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The better solution is to regulate it. And fortunately governments everywhere are down that path.

feanaro 7y ago
The only useful regulation would be to forbid it and it probably won't happen. It also cannot prevent governments from doing it. Apart from regulation, we also need technical solutions.
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  Don’t forbid Facebook. It is a good tool that can be used for good. Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. Facebook will be welcome to adapt and behave like a well-meaning member of society.
  - nashashmi 7y ago
    Agreed. Facebook is like a commercialized implementation of CIA and other miscellaneous intelligence practices. And its commercialization is skewed towards benefitting the advertising companies. This is a double negative. There motto could have been to SERVE THE USER. Instead it became FOCUS on the user. They focus their product towards three dark patterns: extracting data from the user, manipulating the user, and addicting the user. For now it is towards the benefit of advertisers which is Relatively harmless in the future scheme of things. A more benign use could have been connecting users across the world to each other and to other companies for healthy conversations. To be what FRIENDS were meant to always be. Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend.
  - svdr 7y ago
    They may adapt but not motivated from within. We need another Facebook with different company values wrt privacy.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      Facebook isn’t even the only problem. I see the same scummy behaviour across a big chunk of the tech scene. Even in products you do pay for, stalking & fraud is commonplace.
  - imiric 7y ago
    > Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. So essentially forbid everything that makes them the most amount of revenue from advertising? I don't see that likely to happen. The problem with Facebook is not exclusive to Facebook Inc. It's a common symptom of advertising-based and similarly nefarious business models used by the richest modern corporations. Investors want their ROIs and optimizing for advertising delivers that easily when the business handles extraordinary amounts of personal information. There are many ways of breaking out of this corrupt model. Creating new business models not dependent on advertising is a no-brainer, but so is creating tools that enable people to keep control over the data they share online. There's a lot of emphasis on distribution and cryptocurrencies recently, which is great, but we have a long ways to go to make the importance of these systems understandable by the general public, while also making them approachable and easy to use.
    - Nextgrid 7y ago
      First off there’s no need to make this about a particular company. Facebook is a big offender but they’re definitely not the only ones. Make this about the people. Nobody likes being stalked, tricked nor lied to. Regulation against these behaviours would be welcomed by most people.
  - feanaro 7y ago
    > Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. This is what I was talking about. I consider surveillance and tracking of any kind a dark pattern, though.
biql 7y ago
Regulations also raise the bar for new platforms to enter the space. We may come to the point where a person would need to obtain a license just to make a website with login.

The only useful regulation would be to forbid it and it probably won't happen. It also cannot prevent governments from doing it. Apart from regulation, we also need technical solutions.

Nextgrid 7y ago
Don’t forbid Facebook. It is a good tool that can be used for good. Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. Facebook will be welcome to adapt and behave like a well-meaning member of society.
- nashashmi 7y ago
  Agreed. Facebook is like a commercialized implementation of CIA and other miscellaneous intelligence practices. And its commercialization is skewed towards benefitting the advertising companies. This is a double negative. There motto could have been to SERVE THE USER. Instead it became FOCUS on the user. They focus their product towards three dark patterns: extracting data from the user, manipulating the user, and addicting the user. For now it is towards the benefit of advertisers which is Relatively harmless in the future scheme of things. A more benign use could have been connecting users across the world to each other and to other companies for healthy conversations. To be what FRIENDS were meant to always be. Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend.
- svdr 7y ago
  They may adapt but not motivated from within. We need another Facebook with different company values wrt privacy.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    Facebook isn’t even the only problem. I see the same scummy behaviour across a big chunk of the tech scene. Even in products you do pay for, stalking & fraud is commonplace.
- imiric 7y ago
  > Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. So essentially forbid everything that makes them the most amount of revenue from advertising? I don't see that likely to happen. The problem with Facebook is not exclusive to Facebook Inc. It's a common symptom of advertising-based and similarly nefarious business models used by the richest modern corporations. Investors want their ROIs and optimizing for advertising delivers that easily when the business handles extraordinary amounts of personal information. There are many ways of breaking out of this corrupt model. Creating new business models not dependent on advertising is a no-brainer, but so is creating tools that enable people to keep control over the data they share online. There's a lot of emphasis on distribution and cryptocurrencies recently, which is great, but we have a long ways to go to make the importance of these systems understandable by the general public, while also making them approachable and easy to use.
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    First off there’s no need to make this about a particular company. Facebook is a big offender but they’re definitely not the only ones. Make this about the people. Nobody likes being stalked, tricked nor lied to. Regulation against these behaviours would be welcomed by most people.
- feanaro 7y ago
  > Forbid stalking, dark patterns, lies (aka fraud) and their overall lack of morals & ethics. This is what I was talking about. I consider surveillance and tracking of any kind a dark pattern, though.

biql 7y ago

Regulations also raise the bar for new platforms to enter the space. We may come to the point where a person would need to obtain a license just to make a website with login.