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Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society?

• roflc0ptic 10y ago
  "Facebook understands the emotions expressed in what you type as statuses, and in messages via Messenger or WhatsApp." Is this correct? There was a very involved discussion about WhatsApp's encryption that I thought indicated they don't, in fact, have access to WhatsApp messages.
  • sigzero 10y ago
    It is impossible for FB to understand that.
  • Y_Y 10y ago
    Unless Facebook has some sentiment analysis tech that's far better than academia's (which isn't that unlikely), "understanding the emotions" of statuses is still a long way off.
  • throwawaysed 10y ago
    they could bake a pre-trained CNN into the messenger pretty easily and run it locally... so plausible
  • TruthHawk 10y ago
    Author here - you're right. I've made an edit accordingly. Thanks!
  • nickbauman 10y ago
    Facebook likely has a watson-like technology that can answer a lot of interesting questions about a user, but "understanding emotions"... that's still a ways off. Maybe a long long way off. But it's wrong not to be very, very concerned. Suffice it to say: (Paraphrasing Dijkstra) Whether Facebook understands human emotions from text is as relevant a question as whether a submarine can swim. I think they can get a helluva lot out of what you're typing and what you're liking. That should be enough to worry about.
  • rimliu 10y ago
    Wasn't there a case of FB doing some kind or research where they tried to influence the mood of the users by manipulating what content they see?
  • deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  • olleromam91 10y ago
    "Understanding" emotion is definitely a biological trait that computers are unlikely (maybe 2200) to ever be capable of replicating. But lexical content is a very well understood field, and emotion recognition is a huge industry for advertising. Even if facebook doesn't know that "I like it when stan fingers my butthole" was just a joke between buddies... there is tone inferred from the words and grammar involved. Positive vs. Negative is relatively straightforward, and when associated with a topic... can lead to lots of "opinion" data.
• dwills 10y ago
  Yes.
• aaron-lebo 10y ago
  Yes, as is Zuckerberg. He wants to run for president. That's why he's found religion, why he's touring the country, why he changed some rules so he can control Facebook while holding office. There's been a creation myth about Zuckerberg for years. Even Jobs didn't get a Hollywood movie about him until he was dead. Zuckerberg is dangerous because he's so damn vanilla. Outside of his contemptuous statements about his users being "dumb fucks" when he was a kid, everything he does is a PR move. Having a child? Better make a social statement out of it. Headed to Nigeria? Better have someone take pictures. If you listen to Zuck obviously he's intelligent but he'll never say anything controversial or especially enlightening. He's had the world in his hands since he was 21 (or younger), never been challenged. What does that do to one's ego? Some of us talk too much and we've never ever done anything. What happens when you've been a billionaire since you were 25 or are worth $50 billion at 30? He's far more dangerous than Trump ever was. He's normalized invasions of privacy, has more information on people than anyone in the world save maybe some government agencies and Facebook has more clout than many countries. It'd be nice if Facebook was replaced by something better, but I hope people will stand up against what they are doing. It's unethical. If you ever combine that mindset with government, it's over. Maybe not by Zuckerberg but by the next Trump, which is the great irony in Zuckerberg and Facebook's social positions.
  • roschdal 10y ago
    Yes, I agree.
  • throwawaysed 10y ago
    Zucks rants about his dream for society scare the hell outta me. It's seriously 1984 type shit... the only way to create "safe" and "friendly" global communities is with bulletproof censorship. Some level of civil disobedience and public disagreement is needed for a properly functioning society. Look up China and "harmonious society" if you don't buy it. I wish Sergey or Larry from the Goog had such aspirations. At least from what I've read their intentions are pretty benign despite running such a huge monopoly.
  • dude01 10y ago
    I agree, but... I wonder if we're at peak-Facebook yet? All good things must come to an end. Maybe it will be Snapchat, or more likely a slow decline. I remember when Microsoft was at its peak, and seemed invincible. Facebook seems that way in social right now. I hope Zuck pulls a Gates and goes full-time philanthropic, but he might be too young for that.
• vslira 10y ago
  People's disregard for privacy and political mobilization[0] are a threat to Free Society. Facebook is just a symptom. [0] I can't blame FB for anything regarding the latter. Quite the opposite.
  • owly 10y ago
    True. People still choose to join FB and give their data/privacy away. I don't know what it would take for a rebellion or if there will ever be an open decentralized platform to replace it.
    • sova 10y ago
      Yes. I think that what must happen is a revolution of the value of one's private information. An open platform that made certain that information was only shared with particular "trusted nodes" and also was flushed from storage after a certain time would be cool. Like an information vault where your info was held, and you could selectively choose what fb could see and what must be deleted and re-cached in x many hours or days.
• hellbanner 10y ago
  Facebook has an unfathomable amount of data you say? Well, https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-venture-capital-firm-preview/ https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-venture... http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and-its-connections-to-the-cia-and-darpa http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and-its-...
  • kevando 10y ago
    Did you even read those links?
• bordercases 10y ago
  Late to the fuckin' party
• ruddct 10y ago
  Facebook is: * One of the most addictive products the world has ever seen (Opioids, another such product, were used to overthrow countries) * The single most important media company in the world * Controlled by one person Threat to free society? Jury's out. But at this point, it certainly seems worth regulating. (Edit: The above points are not meant to paint FB/Zuck in a bad light. To their credit, they've built an incredible ecosystem and a mind-bogglingly good product. We all strive to create sticky/addictive products. My point is: When your product is incredibly addictive to a large chunk of humanity, regulation should be considered)
  • cylinder 10y ago
    I was telling people last year (before the tide shifted against FB) that there will one day (decades away) be Big Tobacco style litigation by governments against Facebook for intentionally making their service addictive when they knew the harmful effects (e.g., depression). I did not expect the sentiment to change so dramatically but I guess people are looking to blame anyone for the election.
    • nojvek 10y ago
      I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. Google may have a chance of beating Apple at #1 but Facebook has quite a margin. Essentially both Facebook and Google are ads businesses. Facebook seems to be optimizing for short term growth at the expense of their brand. I know many people who joined Facebook around 2008 and absolutely were big fans of it. After 10 years none of them even use it, the novelty wore off.
      • mbesto 10y ago
        > I'm willing to bet in my lifetime Facebook will not become the world's largest company. PS - There's an easy way to bet on this, just buy some stock :) EDIT - Well, technically, you want to short the stock.
        • 10y ago
• darpa_escapee 10y ago
  Any kind of non-democratic for-profit organization is going to have incentives that don't align with "free society". When one of those organizations runs the top centralized content and communications silo, use it to censor, stalk its users and promote its or its sponsors interests, it becomes a threat.
  • fwn 10y ago
    Of course also democratic non-profit organizations wildly disalign with what one might call a "free society". Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition.
    • darpa_escapee 10y ago
      Non-democratic organizations inherently don't represent all parties and interests participating within it. If they did, they would be democratic organizations. A non-democratic organization will be influenced by, and will bend to the interests of, the few. A for-profit organization inherently has incentives that are perverse. Historically, the profit motive has incentivized things that run contrary to the well-being, and rights enjoyed by, society. It is profitable to censor, erode privacy, erode labor protections and rights, use psychological manipulation to influence the behavior of others and push negative externalities onto others. Yes, democratic non-profit organizations can misalign with a "free society". However, a non-democratic for-profit organization is fundamentally incompatible with the ideals expressed in the article. > Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition. Merriam-Webster works for most when colloquial definitions bottom out or are hard to recall.
• intrasight 10y ago
  Facebook let's me send and receive messages to friends. In what way is that a "media company" or any kind of threat?
• type0 10y ago
  This picture reminds me of a scene in a sci-fi flick called "Cypher" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/). I wonder if some other parallels could be applied to FB...
• twsted 10y ago
  Yes and "tech savvy" people should educate their friends when possible. Most of my friends, for instance, ignore that FB knows most of their web chronology through the omnipresent Like button. And we must fight the "I-have-nothing-to-hide" attitude.
• LoonyBalloony 10y ago
  Facebook? How about the CIA/NSA/ABC intelligence organizations? We're not at war with a country, why do we need a spy agency (much less several)? Roll personal and funding into the FBI (Note: this does not make me a fan of the FBI) so there is at least some public oversight.
  • samsonradu 10y ago
    Not that I want to defend any intelligence organisation but war is not a binary thing. Other countries might be harming your country even without you knowing it. Agencies try to prevent that from happening.
    • fwn 10y ago
      Who knows? They are certainly not going to tell. Secret services are rather secret about their services.
      • samsonradu 10y ago
        Indeed, who knows. But would it benefit the country if they released their ops reports?
        • fwn 10y ago
          Not an expert, but as secret stuff gets leaked it tends to create huge public discourse and leads to political action. Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country. Secret service staff would probably not necessarily evaluate it as a good effect though.
          • samsonradu 10y ago
            > Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country. Can you give me an example? Take the latest Wikileaks Vault thing for instance. That was a leak that created public discourse, what was the effect? I still don't trust my iPhone and pretty much most of the software I use, were any 3 letter agency looking to get me.
• elorant 10y ago
  The biggest problem with Facebook is that it's a walled in garden. Whatever you write there isn't accessible outside the web. It's not even searchable inside FB itself. I'm sure this is done on purpose, if people knew that the crap they write could be searchable they'd be much more reluctant to express themselves.
• hasenj 10y ago
  IMO this is a side product of the "software must be free" mentality. Frankly, software should not be free. When you let people give you things for free, you basically let them control you and take away your freedom.
  • wu-ikkyu 10y ago
    >When you let people give you things for free, you basically let them control you and take away your freedom. How is this different from proprietary software? Where you have no idea what's going on under the hood? Granted, "giving in order to get" is a common and effective social engineering tactic.
    • throwaway729 10y ago
      > How is this different from proprietary software? Most free software is proprietary software! Big chunks of Facebook's code base is proprietary, and the data they collect is extremely proprietary. Ditto for google. By "the expectation that software should be free", parent meant the expectation that you don't pay money for access to a hosted copy.
    • ksk 10y ago
      I believe the OP was talking about cost, not source code.
  • CaptainZapp 10y ago
    I'd wager that the FSF disagrees with your statement.
    • mynameisvlad 10y ago
      You don't say. Of course the Free Software Foundation is going to disagree with that statement.
      • jcbrand 10y ago
        The "Free" refers to freedom, not price. Facebook is not freedom-respecting software as defined by the FSF.
• notacoward 10y ago
  (Disclosure: I have accepted a job offer at Facebook, but not yet started) Does Facebook really have a unique amount of data? Google also knows a lot about people through billions of searches a day. Apple can learn a lot through people's iDevices, and Google (again) or Samsung can do the same with Android. So can any cellular service provider, or anyone running coax or fiber into your home. The government can tap any or all of those. At least Facebook doesn't have an army, or paramilitaries like DHS or just about any sheriff's department I've ever encountered. I'm not saying the author's concerns are invalid. I've had occasion to think about these exact issues a lot, and I'm sure many of my soon-to-be colleagues have too. The way I see it, Facebook and other social media occupy much the same position as phone companies used to, both in terms of how they facilitate interaction and in their privileged financial/infrastructural positions they occupy. There's good in that (e.g. ability to pursue the kinds of speculative projects that Bell Labs was famous for). There are also dangers, no question. The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else. There's no shortage of others ready to step in if Facebook alone were targeted with laws and regulations. Instead of worrying about Facebook specifically, we need to think about what a modern "common carrier" law should look like in the social-media age. Perhaps some kinds of regulations on use of information do make sense, but that dialog isn't likely to be very constructive so long as most of the people on one side seem to be free-market fundamentalists betraying their own principles by singling out one company among many.
  • throwawaymaroon 10y ago
    rationalizing duplicity imagine what you'll tell the grandkids
  • foepys 10y ago
    Facebook has the advantage that its users connect themselves with their friends, colleagues, and relatives. The users also give Facebook nearly all data about themselves (full name, phone number, date of birth, mother, father, etc.). People organize their events and talk about everything related to their lives. Facebook also provides their newsfeed and can track what they click and, most importantly, like. Unless you have a Gmail or a Google+ account Google has to guess. Google can guess pretty well but they still have to guess instead of just know. You search for something on Google and then go there. Facebook keeps you on its site and encourages you to comment on Facebook which then incentivizes others to stay on Facebook, too.
• throwawaymaroon 10y ago
  Duh.
• cafard 10y ago
  I have recently created an account, having resisted up until now with the excuse that my son, then a teenager, said that it was "creepy" when persons of my generation were on Facebook. He informs me, however, that persons his age are leaving Facebook in favor of SnapChat and Instagram. (I have so far spent all my Facebook time looking into what would be required to use its OAuth functions.)
• decasteve 10y ago
  The threat is that Facebook has become too big to fail. A major leak of private data and messages of its users would be devastating to society given the scale. What happens if/when Facebook fails as a company? What happens to the data then? It gets sold off. That's a scary prospect. Facebook is in the fickle game of Internet advertising. When the noise overcomes the signal in what Facebook shows, when the content of the users' connections gets drowned out to advertising, people will leave in droves. When advertisers fail to see the return on their investment, the money will dry up.
  • lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
    What data can facebook possible have that would "devastating" in a leak scenario? Facebook has only what users have put on the site to share, and all data present is at least semipublic. There are no addresses, no bank accounts, no SSNs. The valuable part of facebook is already freely available: your list of "liked" pages and your social graph.
    • sfRattan 10y ago
      It's very reductive to claim that only addresses, bank account [numbers], and SSNs could be dangerous if leaked. What about people who discuss private matters in chat? (e.g. sexuality, medical history, drug use, etc.) Yes, we know that's a bad idea, but most people aren't HN readers. What about state actors using Facebook's metadata alone to quash democratic movements before they get off the ground?[1] To advertisers, most of the social graph is available only in a semi-abstracted form (e.g. target X, Y, and Z qualities and degrees of connection). A leak or sale could make that information available directly. What about criminals using a public leak of location data and some predictive algorithms to strategically rob homes? (and maybe also using patterns of likes and connections to predict whose home is worth burgling?) Really, to say that the valuable part of Facebook is already freely available brings to mind the words "limited imagination." Facebook keeps the valuable part to itself and meters even limited access to it. And there is extensive danger with the possibility of a leak or sale of the raw data. [1]: https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-find-paul-revere/ https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...
• alistproducer2 10y ago
  The events of the last couple of years caused me to evaluate the psychological toll that me self-induced exposure to media, of all forms, was taking. I came to the conclusion that with social media, mankind was participating in the largest social experiment of all time and just hoping that things turned out well. I decided the results, so far, have not been promising and I no longer wanted to participate. I deleted my FB and canceled cable. Now I chose what I'm exposed to. I advise more people to do the same.
  • timthelion 10y ago
    Unfortunately, HN is addictive too.
    • mrkgnao 10y ago
      HN does have a noprocrast timeout available, although it's almost undocumented.
      • oaktowner 10y ago
        Whoa. Had never heard of that. Check [0] if you, like me, hadn't. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
      • timthelion 10y ago
        Usefull
  • kordless 10y ago
    I'm ahead of you by 6 years. ;)
    • aytekin 10y ago
      8 years here. :) Funny Story. I had to create a new FB account recently so I can give them money(advertise) but I didn't want people to friend me. So, I put a short version of my name. But somehow they figured out that I didn't give the correct name and suspended the account. So much for trying to give them money. :)
• adrianlmm 10y ago
  I think Google is more of a threat than Facebook.
• TruthHawk 10y ago
  Backup here: http://archive.is/AUZrG http://archive.is/AUZrG
• simplehuman 10y ago
  Strongly disagree. Facebook is not the threat. It's individuals who make decisions to sell their data in search of convenience. Maybe individuals make this decision out of ignorance but pretty much everyone in Western world is on Facebook, so I have to think that people consciously trade their data. Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat.
  • jacquesm 10y ago
    > Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat. No, but network effects are a thing and you can't open a webpage these days without a Facebook 'like' button on it. (Well, ok, you can but they are definitely getting rarer and rarer.)
    • simplehuman 10y ago
      Sure, but this is what the majority of the population has opted for.
      • jacquesm 10y ago
        You wouldn't believe the amount of pressure that people put on each other to sign up for Facebook. In some of my circles I'm next to invisible because I'm not 'on facebook'. That's never going to work on me but I can't fault people for giving in and going with the flow. Still, in many cases it's not as voluntary as it might seem to be to you, just like it almost is no longer voluntary not to have a phone, not to have email and not to have internet access. Theoretically you should be able to live your life without those, but in practice it is getting harder all the time and a choice against any or all of these comes with a social price that not everybody is willing to pay.
        • simplehuman 10y ago
          I don't disagree with your comment (in fact, I face the same issues in my life). My point is that we have to accept we live in a democracy and there is probably nothing we can do. It turns out that this is just our personal preference. To give some examples: * Cars everywhere. Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution. * Gmail everywhere. Nobody cares that your email gets marked as spam if you pick some other email provider. People will just ask you to switch to gmail. * Chrome everywhere. Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well. * Waste and opulence everywhere. Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans. My point is that this is humanity. All these are individual decisions and not pushed down by corporations. But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level.
• chrischen 10y ago
  I don't think Zuckerberg is malicious, nor are people working at or in control of facebook. However, that doesn't exclude the whole system from being bad for society, just like the constituents of of viruses or cancers are just benevolent atoms and electrons.
  • xatan_dank 10y ago
    Regardless of whether they are malicious, their actions are causing significant societal harm. Zuckerberg retains almost complete control of the company and this is occurring under his guidance. He might not be malicious, but he is certainly at fault, as are the ridiculous and shameful engineers picking up paychecks to create a such an authoritarian product.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    If they're not malicious, then they're criminally negligent.
• rrggrr 10y ago
  Black box warnings exist in the drug industry because its understood people do not understand complex risks and they don't read the fine print. Facebook IS a threat only because many of its users are sharing information ignorant of the risks. HIPAA exists in healthcare because its understood data can be misused to the great detriment of patients. Facebook IS a threat only because its users have no recourse over the misuse of their information. Products liability laws exist for manufactured goods because raising the costs of failure to protect your customers results in safer products, and because it decreases government's obligation to support injured consumers. Facebook IS a threat only because there is no cost associated with injuring users, and little awareness of how Facebook is injurious. Its a systemic issue beyond Facebook. Legislative reform is required.
• jimmytucson 10y ago
  I find it amusing that news media outlets are stoking fear and resentment over the government hacking technology to spy on us when the information it gathers is a mere shaving of what corporations like Alphabet and Facebook have access to on the back end. How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded, private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or arguably yourself)? Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic government agency led by Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher in artificial intelligence, who owns the index to the entire internet, and creates things like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c? Why is Wikileaks working so hard to protect these companies?
  • throwaway729 10y ago
    > How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded, private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or arguably yourself)? It's not preferable, but it's less worrying. It's less worrying because companies can't legally throw you in jail or take all your money or kill you. And scary robotics promo videos aside, they aren't in command of the world's most powerful military and an enormous police force to boot. If at any time they threaten you in a meaningful way, you can freely leave their services. If things get particularly bad -- like, worst case scenario -- you can even flee to a part of the world where they have less influence. Government does not provide you any of those options. People are right to be more worried about government intrusion than private intrusion. (They are of course also wrong to be unworried about private intrusion.) > Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic government agency led by Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher in artificial intelligence If it comes down to a forced choice, I'd much prefer Page or Brin over Trump. At least the former two are on IMO the correct side of existential issues -- nuclear arms, global warming, and so forth. (Of course, as indicated above, I'd prefer neither.)
    • dredmorbius 10y ago
      It's less worrying because companies can't legally throw you in jail or take all your money or kill you. But they do this all the time. Sometimes illegally, sometimes with full force of law. The settlement of the Americas, through what might be considered a public-private partnership on the part of several nations (Spain, Portugal, England, France, Holland, Russia, largely), resulted in the genocide of a native population once numbering perhaps 40 - 50 millions. What this lacks in the intensity of nuclear annihilation, it greatly exceeds in magnitude. The public-private partnership of Belgium in the Congo saw untold atrocities, including the unhanding of hundreds of thousands or millions of Congo natives. See Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness. Or of England, the East India Company, its private government and army within India, and the Opium Wars against China -- chemical, biolical, and conventional war against two entire cultures. Labour unionisation, a concept and principle defended by Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and other classical economists, say violent opposition by factory and mine owners particularly in the UK and United States. U.S. Steel, the West Virginia Mountain Wars, the Wobblies, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, and more. Industrial accidents have killed or destroyed many tens or hundreds of thousands: the Halifax, Galveston, Port Chicago, and West, Texas, explosions -- some entirely private, some public-private partnerships. Mining accidents claimed an average of greater than 2,000 lives/year for much of the first half of the 20th century, statistics tabulated by the US Department of Labour, and available online. That's on the order of 100,000 souls over the century, virtually all of their deaths preventable. The Union Carbide Bhopol disaster. Dam failures, including Johnstown, in the United States (this was the instigation of the Red Cross as a disaster releif organisation, and of significant concepts expanding liability law). For public-private parternships, the Vajont dam disaster, claiming 2500 lives. And showing that poor management, planning, engineering, and response aren't solely the remit of nominally capitalist societies, the Banqiao Dam disaster of 1975, in China, in which some 170,000 souls perished, on par with your nuclear bombing example, though it was but 25 thousands who died immediately from drowning, the others were lost due to starvation and disease in the following weeks -- as I said, exceedingly poor planning and response. There's the US housing bubble leading up to the 2007-8 global financial crisis, and the robosigning and fraudulent documentation depriving people of their very homes. For raw corporate aggression, I'd suggest the Johnson County War: On April 5, 1892, 52 armed men rode a private, secret train north from Cheyenne. Just outside Casper, Wyo., they switched to horseback and continued north toward Buffalo, Wyo., the Johnson County seat. Their mission was to shoot or hang 70 men named on a list carried by Frank Canton, one of the leaders of this invading force. I've written on this previously: https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka There is the insidious poisoning of millions through lead, asbestos, tobacco, mercury, and dioxins, both generally and across specific sites, all whilst paid corporate shills actively and deliberately sowed confusion on the matter, knowing full well that their position was false. Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway have covered much of this history excellently in Merchants of Doubt. And there's the little matter of carbon dioxide emissions and their effects on global tempeatures and ocean chemistry, known since the 1880s, and recognised as a major threat since the 1950s, but still actively denied by numerous interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they share it with.
• faragon 10y ago
  I can't wait for Facebook, or LinkedIn, selling "backchat protection" or equivalent...
• arca_vorago 10y ago
  Yes, it is, and I'll tell you why: Freedom and freedom for a society, in a modern information age, relies on the individuals that make up that society having control of that information. Any instance where they cede that control en masse is a structural threat to that freedom. The reasons are mostly irrelevant, because we can argue that people know what they are doing, or that they were manipulated into that position, but it doesn't matter, the fact is that they are giving up their informational control to a third party who then owns it. People need to start taking control of their information, and hackers like us need to stop perpetuating the mantra that privacy is dead and it's too late. I could very easily imagine infrastructures setup to protect peoples control of their own information, but it tend to not be the most business friendly, or government friendly. Since when did hackers become so beholden to business interests? Lopht/codc warned everyone, but nobody listened, and then all the old schoolers got older and started chasing money, I mean mudge was working at darpa (it seems he is trying to do good things, but from inside the system). It's time to find that counter-business, pro-freedom resistence strain of hacking again and make it bigger. Also, there is a reason in-q-tel, the cia's venture capitol arm, invested in facebook and google at the first stages... Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start. I'm not hopeles though, I think people vastly underestimate the weakness of systems like reddit, facebook, etc. The long arc of the universe tends towards justice, and they will collapse under their own dystopias. Freedom is the real sustainable ecosystem. Individual freedom. Under individual freedom, the intellectual freedom to come up with novel solutions and apply them in novel ways is exponentially more likely than under some 1984 surveillance security engine. Freedom is therefore the strongest weapon in the fight against evil and in the fight for survival.
  • laughingman2 10y ago
    > The long arc of the universe tends towards justice ? Is there any philosophical view point which thinks so? But according to natural science doesn't universe tends to entropy (granted entropy doesn't translate directly to lack of justice but still..)? > Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start What course do you recommend to promote GPL adoption to tip the balance towards it? .. should people refuse to release closed source software in corporations? Personally I would love to live in utopia where all code is free, cooperation trumping competition ..
• kordless 10y ago
  > Remember that Facebook feeds are not chronological. Facebook decides what posts you see, and who sees your posts. Not my posts. I don't have a Facebook account.
  • dredmorbius 10y ago
    Over 1 billion people do, and the information they're being fed is influencing elections in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, at a minimum.
    • kordless 10y ago
      At a minimum. Worth repeating.
      • dredmorbius 10y ago
        Nearly 2, having read TFA. But yes.
• partycoder 10y ago
  Well, Facebook is not so much of a threat as WeChat is in China. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8 Basically all apps converge into WeChat, and there is absolutely no way to avoid it.
• chiefofgxbxl 10y ago
  With the average American now spending 40 minutes on Facebook per day [0], it may be worth checking out this TedX talk: Distracted? Let's make technology that helps us spend our time well | Tristan Harris [1] (he speaks of a good design example at 4:00 in). It's astounding that this average means that roughly an entire day is wasted each month essentially scrolling through a newsfeed. [0] http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average-time-spent-2015-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average-time... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4
  • jononor 10y ago
    Has time spent watching TV gone down by more than 40 minutes? "Wasting" time is not very new...
    • throwaway29292 10y ago
      Exactly, I'm confused by all these statistics of 'x minutes of facebook per day'. We can't measure other unproductive activities that ALL humans indulge in, it's not as if society will suddenly start producing PhDs by the dozen if we ban Facebook.
• DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  When I was a kid in the 70s I remember reading a national magazine article about another kid my age who had his own computer. Amazing! This was something I wanted. Reading on, it described how he had built his computer from electronics and operated it from his attic. He had quite a few programs for his computer. One he liked the most allowed him to simulate buying and selling of stocks. If you've ever read any ads from that period, the implication is clear: computers are awesome because they are going to challenge us to become better people. They will teach us at a speed we can learn, they will reward us as we progress, and the obstacles and learning will get more and more advanced. People who don't have computers are going to be missing out -- on self development. Contrast that to my trip the other day by commercial air travel. Everywhere I went, people were on their phones. Were they learning foreign languages? Becoming experts at symbolic logic or global politics? They were not. Instead they were playing the stupidest games imaginable. Facebooking, taking quizzes where any moron with the ability to type would get 90% correct -- and then sharing the results with their friends. Zuck and others figured it out. Computers don't have to be computers. They have to be video games. Who gives a shit whether the guy on the other end is learning to be a better person. Challenge them with idiotic trivial tasks, then reward them with blinky lights, sound effects, and the imagined praise of their peers. They'll do that shit all day long. All they need is more batteries. Yes. It's a problem.
  • 31reasons 10y ago
    Facebook is the only tech company I feel very reluctant to work for. It feels so dystopian.
    • simplehuman 10y ago
      As opposed to Google that does the same? I am kinda surprised facebook has not given out free email ids yet.
      • no_wizard 10y ago
        they tried. It failed. http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5443454/facebook-retires-its-email-service http://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5443454/facebook-retires-i...
• _pmf_ 10y ago
  Yes, just as TV and rock music were harbingers of the downfall of Western civilization.
• 65827 10y ago
  All mega corps area a threat to freedom, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple. Google is the one that is really fucking scary, they've started deciding which parts of the network are tasteful and which are not, regardless of your feelings on anything that should be highly disturbing to everyone.
• known 10y ago
  "If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." --Reagan
• sushobhan 10y ago
  Have a different view on this,fb is a publicly traded company, its not only man (Zuckerberg) show. Though Mark got supreme power but I'm sure its not him behind every single decision. But if we talk about a single company having so much data, that's a threat for sure. As it's not in our hand we can just expect fb to understand, with great power comes greater responsibility.
• bantunes 10y ago
  For me, the scariest bit is that I tell people about this (techies and non-techies alike) and they are made aware of the consequences of their every move being tracked and they still don't care. At all. We're either collectively retarded and it will take very little to rule us all, or venturing toward a society where privacy simply does not exist but it's... fine? Can society adapt to this and someone having a sextape or their browser history leaked be no big deal to anyone? I don't know which is scarier.
  • kakarot 10y ago
    One problem is that most people decide very early on in their life that they will keep their heads down and never question the violent totalitarian authority that controls them, and thus see no reason why the government would use this data against them. But then you try the insurance / health care angle and they still just don't care. We've been raised this way. Raised to be like scared children who do not know how to look towards the future or how to accurately assess any complex situation not immediately under their area of expertise
• gthtjtkt 10y ago
  It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing Ourselves to Death: http://a.co/frMmE2s http://a.co/frMmE2s “We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us. This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”
  • astrange 10y ago
    > It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing Ourselves to Death: Sounds like the audience of depressed pedants on this website will save us, then.
    • rs86 10y ago
      This sounded pedant
• tunesmith 10y ago
  I deleted Facebook from my phone a while ago, and don't miss it. I've been surprised how much I don't miss it, honestly - I get less notifications and haven't been tempted to reinstall it once. The website is another matter. I felt reluctant to cut the cord entirely. At least visiting the website feels more deliberate than reacting to all the phone notifications. But shortly after the election, I did log out, and kept myself logged out for a while. My fingers would still take me to the page, but the login screen would remind me, and I'd close the tab. I finally logged back in a couple of weeks ago. I do feel like I've noticed a couple of subtle differences. I think the political discussions are a lot less useful than I used to think. I especially think my friends posting political awareness posts are less useful than I used to think. No sense preaching to the choir unless it's actual surprising information. I think the months off started to make me feel less like a Democrat and more independent (although far from Trumpy-Republican.) I'm more free-speech and less boycotty. I'm less tempted to unfriend people that voted differently than I did. I generally believe that the most ridiculous opinions I see in comment threads on facebook are... well, I have no way of knowing whether those comments are by real people or by bots. So I feel less like engaging with them. Facebook is more enjoyable when you use it to connect with your friends - sharing photos, good personal news, etc. Current events, not so much.
  • rekshaw 10y ago
    I highly recommend the News Feed Eradicator plugin. It substitutes the News Feed with a quote of the day. That way you can keep up to date with PMs/Events without getting distracted by other peoples lives.
• jtraffic 10y ago
  Ironic that I visited HN deliberately to avoid working on my dissertation? I've been off of FB for years. This article seems overblown to me. Though, yesterday on NPR I heard a prof speaking about a survey where 48% of teenagers who were asked would rather have a broken BONE than a broken PHONE. But FB isn't the only reason teens are so attached to phones.
• mcrad 10y ago
  Yes, but the upside of this "tool for political power" is the threat it puts on established media. Surely, expansion of liberal bias in our newspapers over the last 50 years is a bigger problem than the social media effect(?)
• dredmorbius 10y ago
  Apologies for a grab-bag of links and references, but the fundamental question is one I've been thinking about, and researching, extensively over the past six months, though it's occupied me long before as well. The realisation I had shortly before the US election was that all major changes in media seem to be associated with profound changes in human societies, often tremendously disruptive. Going back to the development of speech itself (better communications => better toolmaking => better weapons-making and military tactics). Writing, ever cheaper and lighter media, printing, literacy, mass media, broadcast, electronic, and online/mobile media, now with AI and A/B enhancements, all the more so. Elizabeth Eisenstein & others on have explicitly realised this. See also: H.L. Menkin, Walter Lippman, John Dewey, de Bon, Mackay, Bernays, McLuhan, Chomsky, Jerry Mander, Niel Postman, Michael & Joyce Heusemann, Clay Shirky, Danah Boyd, Plato, esp. the Sophists "A Revolution in Media" https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g A friend has come up with an observation I've been calling Woozle's Paradox of Epistemic Systems: as the size (and power) of a media audience grows, more parties will be attracted to it for the purposes of influencing that audience. (And Facebook is the largest single media audience on the planet.) https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep... Another set of concepts is that Data are liability and "Who are you?" is the most expensive question in inforation technology. No matter how you get it wrong, you're fucked. #45's Twitter account is as secure as Google's gmail account security. The same which failed when John Podesta's account password was phished. security Scale effects and phase transitions are also profound. As I've had the opportunity to note in several recent HN conversations, both scale and rate matter. Just because Y is "the same as X" doesn't mean that Y is X, if the rate of change is 10x, or 100x, or 1000x, or 1,000,000x greater. A 10x change gets you from walking speed to a car. 100x is an aircraft. 1,000x is an ICBM. The Tsar Bomba is Greek Fire ... at scale. Unintended consequences are the ultimate "hygiene factor" of technology. Ted Unungst's post on HN today walks through a set of cases of just these, the point being that those consequences cannot be known in advance. (Though I'm working on a framework which suggests how they might be better anticipated in at least some cases.) I've covered these and related points in some recent-ish HN comments: "media and revolution" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972 "media and revolution" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903 "journalism" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938 "data physics" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423 And there's a bit of a grab-bag post touching on elements here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_of_the_lair_2017/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_o... (I'm working on a more comprehensive post or series on this topic ... there's a lot to cover, and to discard....)
• jwolfhn 10y ago
  Yes, the lack of ethics review boards for research on FB users is reprehensible. Hardly any of the internal research would be approved by ethics boards for publically funded research on human subjects. Many people who use FB have no idea what freedoms they are giving up, how their information is being (mis)used, or how they are being manipulated. What alternatives to FB exist?
• sunny1304 10y ago
  Facebook has become a virus that can destroy a whole generation.
• charles-salvia 10y ago
  Google essentially has an entire monopoly on how information enters our brains. They exert complete control over Internet search for almost everyone on Earth outside of China, Russia and South Korea. Granted, Google is not exclusively controlled by a single individual in the same way Facebook is, but the same argument made in this article could be or could have been made about numerous absurdly influential companies throughout recent history.
  • human_error 10y ago
    South Korea?
    • charles-salvia 10y ago
      http://www.naver.com/ http://www.naver.com/
• slim 10y ago
  We'll make sure there will be laws governing social trade. Facebook will have to obey. It can't be kept unregulated, Injustice will thrive
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• bogomipz 10y ago
  Wow that pic of Zuckerberg is really messianic looking, even without the suggestion imposed by the title of the post.
• enknamel 10y ago
  What worries me is when Facebook and Google both decide to insert themselves into politics. I definitely saw Google trying to influence the last election. I would constantly get push notifications to my phone with anti Trump news. These were the very first and only push notifications I received from Google News. There's also the question of "Fake News" on Facebook. You could conceivably abuse their reporting system to bury articles you don't want people to see. This already happens quite a bit on YouTube where people will mass report videos for copyright infringement just to get them taken down. If we rely entirely on these global channels for our world information they could conceivably shape our world view to their benefit. It's a scary proposition.
• shmerl 10y ago
  Facebook is a threat to privacy, and by hoarding too much information about people, it has power to use it against them (or be used by others against them). The rest are consequences. Solution is also obvious - don't use Facebook, and switch to decentralized social networks. It's not an easy solution though, because of inertia and network effects. However it won't solve the human factor. I.e. people willingly trading their privacy. Once they do it, crooks would find a way to exploit that.
• WWKong 10y ago
  I get the point of the article but "facebook" could be replaced by "computing" and we could ask, "Are computers a structural threat to free society?". Ultimately we could conclude, "Humans are the biggest threat to Society/Humanity".
  • olleromam91 10y ago
    This argument can certainly be made. Would you rather rid the world of humans, or facebook? =P
• zby 10y ago
  One thing is the influence of Facebook on the USA population and on politics there. This is dangerous - but I am sure that it will be reined in. It is yet another thing for non USA residents. With Facebook all the notions of sovereignty go down the drains.
• Kenji 10y ago
  Do you know what's a structural threat to free society? Regulating free enterprise like online communities where people voluntarily intermingle.
• dredmorbius 10y ago
  Related, a freshly-former US Attorney from Chicago: gun violence spreads over social media. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Untitled-NOTSET.html#document/p1 https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Unt...
• owly 10y ago
  Deleted FB a few years ago, I haven't missed it for a second. I thought we reached peak FB about a year ago and was obviously wrong. I honestly don't understand why people can't communicate directly with each other given the insane amount of tools available and how cheap data, domains and services have become. There is absolutely an "us vs. them" going on between those who are on FB and those who have opted out. I'd love to get more people to opt out and this article is one of the better arguments out there. For those who want to try a true block of FB and all its works, try this... https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...
  • banterfoil 10y ago
    I too am not a user of Facebook, but I think for a different reason. It's interesting that you cited an "insane amount of tools available" as being an alternative to Facebook. Isn't Facebook one of those tools?
  • macintux 10y ago
    I really wish this weren't being reframed as an "opt out" discussion. The article is expressing valid concerns about the collective impact of FB. Opting out, even in large numbers, won't change the fact that the company has tremendous, unchecked influence on our lives.
    • owly 10y ago
      I really believe if people left FB in significantly large numbers to something else with better practices, FB would be compelled to change. Even if they didn't change, at least you would not be a part of their bad privacy practices/manipulation/etc.
• __jal 10y ago
  This is close to the platonic ideal-article for HN. Big, grand, non-falsifiable argument about current tech darling/source of controversy; endless opportunities to parse phrasing and argue edge cases.
• unclebucknasty 10y ago
  Glad to see them mention the virtual reality piece, although I think the implications are vastly understated. Look at that photo of a room full of people; voluntarily absent this reality and immersed in another of one man's creation. Notice how that man is the only one not in his virtual reality, but instead "overseeing" those who are. And, we all know how addictive VR will be, once it hits a certain point. Sends a chill up my spine.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• known 10y ago
  Dopamine is the culprit
• dkarapetyan 10y ago
  The human reward function is all jacked up. We keep looking to mesianic liars as leaders and willingly give up personal power and freedom in exchange for the feeling of safety and group belonging. Facebook is not the cause. It is merely the symptom.
• EGreg 10y ago
  The same can be said about any centralized service. The difference is facebook wants to sap your time and make you addicted to checking your newsfeed. There are far better ways to make money (as Google does). Why do these authors automatically assume that the more time you spend on facebook, the more money they make? I hardly ever click on faceboon ads. The thing lacking is intent to buy.
• rekshaw 10y ago
  I highly recommend News Feed Eradictor. It substitutes the news feed with an inspiring quote, that way you can use Facebook only for PMs and Events.
• golergka 10y ago
  Step one: admit, and put it into a public consciousness, that Facebook is a monopoly. I'm a right wing free market advocate, but even I'm not a fanatic - and believe that when a single company grows to control the whole industry, it should be regulated. "Facebook is monopoly" needs to become a meme - this will help people from all the political spectrum on board to regulate it.