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You 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 / Fac

• mikedmiked 16y ago
  What makes this frustrating is how few people care.
  • rick_2047 16y ago
    That 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 ago
      I don't know how you don't see the problem. Facebook is censoring.
      • YuriNiyazov 16y ago
        I 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 ago
          Facebook 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".
    • mmorris 16y ago
      It has nothing to do with privacy, it has to do with Facebook censoring messages. What if you couldn't send an email with a link to a questionable site? That wouldn't bother you at all?
      • sbov 16y ago
        No-one likes spam, but I've noticed that at least some email providers do this by domain/ip address of the emailed link in order to combat spam. Maybe its different since it ends up in your spam folder, but its effectively the same result. Details: I've had a website that got hit once by this, which was funny because we never even sent any email. When testing it out, it seemed to be being filtered by the ip address the link resolved to. Even if I changed the domain name I emailed, if it resolved to the same ip, it still was being marked as spam. Note that this was being tested from a 3rd party email, not by sending from our own mail server.
        • mmorris 16y ago
          Interesting, I wasn't aware of this happening. Unless they had a setting to disable it, my initial reaction is that I'd disagree with those email providers blocking domains/IP addresses too. I do think, though, that there is an easily identifiable difference between blocking obvious spam sites, likely based on autonomous algorithms, and (I presume manually) blocking a site towards which you clearly have ulterior motives.
    • angrycoder 16y ago
      I am guessing you didn't read the article. This isn't about privacy. It is more like the guy you are sitting to next to on the subway overhearing your conversation then grabbing your tongue and forbidding you to ever speak of the topic again.
      • sanswork 16y ago
        Actually it would be more like the owner of the subway saying that you can't speak about that topic on the subway.
        • barrkel 16y ago
          No, it would be more like the owner of the phone company saying you can't speak about certain things on the phone.
          • sanswork 16y ago
            Which is fine if there is alternative phone companies to use. It's their service, their right to determine what it is used for. Your statement brings to mind the monopolistic phone companies that many areas have where there is no choice so them limiting your usage seriously impedes on your ability to communicate. This isn't the case with Facebook. If they don't want you to talk about Lamebook then fine, it is their service and their systems. You are free to do it over email, IM, or one of the billions of other sites that are fine with it.
            • barrkel 16y ago
              Unfortunately, there are many people with whom my only contact is Facebook. For almost all intents and purposes, these people don't use email, much less IM.
            • lambda 16y ago
              The thing is, if you don't have contact information for the person through another medium, then Facebook has a de-facto monopoly on your communication with that person. And Facebook actively prevents you from extracting contact information from Facebook in order to use in other services; you can only extract contact information for communicating through their messaging system. Network effects matter. The privacy and censorship concerns people have about Facebook are for good reasons.
• mduvall 16y ago
  That is the biggest problem. Orwell's Ministry of Truth seems to be reality...