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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 deci

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.
      - jacquesm 10y ago
        > Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution. Plenty of people do. > 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. Yes, that's one more example of network effects at work. > Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well. True, but then they'll lose me as a potential customer. They probably don't care so point taken. > Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans. The worst to me are things that are manufactured in order to be thrown away. Tools that are so bad you can't use them even once, consumer goods whose sole feature is they are created to be presents that nobody ever uses afterwards, packaging, mountains of packaging, all kinds of disposable paper goods. It's incredible. Have you watched the movie "The age of stupid?" If you have try to reconcile that with the current head of the EPA being who he is... So even if those decisions are all made - in principle - of people's own volition our views of the world and our actions in it are shaped to a fairly large extent by governments, corporate entities and media (this comment being a part of that because of the reference to the movie above). > But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level. Some people are. Generalizations are hard.
gozur88 10y ago
>It's individuals who make decisions to sell their data in search of convenience. Here's the problem: They're selling your data, too. If you have an average social life, your picture will end up on Facebook. People will click on the little box around your head and put in your name. They may mention you or discuss you in the comments. With enough of that kind of stuff, Facebook knows you exist, what you look like, and where you like to hang out. It can make educated guesses at other things like whether you went to college and where, plus all the things you can derive from pictures like age, ethnicity, and weight. Social networks really are networks, and you can know a lot about a network node from its neighbors.
jack9 10y ago
Is media a structural threat? No. Facebook is a very very weak form of media. So no. The huge response of sentiment about how it is (or might be or whatever) is silly. Grand statements about people's feelings as the premise for these gushes about personal distaste and fears and elitist cliches are used throughout: > 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. The society does have control. The questions are always about truth or validity, but there's no critical thought applied to the pretty words. Mediocrity masquerading as greatness again.

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.
    - jacquesm 10y ago
      > Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution. Plenty of people do. > 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. Yes, that's one more example of network effects at work. > Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well. True, but then they'll lose me as a potential customer. They probably don't care so point taken. > Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans. The worst to me are things that are manufactured in order to be thrown away. Tools that are so bad you can't use them even once, consumer goods whose sole feature is they are created to be presents that nobody ever uses afterwards, packaging, mountains of packaging, all kinds of disposable paper goods. It's incredible. Have you watched the movie "The age of stupid?" If you have try to reconcile that with the current head of the EPA being who he is... So even if those decisions are all made - in principle - of people's own volition our views of the world and our actions in it are shaped to a fairly large extent by governments, corporate entities and media (this comment being a part of that because of the reference to the movie above). > But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level. Some people are. Generalizations are hard.

gozur88 10y ago

>It's individuals who make decisions to sell their data in search of convenience. Here's the problem: They're selling your data, too. If you have an average social life, your picture will end up on Facebook. People will click on the little box around your head and put in your name. They may mention you or discuss you in the comments. With enough of that kind of stuff, Facebook knows you exist, what you look like, and where you like to hang out. It can make educated guesses at other things like whether you went to college and where, plus all the things you can derive from pictures like age, ethnicity, and weight. Social networks really are networks, and you can know a lot about a network node from its neighbors.

jack9 10y ago

Is media a structural threat? No. Facebook is a very very weak form of media. So no. The huge response of sentiment about how it is (or might be or whatever) is silly. Grand statements about people's feelings as the premise for these gushes about personal distaste and fears and elitist cliches are used throughout: > 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. The society does have control. The questions are always about truth or validity, but there's no critical thought applied to the pretty words. Mediocrity masquerading as greatness again.