5 ms·

Agreed. But perhaps it's worth it for people who are unable or struggle to afford internet?

by JTon 10y ago

zachlatta 10y ago
No. Nobody should have to pay for their freedom.
krapp 10y ago
No. Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. It would be better for those people to avoid the internet altogether than for their only connection to it to be an NSA Skinner box designed to distort their worldview, profile them and every one they know, and mine their identities for profit. edit: ok, "NSA Skinner box" may be a bit hyperbolic, but Facebook is still a PRISM participant that engages in emotional manipulation and ideological filtering, and they have a deeply vested interest in surveillance, profiling and correlating user data. Why would anyone trust them to act as a gateway for the internet? Ever?
- ythl 10y ago
  > Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    > Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.
  - krapp 10y ago
    Which they're within their rights to do, as a company. They can distort your newsfeed any way they want, they don't have to be impartial or fair. Which is why they shouldn't be trusted as if they were a neutral party providing a utility - they're demonstrably not. Even if they intended to be, the temptation to wield the power they have towards some financial or political end would inevitably be too great to resist.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      A news service, such as a newsfeed, has a duty to be impartial by virtue of naming itself news unless there is a real contract with the user stating alternative duties.
      - nathancahill 10y ago
        ..he typed on Hacker News, a newsfeed actively censored by YC against negative news about companies that they invest in.
        jsprogrammer 10y ago
        If you're good, you can still get your information through.
      - jwtadvice 10y ago
        Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Facebook radically alters its content for political and state power purposes. Not only is this not against the law, it's either illegal or highly discouraged not to do this everywhere in the world.
    - rfrank 10y ago
      They've also actively tried to manipulate the moods of their users via manipulation of newsfeed content. Informed consent is for the little people, I suppose. Just like net neutrality. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...
  - tiglionabbit 10y ago
    They had a "trending" feature which was mostly created by an algorithm but had some in-house editors to curate it. They would remove fake news and anything that seemed inappropriate. Conservatives complained that the editors were biased and would remove news stories that were of interest to conservatives. So Facebook fired the editors. Shortly after, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-...
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Absolutely. Facebook works with despots all over the world to contort information and works with the US to flip elections and seed political instability. "Free" (gratis) will never be worth "free" (libre).
  - loader 10y ago
    "gratis sans libre"
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
bdcravens 10y ago
Perhaps those are the users most at risk re privacy? (Taking a neutral status as to FB's intentions)
toomanybeersies 10y ago
It's an interesting debate. Personally, I lean towards the belief that some internet with strings is better than none. It's easy in a position of privilege (as the vast majority of HN'ers are), to say that it's an absolute wrong for FB to offer free internet (with whatever that entails). But if you're a poor kid in a dead end community, and the only way you're going to get internet, and something that nears reliable access to information (whether it be learning to program or whatever) is through FB and their 'free' internet, you'd be jumping for the FB internet. It could offer you a unique opportunity to bootstrap yourself out of your situation. It's similar to how you get free radio broadcasts, or free newspapers, or even free books. You can still learn and gain information from them, and they all have their bias and propaganda. Freedom isn't a binary thing.
- takeda 10y ago
  Facebook is not the Internet though, it doesn't offer any benefits except eating away your free time. Do you know in this age anyone in USA who doesn't have access to the Internet and also would want it? I never met anyone, like that. I met people who don't have Internet (usually older people), but they are also not interested to have it. Even if there are such people in US, they can get Internet access in library (together with free books and free newspapers), because surely they also won't be able to afford a computer.
  - toomanybeersies 10y ago
    I don't live in the USA, so I can't comment specifically on the USA. Of course, due to the people I associate with, I don't know anybody without access to internet. But I knew quite a few people at school who didn't have access to internet at home. There's a lot of parts of the world where there aren't libraries with publicly accessible computers.
- denzil_correa 10y ago
  > Personally, I lean towards the belief that some internet with strings is better than none. Some Internet with strings is better than none. But, some types of Internet with strings is better than other types of Internet with strings.
dopamean 10y ago
Maybe I'm naive for thinking this but shouldn't the government provide some option for those people? I have worked with people who in the early days of the internet only had access at public libraries. It wasn't internet in their homes but it was better than nothing and it was unrestricted. I'd love to see some kind of internet cafe or something strictly for people on welfare or some form of government assistance. I'm sure there are problems with this idea as I only just thought of it now but it already seems better than letting facebook provide the service.

Agreed. But perhaps it's worth it for people who are unable or struggle to afford internet?

by JTon 10y ago

Agreed. But perhaps it's worth it for people who are unable or struggle to afford internet?

zachlatta 10y ago

No. Nobody should have to pay for their freedom.

krapp 10y ago

No. Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. It would be better for those people to avoid the internet altogether than for their only connection to it to be an NSA Skinner box designed to distort their worldview, profile them and every one they know, and mine their identities for profit. edit: ok, "NSA Skinner box" may be a bit hyperbolic, but Facebook is still a PRISM participant that engages in emotional manipulation and ideological filtering, and they have a deeply vested interest in surveillance, profiling and correlating user data. Why would anyone trust them to act as a gateway for the internet? Ever?

ythl 10y ago
> Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.
- krapp 10y ago
  Which they're within their rights to do, as a company. They can distort your newsfeed any way they want, they don't have to be impartial or fair. Which is why they shouldn't be trusted as if they were a neutral party providing a utility - they're demonstrably not. Even if they intended to be, the temptation to wield the power they have towards some financial or political end would inevitably be too great to resist.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    A news service, such as a newsfeed, has a duty to be impartial by virtue of naming itself news unless there is a real contract with the user stating alternative duties.
    - nathancahill 10y ago
      ..he typed on Hacker News, a newsfeed actively censored by YC against negative news about companies that they invest in.
      - jsprogrammer 10y ago
        If you're good, you can still get your information through.
    - jwtadvice 10y ago
      Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Facebook radically alters its content for political and state power purposes. Not only is this not against the law, it's either illegal or highly discouraged not to do this everywhere in the world.
  - rfrank 10y ago
    They've also actively tried to manipulate the moods of their users via manipulation of newsfeed content. Informed consent is for the little people, I suppose. Just like net neutrality. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...
- tiglionabbit 10y ago
  They had a "trending" feature which was mostly created by an algorithm but had some in-house editors to curate it. They would remove fake news and anything that seemed inappropriate. Conservatives complained that the editors were biased and would remove news stories that were of interest to conservatives. So Facebook fired the editors. Shortly after, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-...
jwtadvice 10y ago
Absolutely. Facebook works with despots all over the world to contort information and works with the US to flip elections and seed political instability. "Free" (gratis) will never be worth "free" (libre).
- loader 10y ago
  "gratis sans libre"
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

bdcravens 10y ago

Perhaps those are the users most at risk re privacy? (Taking a neutral status as to FB's intentions)

toomanybeersies 10y ago

It's an interesting debate. Personally, I lean towards the belief that some internet with strings is better than none. It's easy in a position of privilege (as the vast majority of HN'ers are), to say that it's an absolute wrong for FB to offer free internet (with whatever that entails). But if you're a poor kid in a dead end community, and the only way you're going to get internet, and something that nears reliable access to information (whether it be learning to program or whatever) is through FB and their 'free' internet, you'd be jumping for the FB internet. It could offer you a unique opportunity to bootstrap yourself out of your situation. It's similar to how you get free radio broadcasts, or free newspapers, or even free books. You can still learn and gain information from them, and they all have their bias and propaganda. Freedom isn't a binary thing.

takeda 10y ago
Facebook is not the Internet though, it doesn't offer any benefits except eating away your free time. Do you know in this age anyone in USA who doesn't have access to the Internet and also would want it? I never met anyone, like that. I met people who don't have Internet (usually older people), but they are also not interested to have it. Even if there are such people in US, they can get Internet access in library (together with free books and free newspapers), because surely they also won't be able to afford a computer.
- toomanybeersies 10y ago
  I don't live in the USA, so I can't comment specifically on the USA. Of course, due to the people I associate with, I don't know anybody without access to internet. But I knew quite a few people at school who didn't have access to internet at home. There's a lot of parts of the world where there aren't libraries with publicly accessible computers.
denzil_correa 10y ago
> Personally, I lean towards the belief that some internet with strings is better than none. Some Internet with strings is better than none. But, some types of Internet with strings is better than other types of Internet with strings.

dopamean 10y ago

Maybe I'm naive for thinking this but shouldn't the government provide some option for those people? I have worked with people who in the early days of the internet only had access at public libraries. It wasn't internet in their homes but it was better than nothing and it was unrestricted. I'd love to see some kind of internet cafe or something strictly for people on welfare or some form of government assistance. I'm sure there are problems with this idea as I only just thought of it now but it already seems better than letting facebook provide the service.