Facebook is just a decade old, society/culture is still catching up and we really don't need all this doom/gloom every time. And yea, I didn't know who this guy was until this post.

icebraining5• 11 years ago

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.

amirmc3• 11 years ago

"... it's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?"

This attitude is what's wrong. Exxon also needs to make money so maybe we should cut them some slack around oil spills. So does Foxconn, so let's not badger them about employment practices. Etc.

To your point about how they are supposed to make money. I dunno, innovate on business models, maybe? Advertising has been a driving force for mass-consumer web services and it would be healthy to have alternatives.

rakoo• 11 years ago

it's a business that needs to make money, how else is that supposed to happen?

That's their problem, not ours. We're not the ones in charge of deciding how exactly they're supposed to make money. If they can't, so be it.

orbifold2• 11 years ago

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, that could be implemented by many different servers and clients. Another the advent of IPv6 and the fact that it makes p2p protocols more viable.

mkr-hn• 11 years ago

Maybe they can relax the real name policy some more but I have plenty of friends that don't use their actual real/legal name and never had a problem.

The problems come when the policy is weaponized by people looking to harm people who have a good reason to use a certain name.

detaro6• 11 years ago

His opinions(!) provide an useful reference point, especially since I can trust that they are on one extreme end of the spectrum. I certainly don't agree with all of them, but they make me think about where I make concessions and where I maybe missed that. I rather read an opinion and decide "no, I won't go that far/that is ok for me" instead of being told "all is fine".

gbog3• 11 years ago

Some of RMS opinions are extreme, because they take to an unbearable point some consequence of some ideology. For example refusing to have kids is extreme, most people cannot afford psychologically to not have kids.

But RMS opinions about Facebook are not extreme, he doesn't propose to refuse to have friends who are using Facebook, for example. He says just don't use it, it's common sense, just like don't eat fast food is common sense. Common sense is sometimes very uncommon, kudos to those who keep their mind clear in our messy times.

ffn• 11 years ago

Most people don't view Stallman's words as gospel, he's actually kind of a running joke nowadays - a sort of the caricature of the software profession, all neckbeard, tin-foil, and wizard powers. And it is true a lot of Stallman's ideas are sadly unrealistic for a large corporation operating in many highly complex environments.

And although nearly every single point on his rant regarding facebook's policies is ridiculous as an argument against using facebook (except the psychology study one), I do absolutely agree with him that folks should, with enough time and introspection, grow out of using facebook personally (professional use is fine). The fact of the matter is facebook gives you the illusion of personal connection and being "always in the know" so you short-circuit that reward-loop in your brain and wind up with an addiction. It's just like drugs, alcohol, video games, or any host of other addictive activities out there for us to waste our lives on.

Granted it's fun at first, but after a while, one needs to realize one has become a slave to a rather meaningless habit (checking your feed, updating your status, "liking" shit) that doesn't make you better, richer, or any more intimate with another. Instead, you've sat at your computer for another evening, poor-ifying the circulation in your legs, watching the highlights of other people living their lives, and feeling mildly displeased with yourself yet not enough to ever look away. Instead of facebook, you could've did leg day at the gym and gotten better glutes, hiked to the beach and communed with nature, joined a crossfit class and paid to irreparably hurt yourself, or even got some work done on your hobby project.

Facebook is literally wasting you away for the promise of social fulfillment that it can't fulfill. After all when it comes to social connection, facebook is far inferior to actually meeting up for a date, direct call/skype, text/im/email... hell, in a lot of ways Facebook is worse than video games because, when you're playing a video game with friends, at least you're all working together on a common platform (especially if it's one of those Kinect dancing games, nothing brings people closer than watching each other dance awkwardly). Instead, you're on facebook, ruminating over ghosts of people and events that have already passed by you, thinking you're together and connected with all your friends, yet still miserably yourself in front of your computer with nothing to show for it. Also, one can stand to look at only so many pics of receipts from super expensive restaurants by friends who have just recently gone and are gushing over the food like some 12 year old fangirl over a boyish pop idol.

russgray• 11 years ago

The problem I have with these rants is I just don't recognise this characterisation of a facebook user at all. I have an account. I check it on my phone a couple of times a day, never post anything apart from the occasional baby photo to a family group, comment on a post maybe once a month, never 'like' anything other than birthdays or weddings. I've been doing that for about 4 years now and never felt any urge to expand my use. My wife is the same. So too my younger sister. I don't know anyone who spends so much time on it that it affects their life, and whatever mundane information facebook has on me isn't going to give me sleepless nights.

rtpg• 11 years ago

This doesn't match up with my experience at all.

I have easy access to photos people share with others now, so I can see pictures of their kids and the like (and see that they went to Hawaii or something). I've been able to get back into contact with people I met at an event long ago and chat with them. I hear about my friend's projects, which lets me message them.

My friends and I organise events through facebook. We can keep track of location and post pictures of the event afterwards.

The end result is I am in contact with way more people than I could manage with the friction of calling/keeping tabs on everyone all the time. It also results in a lot of real-world interaction. There are people I meet twice, three times a year and _that's totally fine_ because without a tool like fb I would never meet them. My circle of friends would be way smaller without fb.

Of course I keep contact with very close people through other mechanisms as well. But claiming that facebook results in less social interaction doesn't match up with my experiences too well

spain• 11 years ago

Just like I wouldn't listen to Usain Bolt if he were trying to teach me the biological mechanisms behind doping, I can't see why Stallman's opinion is considered so correct in these matters.

That's a false analogy. Stallman has been fighting for our digital rights for ages and has actually been right most of the time. That doesn't make him right all the time, but it does make me more inclined to believe he isn't just spewing nonsense.

IMO his ramblings about personal liberties and freedom being infringed by everything under the sun from Amazon to Google to Facebook are oversimplified and childish. The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies.

He has to be that way, because otherwise he would be seen as a hypocrite. It is interesting you think his arguments are "childish" when it seems every day more and more of his arguments are proven true when we find out how another company is using our data for malicious purposes.

When Facebook makes you use a real name it's not because theres some "Mr. Evil" at the top level plotting to steal your freedom, it's because it leads to a better working social network.

You are correct in assuming that there is most likely no "Mr. Evil" at the top, however that assumes that ordinary good people aren't capable of collectively and unknowingly becoming "Mr. Evil" through their actions, which our knowledge of psychology would point out is more than likely.

throwawaykf052• 11 years ago

has actually been right most of the time

That is a matter of opinion, and I think that is where most disagreement stems from. In the HN echo chamber it may seem like everyone agrees he was right, but the rest of the world is not nearly as much in agreement.

blawa2• 11 years ago

Oh well, just what I was fearing here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9201896

In 2 mins, you're the top comment How about actually disproving his arguments one by one. The world is not black and white is a bad statement to make. How about your pull up your panties and try to make it better, rather than giving useless arguments.

xxxyy2• 11 years ago

This thread shows the big thing that is wrong with today's HN.

There is a guy presenting a list of 49 arguments against using a service that is used by one billion people globally. Some of them are pretty good, some more sucky than the others. Yet, the discussion focuses only on the person. It's like the people here could not process the raw facts and derive their own conclusions, and had to fall back to their emotional brains. Certainly not a thing I would expect from HN community.

There is a really long way from this attitude to the PG's essay. http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

Create2• 11 years ago

We begin therefore where they are determined not to end, with the question whether any form of democratic self-government, anywhere, is consistent with the kind of massive, pervasive, surveillance into which the Unites States government has led not only us but the world.

This should not actually be a complicated inquiry.

http://snowdenandthefuture.info/events.html

I honestly don't understand why people value Stallman's opinions on these matters so highly.

https://archive.org/details/EbenMoglen-WhyFreedomOfThoughtRe...

https://benjamin.sonntag.fr/Moglen-at-Re-Publica-Freedom-of-...

Surveillance is not an end toward totalitarianism, it is totalitarianism itself.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/democracylive/europe-24385999

vixen99• 11 years ago

Isn't the piece mostly a series of correct observations (if they are not, no doubt someone will point this out) about Facebook from which one can come to one's own conclusions?

I'm not interested in your views on Stallman himself. BTW Usain Bolt and anyone else is welcome to present a cogent argued position on the biology of drug doping if that's what he can do. I fail to see where 'teaching' comes into this discussion.

killerpopiller5• 11 years ago

sorry, but your comment is trolling! You just claim RS isn't "right" and name others who aren't "right" either - in your unfounded oppionion.

RS lists examples of FB malpractice, abuse of power and in contrast to your trash talk he is linking proof to each claim.

SeanDav2• 11 years ago

Sounds like you could be a poster child for 1984. In your keenness to try discredit what Stallman is saying you cherry pick a few examples and completely avoid most of the far more serious issues raised here. I can only hope that if the day comes when the authorities come lock up 1 of your family members because of something they did not even post, but started writing then changed their minds and deleted it, you remember your blind support and lack of critical thinking on this occasion.

pikachu_is_cool• 11 years ago

Of course this would be the most upvoted comment on HN

tripzilch• 11 years ago

people here love to bring that up ("what - you DON'T KNOW WHO STALLMAN IS? SHAME? HOW DARE YOU CRITICISE HIM?")

I have never seen anyone on HN say that or anything similar. Maybe you were thinking of some other place?

For myself, I've been giving Stallman's opinions a lot more weight since the Snowden revelations, since at that point a great many of his ideas instantly switched from "over-idealistic / ridiculous / almost paranoid" to "well what do you know, he actually was right all along!".

I am myself quite idealistic and concerned about privacy, free and/or open source software, personal liberties, etc. I just used to think Stallman was taking it a bit too far to the crazy side. Then Snowden happened and it turns out he was right about a lot of the things that I really thought went a bit too far "out there". Not all of the things, mind you, but enough of them to make me pause and give thought to his opinions, and try to take them seriously.

And it's probably my own bias, but on HN as well, it seems to me that his name and ideas have been discussed quite a bit more often after Snowden, than before.

fit2rule6• 11 years ago

What purpose does it serve to denigrate Stallman for his efforts?

facepalm3• 11 years ago

I don't understand why your comment is voted up so much because you only seem to provide an opinion ("I don't understand...") and take 10 paragraphs for it.

notum2• 11 years ago

Flawed ranking algorithm. It's the replies that vote him up.

vacri• 11 years ago

For a similar example, see: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/01/dna-jam....

Watson claiming he can't get work in biology because of his racist views is nothing like Stallman, whose primary job is the speaking circuit talking about his views. You're saying that the thing that people voluntarily pay Stallman to do is the thing that he knows nothing about and should be shunned for.

andmarios• 11 years ago

Indeed, you don't know who Stallman is.

His most important work isn't the software but the Free Software movement, the GPL license and the Free Software Foundation.

Sure, we all like emacs and gcc but these were just Stallman putting his money where his mouth is. Stallman made the first commits to these and many more programs but it was the thousands of programmers who accepted his ideas and made them what they are today.

Of course you are free to criticize him, but portraying him like Usain Bolt trying to teach the biological mechanisms behind doping shows a certain degree of ignorance.

evook• 11 years ago

because any _viable_ company that wants to provide a service that a consumer other than Stallman himself will use will "infringe" on those two idiotic requirements.

I work for a data center operator and ISP and our customer database is air gapped. We're in the business for 18 years now.

krapp2• 11 years ago

Richard Stallman does have a cult of personality around him who seem willing to defend his prescience and infallibility to the detriment of critical thinking and common sense.

However, while I think he is off base on a couple of points here (the "Psychological Harm" argument, in particular, seems like a cricitism of the vanity of youth and gamification, the latter of which is worth criticizing,) one doesn't need to be paranoid to see that much of what he mentions is at least worth considering.

And he doesn't mention much, it's basically a list of links about Facebook's business practices, and many of the issues he presents apply to social media in general since so many sites want desperately to be as Facebook-ish as possible (see: G+ and anyone who found their real name, profile and G+ comments forced on to Youtube.)

Not taking as gospel because he's RMS, but at least considering. Most of what he points out are true, and not that controversial.

loup-vaillant• 11 years ago

The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies.

Yeah, the world is all grey. We all know that. What you should keep in mind however, is that there are shades of grey.

And those companies are darker than they need to be.

spinchange4• 11 years ago

To understand why people value Stallman's views so much, it is helpful to have a deeper and more thoughtful understanding about the man's work. See, it isn't about 'the code' nearly as much as it is about the political and ethical values he's spent decades imbuing into code and its licensing. Stallman is fundamentally about upholding freedom for users (basically, citizens in general) in the computer age. As far as I can gather, everything the man does and says in service of this central ideal. His consistency, persistence, and adherence to these principles, coupled with the great technical and advocacy work he's done is valuable and respected by many, even if they disagree or don't fully support his worldview. Since Facebook is simply a multiuser application run on over a network, accessed by computing devices running software, I think he's entirely qualified to talk about it, and when you couple the social and societal implications of Facebook, it's absolutely within his bailiwick as someone who advocates around the political and social implications of software.

The world isn't black and white and he obviously fails to understand the entire point behind many of these companies

No, no. He absolutely understands. He disagrees with it. You do not and find his principles silly. That's fine, but TL;DR just because you think it's complete BS doesn't mean it is.

passepartout• 11 years ago

When Facebook makes you use a real name it's not because theres some "Mr. Evil" at the top level plotting to steal your freedom, it's because it leads to a better working social network.

You clearly have not thought of the situations where using your real name can be dangerous (see for example activists) or just plain misleading for the purpose of the page (see for example, famous authors etc.). The factors of real life and people needing to hide behind a pseudonym should not be disregarded so absolutely by Facebook. I can see where your comment is coming from, but as you say about Stallman, the world is not all black and white and people should have a right to this grey area even on a social network.

Read this: https://paulbernal.wordpress.com/2012/12/27/10-reasons-to-le... Also, The Circle by Dave Eggers is a bit of a frightening example.

naturalrecursin• 11 years ago

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.

esfandia• 11 years ago

Here's one thing I like about Facebook: it has stopped the flood of chain-emails I used to receive from random "friends". They post that stuff on Facebook now instead. It's the perfect honeypot.

killerpopiller5• 11 years ago

why not make a list of good things FB has done for you and compare?

- less chain mails -

notfoss• 11 years ago

- Shadow profile (So that I don't have to waste energy creating one) -

jfoster2• 11 years ago

I view my decision to use Facebook as a transaction. Sure, I lose some "privacy", but I also get a lot of value in return.

I use quotes around "privacy" because I'm not sure I understand it the same way that Facebook critics do. When I'm using a changeroom, I expect privacy. When I take on a pseudonym and don't identify myself by name, I expect privacy. When I'm knowingly uploading photos that I am happy for the world to see, I don't have much of an expectation of privacy, and without an expectation of privacy I'm not sure I have any privacy to lose. That said, I don't think about this too much, so would love to hear well-reasoned arguments against my point of view on that.

Dramatize• 11 years ago

I agree. I don't understand what the issue is. I know that anything I add to Facebook will be used to sell advertising to me(I use AdBlock).

The best feature of Facebook is groups. It's the easiest way to keep up to date with my gym group, motorcycle group etc.

leni5362• 11 years ago

What was wrong with mailing lists?

It's the easiest way to keep up to date with my gym group, motorcycle group etc.

Of course it is the easiest if they use a Facebook group in the first place. They could use a mailing list (or Google group) and you could keep track of it with any mail service (even your own) of choice.

realusername2• 11 years ago

There is not only the privacy inside Facebook but also outside facebook. People are generally aware of what they give inside Facebook but I'm not sure most people expect Facebook to store their entire web history with dodgy techniques.

jfoster2• 11 years ago

True. Through the "Like" buttons on pages and such, I presume? Do we know for sure that they are keeping that full log?

bo1024• 11 years ago

I think a main point is about indirect effects of privacy loss that are hard to see and reason about directly.

Example #1: You visit a website completely unrelated to facebook. The site has a "like" button on the page enabling them to access Facebook's data about you (depending on cookies etc). You observe advertisements or content tailored based on your personal information or things you like. Maybe you are offered different prices for the same product depending on your age, gender, location, etc.

Example #2: A potential employer accesses, perhaps indirectly, information about you that would be illegal to ask you directly (marital status, etc).

Example #3: One of your facebook "friends" signs up for some arbitrary service enabling that service to access your contact and personal information and connect it with e.g. the photos you mentioned. Arbitrary things happen, e.g. your photos are used to advertise some product you find distasteful, your contact and personal information is sold to telemarketers or spammers, and so on.

yeukhon• 11 years ago

1) This is more of how Facebook makes money with ads and providing "personalized experience" just as Google does. Fundamentally not a flaw in Facebook, but a debatable practice. And do you have source Facebook would share my age and my gender to third-party even if I list them to be private? The only thing that might be possible is Facebook internally does the calculation. Giving away to third-party vs FB doing the computation aren't exactly the same.

2) If you join an online community, you have to pay a price. You might tagged your friend or your friend tagged you and the setting is not strict enough, then how is that Facebook's fault?

3) Again, that's the price a social network has to pay.

Back in the days people take film-based pictures and there is no way to massively store and distribute to the world. Now the digital age has changed the way we distribute information about one another.

Doesn't matter if Facebook is 100% free software and decentralized. One person leaks everything leaks. There is no real 100% anonymity. You have to make contact with another human being.

pooogie2• 11 years ago

His opinion may seem ridiculous to many here, but the following has happened quite a few times before:

1. Stallman shares radical opinion

2. He's ridiculed for his outlandish claims

3. Some news breaks or things happen gradually

4. Now people say 'Stallman called it' or realize he was right all along

peteretep2• 11 years ago

Some examples, please

pooogie2• 11 years ago

Sorry I'm on mobile so I can give one:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Right_to_Read

crdoconnor3• 11 years ago

Snowden

roansh• 11 years ago

Wikipedia. (https://vimeo.com/7307422)

nly2• 11 years ago

He has refused to own a cell phone since inception because he doesn't like the idea of having his movements tracked.

It's now well-known that most of the crypto we depend upon for cellular calls and messaging is broken and can be tapped easily. Seemless, real-time, local area SMS and call interception has been publicly demonstrated, and these demonstrations were not from nefarious or particularly well resourced groups, just keen nerds.

It's also been publicly demonstrated that someone can track your location down to cell tower granularity, from anywhere in the world, without permission, using just your cell phone #, without prior access to your phone, and with only commercially available network access.

And none of this even touches on the ticking timebomb of proprietary firmware in phones that is basically unsupported and untouched by manufacturers and networks from the moment you walk out of the shop. The opportunity to exploit vulnerabilities alone is mind-boggling.

Oh and the fact that most people are replacing all this with centralised messaging platforms like Snapchat, Facebook chat, and Whatsapp.

You're completely naive right now if you think every SMS you've ever sent, every call you ever made, and every location query you've ever put through Googles Location Service hasn't been logged or acquired by NSA.

And frankly, the idea that NSA or GCHQ can silently ring your phone and turn it in to a listening device doesn't sound so James Bond these days.

revicon• 11 years ago

While I agree w/ some of the points Stallman makes, essays like this that rely on hyperbole to rile up readers turn me off and detract from the issues the author is trying to bring attention to.

One example: Stallman states "Facebook's mobile app snoops on SMS messages" and links to this article: http://www.efytimes.com/e1/fullnews.asp?edid=128859

"... during installation, the Facebook mobile app for Android platform seeks certain 'permissions' with the latest update going a step ahead in asking users to allow the app 'Read your text messages (SMS or MMS)'."

So during installation (on android), Facebook is asking permission to access SMS, which you can choose to enable or not. This is a far cry from his statement that "Facebook's mobile app snoops on SMS messages."

There are good points in this essay, but the amount of alarmism mixed in makes it much harder to sift through.

kragen7• 11 years ago

It is not correct to say that you can choose to enable this permission or not; or, rather, it is true only in a narrow technical sense — if you choose not to enable this permission, standard Android will refuse to install the Facebook app. And what legitimate reason could Facebook possibly have to request that permission in the first place?

There may be some examples of hyperbole in that article, but the example you chose is not one of them.

tedunangst5• 11 years ago

Phone number verification? I have an iPhone, which doesn't ever let apps read text messages, which actually would be nice sometimes when my banking app would like to verify it's running on my phone, as opposed to somebody else's phone.

ramigb• 11 years ago

From an avid FB user who spent three hours a day to someone who has his account deactivated for more than a month, that is how much convinced i am that FB is nothing but utter garbage and i just had enough with it.

zo13• 11 years ago

I've also noticed a stark reduction in content from friends. Perhaps we're all growing up and posting less, perhaps Facebook's algorithms are hiding all their posts for some arbitrary reason, I don't know.

All I know, is that if it weren't for the few vocal friends and pages that keep things mildly interesting, I would have no reason to be on Facebook at all.

timdaub• 11 years ago

Complete agree, deactivated also about a month ago or so.

The thing is, once you ask everyone you truly want to be in touch with for their phone number, "staying connected" isn't that hard anymore.

Also interesting: my friends tend to never talk about their online-facebook experience ever! I never noticed it, but there is literally no talk about their facebook-usage in real-life, while all of them still use it multiple hours a day.

zachrose• 11 years ago

I like: https://stallman.org/common/stallman.css

GhotiFish• 11 years ago

why?

erodingvar• 11 years ago

if you talk about your friends in Facebook, you're ratting on them

This statement reveals the paranoid perspective behind this publication.

While there are many valid reasons why some people may not want to use Facebook, I think it's as interesting to wonder reasons why people would be so opposed to everyone using it.

I think had Stallman been less weird, he may feel differently about Facebook. For someone like him, any personal details visible to others is likely to result in harm to him.

When you don't fit, everything hurts, and it's easy to feel like all those institutions are evil. But that's just you Richard. For most people, Facebook isn't much of a threat.

codesuela• 11 years ago

So what are you saying? Its OK to hurt people who don't fit in?

jdkanani2• 11 years ago

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

This line summarizes it all up.

junto2• 11 years ago

Facebook is like a dentist. The benefit is that you get to spy on old friends who aren't really friends anymore, but you have to remember that a) the dentist is going to cause you pain, and b) he's going to invoice for for the pleasure of doing so. The difference is that the dentist has your best interests at heart, whilst Facebook has its own best interests as its primary focus, its customers secondary, and hint hint - you aren't the customer.

blawa2• 11 years ago

Thank you, I was fearing I'll see an ad-hominem argument criticizing Stallman and thereby nullifying the arguments while actually not saying anything against the arguments. Your points are right, and personally, I don't see a reason to follow people who're not friends anymore

junto2• 11 years ago

My biggest problem with Facebook is that my contact details are uploaded to Facebook by my "friends" without my permission. I choose not to he Facebook user but people I know are persistently sharing my contact details with them and I assume even my contact details photo which they can later match using facial recognition to other photos uploaded by friends without my permission.

TheSpiceIsLife• 11 years ago

As a complimentary perspective:

For those who haven't seen it, I think Slavoj Žižek and Paul Holdengräber on "Surveillance and whistleblowers" is worth a watch. The part about surveillance starts at 21:14 so this link will take you there https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIPjmmmh_os#t=21m14s

Žižek: "The most dangerous unfreedom is the unfreedom you don't even experience, as such. If some of you are feminists ... every good feminist will tell you the first step of feminism is just to realise your situation of oppression... We need something similar here. That's the first point. The second point ... I'm a little bit sceptic about this paranoia 'ooh we are totally controlled' and so on and so on, I think we shouldn't take this too seriously. And this doesn't make the situation any easier if anything it makes it more... it [paranoia] is justified, but we should be aware, again we go in to metaphorics again the NSA the Big Eye knows everything, again the mega-machinery is extremely stupid, they don't know what they know. Do you remember, this is a very superficial anecdote ... a guy in LA was Googling the ways to kill your wife something like that, a couple days afterward the FBI brutally entered his house arrested him blah blah blah. Why? Because Google reported this to FBI. But do you know what was the result, this guy was a was one of the you know all the [TV] series CIS / police investigation, we was simply writing a scenario and wanted to check you know, and you have this again and again or form China they told me a wonderful example of this stupidity a guy just before Tiananmen [Square] anniversary a guy was an English professor in Beijing was flirting with a lady in London, and since they were both educated he used a wonderful quote from Shakespeare, because you know in Elizabethan England the word "protest" meant also "I publicly declare" and he quoted to her "I protest my love to you" chop-chop and the conversation was cut short because the word "protest" was prohibited because of associations with Tiananmen, what I find so ridiculous is that if the guy were to be extremely vulgar and told the lady something like "I will fuck your brain out" everything would be okay, you quote Shakespeare... You know computers just give you immense amounts of data and you can play with it."

Errors and omissions intentional as I'm directly transcribing Žižek talking.

He then goes on to relate an experience as a young adult in Slovenia meeting with his friends and upon parting, knowing everything was recorded, they didn't hind anything and at the end of the conversation they would say something like "Mother baked a good apple pie" and then later found out this really confused the people monitoring their conversations.

anigbrowl3• 11 years ago

Žižek's first hand experience of communism and being (somewhat) punsihed for being a dissident (by being unable to get employment for several years despite his strong academic credentials) are quite insightful, although he does take the scenic route when it comes to articulating his points. That's OK though, I find his talking pleasant to listen to even though I've heard most of his jokes many times now.

Veedrac• 11 years ago

Since this seems to just be a braindump, I might as well add Veritasium's comments on the matter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ZqXlHl65g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag

I found them pretty interesting listening from a content-distribution and -consumption side of things, rather than from a social-network perspective.

Aoyagi2• 11 years ago

The worst thing about Facebook I personally see is the peer (or even professional) pressure to have an account there and be active. And them doing what all (American?) megacorps do: buying small companies, stripping them of assets, absorbing them and forgetting them.

Then again, some people build start-ups for this very reason, don't they.

daminimal• 11 years ago

With 112 mentions of Facebook I'd say this is a great ad.

SeanDav2• 11 years ago

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 apologize for, defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy.

whybroke• 11 years ago

Astroturf of course, notice the conversations around the FCC ruling. How to deal with it is an interesting and I'd say very important problem to community viability.

On the upside it's certainly complimentary to the perceived influence of HN.

karmacondon• 11 years ago

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 that to be an invasion of your privacy, then leave society and live as a hermit. It probably won't be fun, but it will be very private.

I know several people who don't use facebook, myself included, because they just aren't interested in the service that it provides. Philosophical concerns about the nature of privacy don't really factor into it. The social fashions about what's cool and what isn't cool will change with the winds. It isn't worth paying attention to. If facebook or any other social software is valuable to you, then good, use it. If not, no sense complaining about what other people decide to do with their time.

forthefuture• 11 years ago

I'm surprised that more people don't agree with this.

When the first articles came out that said facebook saves everything you type in messages and status' even if you don't press save, I stopped using facebook for anything other than nondescript one line responses to groups I'm in. It's just so easy to realize that if you don't want incredibly personal things to be saved online for eternity, don't write those things online.

pckspcks2• 11 years ago

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 account, but things posted to Facebook identify where Stallman is, who his friends and peers are, who he interacts with, etc.

Signing up for a Facebook/Google Scholar/Researchgate/etc. simply gives you some level of control over the visibility of the information collected about you. If you care about your personal brand, there is strong reason to do it. It's almost blackmail. But if you don't do it, you're still on Facebook; simply without the EULA, and without any control.

Morgawr• 11 years ago

I'm not saying I disagree with you here, because what you said is entirely correct, however there have been various instances in the past of social network companies tracking people with the usage of cookies (those "share on X" buttons every website has) even outside their own domain.

And on top of that, you have companies like Facebook doing data analysis on your personal aggregate data and then feeding it to advertisement companies even without your direct consent (although it is implied, either by the user's ignorance or negligence). This is obviously true for other companies as well, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc etc.

Obviously, the main problem here is not the company, it's the people using the company and the peer pressure on everybody else to join in. But that's another story.

higherpurpose• 11 years ago

Facebook absolutely violates people's privacy. But you're conflating Facebook's privacy violations with people's "over-sharing" on Facebook. But those two are actually not the same.

Let me give you an example:

1) Friend shares when he went to the toilet. Is that a privacy violation by Facebook? If it's public, then it's not. If it was private, and then Facebook makes it public by changing the default settings, as it's done many times before, then that would be a privacy violation. But forget about pooping. What if you get drunk and post your drunk pictures to your friends and then Facebook makes them public so your boss (or future boss) can see them?

2) Here's a much worse example than that. Facebook is tracking people through the Like button without them even clicking on it. They never gave Facebook the permission to do that (and I mean in a very "opt-in" way, not just by automatically agreeing with Facebook's ToS). Even worse than that, Facebook has been caught tracking people who don't even have a Facebook account and building "shadow profiles" of them. How is THAT not a privacy violation?

So I think people who say "Facebook doesn't violate people's privacy - they just choose to overshare", are either oversimplifying all the issues and conflating them into a convenient one, or are not too educated about the topic.

Oh and if you want even more real examples, Facebook has just been found to infringe people's privacy in Europe, where the privacy right actually exists, unlike in US, where "digital privacy" seems to be treated as an abstract almost non-existent thing, and the laws protecting it are orders of magnitude weaker than the laws protecting "physical world" privacy - even though there shouldn't be any difference between say law enforcement getting your printed pictures and getting your digital pictures:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/23/facebooks-...

spinchange4• 11 years ago

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 in friends' contact lists who do.

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 learn what you're listening to or watching on TV!

None of this is to try to convince you to care or take up the pitchfork against Facebook, but they're not like other sites. Harvesting your contact info from your friends phone to add you to their graph is an invasion, in my view (glib app permissions dialog, notwithstanding).

thirsteh2• 11 years ago

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?

cheatsheet2• 11 years ago

There are the people who grew up watching the privacy invasion happen, and there are the people who grew up with it. I felt often like I was in the middle, but bad experience made me realize that privacy is something worth fighting for.

We've picked the low hanging fruit of clever applications of the data analysis of 'the general population' to recommend us better movies, better things to purchase, search engines adapted to our tastes, and so on.

The absence of privacy is an absence of a safe mind. I grew up enjoying privacy on the internet (or the illusion of) because I was able to learn who I was, and I was able to have my own voice and my own opinions. When my mind became convinced that that was only an illusion, it mentally crippled me. I wasn't able to follow thought paths I deemed unsafe. The definition of unsafe comes from a collection of reasoning (or rationalization) that is mostly irrational - being that it is contextually formed without careful analysis and methodical direction. When one feels like every machine is stalking them, and can eventually be connected back to a person who can make a judgement on that individual's life path without the awareness and consent of the individual, I think we've made a big mistake as an intelligent species.

MisterWebz• 11 years ago

When you're highly invested in the tech scene and are depending on its continuing profitability, then it's only natural that you denounce people who attack it.

What we're seeing here is a conflict of opinion between the so called hackers and the people who think they're working on something that will be acquired by one of the tech giants.

xxxyy2• 11 years ago

You've got a point there.

However, not every modern tech-buzzed startup wins the market by rejecting privacy and playing the next Facebook. Consider Xiaomi, Uber or SpaceX good examples.

Or in other words: social media is not everything there is in the tech scene. The landscape is not simply a battle of bearded-hardcore-hackers vs brogrammers. Seriously, there's plenty for everyone.

frostmatthew• 11 years ago

defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy

People post things to Facebook with the intent of sharing that information with others. I'll admit there may have been some valid criticisms that their privacy settings are/were difficult for some people to fully understand but that's certainly not a blatant invasion of privacy.

As for taking information and using it for targeted advertising that's no different than what companies like Google or Amazon do (which have historically had a higher "reputation" on HN). If you want to consider such practices blatant invasions of privacy that's fine, but there are certainly far bigger offenders out there.

u23KDd23• 11 years ago

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 facebook, a modern day societal cancer.

kretor• 11 years ago

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.

pessimizer• 11 years ago

I think that a higher percentage of people that post on HN work for facebook or companies with even more invasive business models than once did. The privacy questions hasn't changed, it's just that most of the adults have left.

voodoomagicman• 11 years ago

I dislike Facebook because social networking is a natural monopoly and they have managed to grab ahold of it.. they have replaced some of the open and decentralized nature of the internet with the centralized and closed service they control. Competing with or replacing facebook will be very difficult because everyone's friends are already on facebook.

Wouldn't it be great if someone at harvard had come up with an open social networking protocol instead?

pain• 11 years ago

Reasons to support free http://www.getaether.net and https://www.matrix.org software.

Desperate developers needing research time and money for supporting and advancing federatable networks.

mark_l_watson• 11 years ago

Another good article by Richard Stallman - his ideas keep gaining even more relevance for me.

I do use Facebook to plug my books and to hopefully drive traffic to my blog articles, but I have been considering cancelling my account.

I have similar issues with Google, but with Google I get much more value: using G+ to promote my own web properties, and generally really useful services.

That said, I have switched to using my GMail address as a secondary email that I don't often check, and having the people most important to me use my own email address. Also, I give this advice all the time: choose one web browser like Chrome for use just with social media (Google, Facebook, and Twitter web properties) and another web browser for everything else.

ericfontaine3• 11 years ago

I do use Facebook to plug my books and to hopefully drive traffic to my blog articles

The trick is configuring your blog to autopost to facebook, for which I use https://wordpress.org/plugins/add-link-to-facebook/ which also automatically grabs likes and comments from the facebook post and adds them to the wordpress comments database. Maybe this is acknowledging facebook's value, but at least I don't have to personally interact with facebook, nor are visitors to my blog tracked by facebook's javascript.

kartikkumar• 11 years ago

Although I can get the rationale of most things he says, I’m not sure that he’s always offering sane alternative options:

Don't be tracked — pay cash.

I’m wondering how he imagines this would pan out. Is RMS also against banking, since banks mine your data too. Does he suggest stuffing your mattress full of cash? (serious question).

In the US, where credit ratings are essential to be able to make any sizeable/significant purchases (car, house etc.), I’m wondering what he suggests as being the alternative. Or is he just supposed to reject all purchases that aren’t feasible with cash?

I’m curious if he’s opposed to Bitcoin too.

I’m not familiar enough with his writings to discern whether he’s simply a dissenter or also someone that has a view towards sane, realistic solutions.

notthemessiah• 11 years ago

I’m curious if he’s opposed to Bitcoin too.

He likes the privacy aspect of it, but has concerns with how it enables tax-evasion, and lack of monetary policy, hence why TALER (Taxable Anonymous Libre Electronic Reserves) is a GNU project: https://gnunet.org/taler2014ghm

mtarnovan2• 11 years ago

First I thought it was a typo, but it can't be, there are too many occurrences - looks like Stallman is intentionally referring to FB users as 'useds':

Facebook carefully studies all the text that its useds type in and then don't submit.
Facebook, as an "experiment", collected the text its useds started to enter as status updates and ultimately did not send.

jacquesm2• 11 years ago

I often have multiple really dumb typos in my text when I'm using an unfamiliar keyboard and they're remarkably 'internally consistent'.

mtarnovan2• 11 years ago

This is not a typo, see jdkanani's comment.

jdkanani2• 11 years ago

At the end, he wrote "We call them "useds" rather than "users" because Facebook is using them, not vice versa."

EGreg• 11 years ago

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

dredmorbius2• 11 years ago

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."

nerdy• 11 years ago

RMS is a strange duality. On the one hand he's a freedom advocate and has put considerable effort forward to make our world a better place; it's hard to not have a great deal of respect for him. On the other hand he's brilliant but quite frankly a lunatic, benign freedom extremist... and I don't even have a Facebook account! I can only imagine how he might come off to people who're hardcore social media consumers.

smutticus• 11 years ago

The #1 reason not to use FB is you cannot bitch about FB. I have little patience or sympathy for people who use FB and constantly complain about it. They should stop using it.

I don't use FB, which means I have little reason to bitch about it, and if I do want to bitch about it I don't sound like a hypocrit.

Create2• 11 years ago

“As your client knows, Mr. Zuckerberg goes to great lengths to protect the privacy of his personal life.”

Which adds a wrinkle: Some people requiring nondisclosure are the very ones who have built an industry on its opposite, the disclosure of personal information.

whowhat• 11 years ago

Why did this topic fall to the second page on HN so quickly, despite its relatively high upvotes, activity, and recency?

hobarrera2• 11 years ago

I've never understood why people insist on enumerating reasons why not to use facebook.

There's already a lack of reasons to use it (unless you count funny games and cat pictures), shouldn't that be enough in itself?

vohof• 11 years ago

People tend to overthink this. The only reason alot of people use facebook is because that's where all their friends are.

AnonJ• 11 years ago

Stallman is becoming quite increasingly peculiar. Not really interested in his talks. His software was great but his ideology (and generally that of FSF) is probably a kind of out of touch with the reality.

patrickdavey• 11 years ago

If you haven't watched it yet, I can highly recommend the documentary 'citizenfour', which is about the meetings between Snowden and Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and The Guardian intelligence reporter Ewen MacAskill.

Free to watch here:

https://thoughtmaybe.com/citizenfour/

Reasons not to use Facebook

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