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The problem is that users see Facebook in a different way than Facebook sees itself. Users see a fun website where they can post pictures of their dog. Facebook

The problem is that users see Facebook in a different way than Facebook sees itself. Users see a fun website where they can post pictures of their dog. Facebook sees ways to get companies to pay for access to those users. That disconnect is at the heart of all the issues around Facebook. Looks like it is time for my 2-monthly repost of The Seven Realities of Social Networking. https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_networking.html https://sheep.horse/2013/10/the_seven_realities_of_social_ne...

TheCapeGreek 9y ago
Good summary of the realities. Also the drawing is 10/10.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
394852034 9y ago
It's kind of a typical abusive relationship where one party sees not only the relationship fundamentally with a different light, but one party is quite duplicitous and nefarious and abusive and manipulative in their interactions with intent of deception and keeping a comfortable and useful situation going for them while they prey on their usually naive and gullible and rather delusional victim. It's the typical naive girl or boy dating a cheating, lying, player ... only a global, systemic, humanity impacting level never before witnessed or experienced by humanity. On a side note; Apple has the opportunity to not only massively grow themselves, but also totally crush Facebook and Twitter if they were to build a product that centers control and power over information and data and content as much as possible with the users that generate it. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are revealing themselves as not just being a cute little mole, but full blown metastasized melanoma that must be treated immediately or it will invariably kill freedom and liberty on a scale and level that has also never been witnessed by humanity; a totalitarianism that will be virtually total in its surveillance and control and domination with zero ability for anyone to even object. The era of Techtalitarians is upon us.
throwmenow_0140 9y ago
This sums up my opinion about Facebook and how to properly use it without having to resort to Nietzsche or Freud. Neat link, thanks.
- cat199 9y ago
  but always kafka..
  - jackhack 9y ago
    and Orwell. If facebook were human, we'd rightly deem it a sociopath for its manipulative behaviour, callus disregard for impact and effect, grandiosity, and cold scheming behavior.
bitofhope 9y ago
Those are good points, but the post does come across as a little apologetic. Serving the paying customers should not absolve you from responsibility for the data collecting. Reductio ad absurdum: a hitman's job is not to be concerned with the well-being of their targets, but to serve the paying client. This doesn't make killing people for money not evil, because the business model is inherently unethical. Facebook is not non-evil for collecting user data to target their customers' ads. I think the entire foundation for their business is unethical. I agree with the points of the article, save for #7, but I think it's unfortunate Facebook doesn't have to take more responsibility for the data collecting they have pioneered and continue to do.
- throwmenow_0140 9y ago
  Agree. I'm living in Europe and there are people who value their privacy and talk about it loudly. I don't expect that global companies hinder their growth without regulation forcing it. That's the reason we fight for our right for privacy and use the only language they understand: financial penalties. Murder is illegal here. Now we do the same with privacy. We're in power, not them. It's not the job of the hitman to be ethical (although it would be nice). It's the job of our society to fight for our values.
- rossdavidh 9y ago
  I think the issue is that Facebook, unlike a hitman, is providing a service to the user, the user just isn't paying for that service.
  - hakanensari 9y ago
    The service is essentially public, like education, health, and roads. We would benefit if it could be managed and paid for publicly. The only issue is that Facebook's scope is transnational, so you can't solve this locally or nationally. The same argument probably applies to similar platforms that facilitate "public discourse." Perhaps something under the UN umbrella will eventually emerge to fill this vacant space—not unlike how nation-states nationalised railways in the nineteenth century?
Clubber 9y ago
>And besides, they take nothing that you don't give them. I think this has been disproven in several instances.
- mfoy_ 9y ago
  Yeah, that article is very apologetic for Facebook... but the problem is that they do take what you don't give them. Heck, they'll build an advertising profile on you even if you don't have a Facebook account, and they'll add to your profile even if you're logged out. There's also all sorts of problems with the data their mobile apps pull out of your phone.
- jonbarker 9y ago
  I wrote a batch script that writes to your hosts file a bunch of tracking URLs which are designed to take data from non users in order to enrich the 'social graph' of people who are either logged out or don't have FB accounts. Please ignore all the flask stuff for now; I plan to turn it into a SaaS app that writes to your host files and continually pushes new tracking URLs as I discover them: https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking (btw the irony of me sharing this on a social site for programming is not lost on me).
  - udfalkso 9y ago
    That is a long list!
  - the-dude 9y ago
    How is this different from the infamous http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm ?
    - jonbarker 9y ago
      More geared toward people who don't know how to write to hosts files.
      - 9y ago
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
That's the same way all free online services work. If anything, Facebook is mostly limited to its data silo. The larger scope of aggregation that general data brokers engage in is a much bigger, unsung problem.

TheCapeGreek 9y ago

Good summary of the realities. Also the drawing is 10/10.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

394852034 9y ago

It's kind of a typical abusive relationship where one party sees not only the relationship fundamentally with a different light, but one party is quite duplicitous and nefarious and abusive and manipulative in their interactions with intent of deception and keeping a comfortable and useful situation going for them while they prey on their usually naive and gullible and rather delusional victim. It's the typical naive girl or boy dating a cheating, lying, player ... only a global, systemic, humanity impacting level never before witnessed or experienced by humanity. On a side note; Apple has the opportunity to not only massively grow themselves, but also totally crush Facebook and Twitter if they were to build a product that centers control and power over information and data and content as much as possible with the users that generate it. Facebook, Twitter, and Google are revealing themselves as not just being a cute little mole, but full blown metastasized melanoma that must be treated immediately or it will invariably kill freedom and liberty on a scale and level that has also never been witnessed by humanity; a totalitarianism that will be virtually total in its surveillance and control and domination with zero ability for anyone to even object. The era of Techtalitarians is upon us.

throwmenow_0140 9y ago

This sums up my opinion about Facebook and how to properly use it without having to resort to Nietzsche or Freud. Neat link, thanks.

cat199 9y ago
but always kafka..
- jackhack 9y ago
  and Orwell. If facebook were human, we'd rightly deem it a sociopath for its manipulative behaviour, callus disregard for impact and effect, grandiosity, and cold scheming behavior.

bitofhope 9y ago

Those are good points, but the post does come across as a little apologetic. Serving the paying customers should not absolve you from responsibility for the data collecting. Reductio ad absurdum: a hitman's job is not to be concerned with the well-being of their targets, but to serve the paying client. This doesn't make killing people for money not evil, because the business model is inherently unethical. Facebook is not non-evil for collecting user data to target their customers' ads. I think the entire foundation for their business is unethical. I agree with the points of the article, save for #7, but I think it's unfortunate Facebook doesn't have to take more responsibility for the data collecting they have pioneered and continue to do.

throwmenow_0140 9y ago
Agree. I'm living in Europe and there are people who value their privacy and talk about it loudly. I don't expect that global companies hinder their growth without regulation forcing it. That's the reason we fight for our right for privacy and use the only language they understand: financial penalties. Murder is illegal here. Now we do the same with privacy. We're in power, not them. It's not the job of the hitman to be ethical (although it would be nice). It's the job of our society to fight for our values.
rossdavidh 9y ago
I think the issue is that Facebook, unlike a hitman, is providing a service to the user, the user just isn't paying for that service.
- hakanensari 9y ago
  The service is essentially public, like education, health, and roads. We would benefit if it could be managed and paid for publicly. The only issue is that Facebook's scope is transnational, so you can't solve this locally or nationally. The same argument probably applies to similar platforms that facilitate "public discourse." Perhaps something under the UN umbrella will eventually emerge to fill this vacant space—not unlike how nation-states nationalised railways in the nineteenth century?

Clubber 9y ago

>And besides, they take nothing that you don't give them. I think this has been disproven in several instances.

mfoy_ 9y ago
Yeah, that article is very apologetic for Facebook... but the problem is that they do take what you don't give them. Heck, they'll build an advertising profile on you even if you don't have a Facebook account, and they'll add to your profile even if you're logged out. There's also all sorts of problems with the data their mobile apps pull out of your phone.
jonbarker 9y ago
I wrote a batch script that writes to your hosts file a bunch of tracking URLs which are designed to take data from non users in order to enrich the 'social graph' of people who are either logged out or don't have FB accounts. Please ignore all the flask stuff for now; I plan to turn it into a SaaS app that writes to your host files and continually pushes new tracking URLs as I discover them: https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking https://github.com/jtbarker/nofbtracking (btw the irony of me sharing this on a social site for programming is not lost on me).
- udfalkso 9y ago
  That is a long list!
- the-dude 9y ago
  How is this different from the infamous http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm ?
  - jonbarker 9y ago
    More geared toward people who don't know how to write to hosts files.
    - 9y ago

kevin_thibedeau 9y ago

That's the same way all free online services work. If anything, Facebook is mostly limited to its data silo. The larger scope of aggregation that general data brokers engage in is a much bigger, unsung problem.