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Facebook Tries To Silence Lamebook: Removes Its Page, Blocks Links And Likes
- woogley 16y agoAt what point does a site become "big enough" that it becomes a marketplace monopoly which is not legally permitted to discriminate? Obviously all sites have a right to control/filter content, but I wonder if there is some law that a giant site must abide by some stricter rules of equal participation ..
- sp332 16y agoWhen? As soon as I start using it. :-)
- A1kmm 16y agoIANAL, but they are unlikely to hit anti-discrimination laws in many countries for anything outside a narrowly defined set of prohibited criteria for discrimination. I think the biggest concern is that the social network effect creates a barrier to entry (it is hard to create a competing network with the same value to users as Facebook's because the value of people's existing networks outweighs the value of benefits like freer speech or a better user interface for most people). Many governments regulate anti-competitive and monopolistic behaviour, with the aim of opening up competition in markets and allowing greater participation that way. In this case however, Lamebook isn't really a competitor.
- enjo 16y agoYou will however trip a whole host of anti-trust laws in a number of countries. Europe, in particular, is usually pretty quick on the trigger with this.
- jerf 16y agoEnforcing one's trademark does not constitute "discrimination". Facebook is in the right here. Lamebook is clearly an attempt to cash in on the Facebook name, trademark law does not permit that, trademark law is correct here. Merely being "the little guy" doesn't make you right or give you carte blanche to ignore whatever laws you want.
- scotus69 16y ago...and you are a lawyer and this is your professional opinion?
- ugh 16y agoYou could make the case that it’s a free speech issue. (Which has obviously nothing to do with whether Facebook is a monopoly or not.)
- generalk 16y agoIf you're making reference to the Freedom of Speech guaranteed by the US Bill of Rights, you absolutely can't. Facebook isn't the government, the First Amendment doesn't apply to them.
- ugh 16y agoI’m very skeptical about that claim. It’s of course true that the first amendment and basic rights in general (usually?) only apply to the government. I know too little about US law to say with certainty whether there are exceptions in the USA. (I know with certainty that in certain, very limited circumstances some basic rights apply even between private entities in Germany.) The submitted article, however, quotes a law professor who explicitly portrays this as a first amendment issue which doesn’t support your hypothesis that the first amendment only applies to the government in this case. I’m relatively certain that Facebook is free to block Lamebook on their own site all they want. Freedom of speech doesn’t come into play. I’m not so sure about that when it comes to the trademark.
- generalk 16y agoWould the Fair Use doctrine apply here, or does that not apply to trademarks?
- CPops 16y agoParody and commenting about something and humor and so forth is protected as fair use even under our horrendously fucked up "intellectual property" system. Now, I think Facebook has the right to block whatever links they want to block on their own website. It's their website and they should do what they want that they feel is in their own self-interest. Casting this as Lamebook doing something that violates Facebook's trademark is incorrect without any actual evidence that they are indeed violating Facebook's trademark. Merely having a name that rhymes with Facebook isn't enough to call that a violation of Facebook's trademark.
- JoeBracken 16y agoRegardless of how big Facebook gets. If users continue to blindly accept the terms of use when they sign up, they will continue to agree to this type of censorship. FB is a private site that you elect to join and you accept their rules by doing so. The public at large should be outraged but nobody cares.
- mmaro 16y agoYou can't even send private messages that have a lamebook URL. At least Facebook makes it obvious that we shouldn't trust them with private communication / Facebook Messages.
- mikedmiked 16y agoWhat makes this frustrating is how few people care.
- rick_2047 16y agoThat is not exactly frustrating. Not everyone thinks of their privacy in the way people at HN do. And I have made my peace with it. Actually I see the point, why would I be so worried about facebook reading something which I would not be worried if someone overheard it while I was talking on the subway.
- pig 16y agoI don't know how you don't see the problem. Facebook is censoring.
- YuriNiyazov 16y agoI don't see the problem. Facebook is not a government entity, and thus is not required by anyone at all to not censor. If the statement that you are making is that Facebook is hypocritical in that on the one hand they operate under a mantra of openness and on the other hand they censor, then sure, that's a problem; however, hypocrisy is a global problem that in some way is applicable to every human and every company.
- kenjackson 16y agoFacebook has very little legal obligation, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be upset and to talk about it as much as possible. Facebook could also randomly delete pictures and emails if it liked and it may be within their legal right to do so, but I'd find it odd if you just said, "If they legally can do it, I won't complain".
- topherjaynes 16y agoThis is very unsettling. BUT, I was able to share the TC article about lamebook on my wall. As long as there is still someway to voice dissent, even if it is through a thirdparty site.
- mortenjorck 16y agoThough little consolation for their current trademark lawsuit from Facebook, this offers a huge marketing opportunity for Lamebook. Slap a gigantic "BANNED ON FACEBOOK!" stamp over the logo and play up the antagonism.
- scalyweb 16y agoGoogle could certainly make their own innocent "mistake" and have Lamebook be the destintation for "I'm Feeling Lucky" for those who can't remember the url for facebook.com.
- qq66 16y agoThat would be a sad waste of the trust that users have built up for Google.
- travisjeffery 16y agoGoogle "Where you can find Chuck Norris" and press I'm Feeling Lucky... Or back in the day with "Miserable failure" going directly to George W. Bush's page. These things have happened before.
- drivebyacct2 16y agoscalyweb was implying that google do it intentionally. your examples occurred because of link bombing.
- wiks 16y agoThey did the same with my profile too. I wrote something relating to frastu-facebook user and they disabled my account.
- linuxhansl 16y agoGood job Facebook. I had never heard of Lamebook before... today.
- msy 16y agoIf I were Lamebook I'd be registering hundreds of silly lame/facebook related domains per hour and offering them as alt urls to use via Facebook. Make the 9-figure-valuation company dance and jump for a scrappy joke site, nothing will make a mockery of them faster.
- schindyguy 16y agoor how about lamebook creating bit.ly urls for each post?
- cd34 16y agofacebook utilizes common APIs to verify the destination url to prevent malware/phishing sites that have already been reported.
- citricsquid 16y agoIf anyone wants to do this, the code GOBBLE will get a $1 .com with godaddy, first 15k uses only.
- scythe 16y agoIs that a reference to GOBBLES, by any chance?
- sk_0919 16y agoWhy is Facebook getting distracted with this? Facebook has so much going for itself, why censor a 2 men company and cause all the negative PR?
- TeHCrAzY 16y agoThey have turned over the company to business people and lawyers.
- YuriNiyazov 16y agoEven if they hadn't, they did the right thing here. Note that Lamebook struck with the lawsuit first. It would've been easy enough to ignore Lamebook and just go after bigger trademark infringers on a case by case basis, but since Lamebook struck first, they actually had to strike back, because if they allowed that lawsuit to declare that Lamebook doesn't infringe on the Facebook trademark, there would be 200 <something>-book sites tomorrow created by copycats, and Facebook would be powerless against any of them because of the Lamebook judgment.
- 9ec4c12949a4f3 16y agoWhat? People are making fun of the fact that I tell 266 of my close personal friends that I just ate kraft dinner with ketchup? J'Accuse!!!!
- andolanra 16y agoOne thing which mystifies me about this whole situation is that Facebook arguably benefits from Lamebook's presence. Lamebook isn't a substitute for Facebook, it's a complement to Facebook. Someone who enjoys Lamebook for its humor will probably try extra-hard to find entertaining scenarios among their own Facebook friends, meaning that Lamebook increases Facebook's usage. Why you'd want to shut down a company that gives you more traffic (and therefore revenue) for a relatively unimportant and legally dubious reason is beyond me. Not to mention, of course, the fact that Facebook is already invoking the Streisand effect by going after Lamebook at all.
- ma2rten 16y agoI can only guess someone at facebook thinks it's not good if their brand get associated with lameness.
- Towle_ 16y agoC'mon guys, everybody knows it's wrong to take a bunch of info and photos from one facebook site and re-purpose them on another. Mere hours before lamebook was hacked together: "You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole." /irony
- finiteloop 16y agoThis is Bret Taylor, CTO of Facebook. This was a mistake on our part. In the process of dealing with a routine trademark violation issue regarding some links posted to Facebook, we inadvertently blocked all mentions of the phrase "lamebook" on Facebook. We are committed to promoting free expression on Facebook. We apologize for our mistake in this case, and we are working to fix the process that led to this happening.
- phlux 16y agoBret, That is really nice to hear. What is the stance, then, on said 'free expression on Facebook' regarding the filtering of mentions of torrents in the FB Messaging platform? Is this protected expression? Or will the FB Messaging platform filter content based on an automated perceived risk of copyright violation etc? Is the official policy regarding free expression, and what constitutes free expression, that one (without a Facebook account) may read posted anywhere easily accessible?
- agravier 16y agoThanks for posting this explanation. I am curious about that part: > inadvertently blocked all mentions of the phrase "lamebook" on Facebook. Inadvertently seems to imply that this was not voluntary, more like the result of some "misclick". Is that so? Are there such powerful control tools at Facebook which use is not under strict review? If it was inadvertent, I think there ought to be serious policy revision regarding the use of these big brother tools at Facebook ;)
- andreyf 16y agoHypothesis: Thousands of people around the world mis-flag content for a variety of reasons every day. One of the outsourced content-reviewers working for a consultancy hired by facebook made a mistake in handling the copyright infringement flag, and blocked the site. It wasn't noticed by anyone until the TechCrunch story went up.
- ucentric 16y ago"inadvertently" Bret, surely you could do better than that? Or is this like Google inadvertently collecting WiFi data? Facebook is becoming practiced in doing bad stuff then if the backlash is big enough, taking one (only one mind you) step back. Even Arrington thinks you are liars Bret so why not, for once, try telling the truth.