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I think what many people don't know or understand, is that facebook is not the internet. So when you write something at facebook you ask a company to host your
by JepZ 9y ago
I think what many people don't know or understand, is that facebook is not the internet.
So when you write something at facebook you ask a company to host your story under their domain. And as the company is held responsible for what they host, they have to review everything before publishing it.
When we wrote forum posts back in the day, it was no different. If the forum operator didn't like what you wrote, he just deleted your post. So if you wanted to post something nobody wanted on his website you just made your own website.
And so it is today. Unless you want to periodically write hate posts you should be able to find a web hoster or ISP to share your opinion with the world. The only misconception is that because facebook is such a large 'forum', everybody thinks it cuts his right of free speech when facebook does not want to host his opinion.
Yes, I know that many people use facebook as their primary means of communication and that therefore their channel to the world is 'censored'. And Actually I have no simple solution to this problem, as my solution would involve to not use facebook in the first place.
So I think there is a difference between a moderated facebook 'forum' and a censored internet, which some countries have and which is a real danger to the freedom of speech.
- mtarnovan 9y agoYou seem to miss two important points: facebook provides a) convenience (most people can't be expected to find a web hoster to "share their opinion with the world", especially in the age of social networks) and b) enormous reach
- Raphmedia 9y ago> I think what many people don't know or understand, is that facebook is not the internet. Once, I had a debate online with someone. I linked them an external (non-facebook) link. Their reply was "sorry, my data-plan only covers Facebook". That to me is very scary. This means that a lot of people like that individual are getting their online content from Facebook's trending news and nothing else.
- voltagex_ 9y agoI wonder what plan that was - wasn't there a "free" Internet thing planned that'd only allow access to Facebook? Time to start tunnelling data.
- richardknop 9y agoI have seen plans like this in multiple countries around the world. You buy sim card and have let's say 1 GB mobile traffic per day but Facebook/Youtube/Instagram is not counted into it so you can watch unlimited Youtube videos and use Facebook as much as you like. Quite scary, it will trap people in these walled gardens even more because of how these plans are structured.
- jgtrosh 9y agoMy first mobile data plan had 200MB of data + unlimited Facebook usage. This was in France around 2011. It now seems weird with all the net neutrality talks (and vastly improved mobile data plans thanks to the push from Free), but it seemed pretty normal at the time.
- icelancer 9y ago>I think what many people don't know or understand, is that facebook is not the internet. The Internet is whatever people will engage with. That is something the creators and early adopters (30-50 year olds) will have to come to grips with, as we did when Gopher and other protocols were ignored.
- _Tev 9y agoPeople engage with many more sites than just facebook.