7 ms·

There seems to have been a sea change in opinion of many HN posters here, especially among the more recent visitors to HN. A couple of years ago Facebook was co

by SeanDav 12y ago

There seems to have been a sea change in opinion of many HN posters here, especially among the more recent visitors to HN. A couple of years ago Facebook was considered by many here to be an invasion of privacy and just not worth the effort. That general opinion seems to have changed for some. A lot of newer posters seem to be of the opinion that lack of privacy is a cost worth paying for convenience and will apologize for, defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy.

u23KDd23 12y ago
Facebook allowed a research project to experiment on people's emotions by modifying the content displayed on their news feed. Human experimentation in doing things like this is against all ethical principles important in science. If they are willing to commit such a blatant violation of ethics what makes you think they aren't participating in something far worse? I commend Stallman for sharing his opinions on facebook, a modern day societal cancer.
- kretor 12y ago
  Universities have a lot of "ethical" requirements for experiments, that are, in a large part, over the top. We should get rid of most of those ethical requirements at universities, rather than expand them to Facebook.
whybroke 12y ago
Astroturf of course, notice the conversations around the FCC ruling. How to deal with it is an interesting and I'd say very important problem to community viability. On the upside it's certainly complimentary to the perceived influence of HN.
karmacondon 12y ago
Facebook doesn't invade anyone's privacy. They aren't going into your house and rifling through your things. People post things on facebook because they want other people to see them. If you don't want to do that, then don't use facebook. You can't stop other people from talking about you, or from taking pictures of you or relating stories that involve you. That's always been a part of social life. If you consider that to be an invasion of your privacy, then leave society and live as a hermit. It probably won't be fun, but it will be very private. I know several people who don't use facebook, myself included, because they just aren't interested in the service that it provides. Philosophical concerns about the nature of privacy don't really factor into it. The social fashions about what's cool and what isn't cool will change with the winds. It isn't worth paying attention to. If facebook or any other social software is valuable to you, then good, use it. If not, no sense complaining about what other people decide to do with their time.
- forthefuture 12y ago
  I'm surprised that more people don't agree with this. When the first articles came out that said facebook saves everything you type in messages and status' even if you don't press save, I stopped using facebook for anything other than nondescript one line responses to groups I'm in. It's just so easy to realize that if you don't want incredibly personal things to be saved online for eternity, don't write those things online.
  - Moru 12y ago
    I can't control what others write about me.
    - raphael_l 12y ago
      You also can't control what others say about you. Or post on any other website about you. Or someone showing a friend of his a picture of you. (excluding malicious intent of course)
      - click170 12y ago
        You can't control what others say about you, but you can control who your friends are. I don't tolerate friends who do not respect my privacy.
- pckspcks 12y ago
  There is no way to not use Facebook. Let me repeat that: THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT USE FACEBOOK. Everyone's photos: Mine, yours, Stallmans, get posted to Facebook, annotated with our names (which is increasingly becoming easy enough to do with ML -- the human component will increasingly decline). If at least one of your friends uses Facebook, Facebook has profile information on you. Stallman doesn't have a Facebook account, but things posted to Facebook identify where Stallman is, who his friends and peers are, who he interacts with, etc. Signing up for a Facebook/Google Scholar/Researchgate/etc. simply gives you some level of control over the visibility of the information collected about you. If you care about your personal brand, there is strong reason to do it. It's almost blackmail. But if you don't do it, you're still on Facebook; simply without the EULA, and without any control.
cheatsheet 12y ago
There are the people who grew up watching the privacy invasion happen, and there are the people who grew up with it. I felt often like I was in the middle, but bad experience made me realize that privacy is something worth fighting for. We've picked the low hanging fruit of clever applications of the data analysis of 'the general population' to recommend us better movies, better things to purchase, search engines adapted to our tastes, and so on. The absence of privacy is an absence of a safe mind. I grew up enjoying privacy on the internet (or the illusion of) because I was able to learn who I was, and I was able to have my own voice and my own opinions. When my mind became convinced that that was only an illusion, it mentally crippled me. I wasn't able to follow thought paths I deemed unsafe. The definition of unsafe comes from a collection of reasoning (or rationalization) that is mostly irrational - being that it is contextually formed without careful analysis and methodical direction. When one feels like every machine is stalking them, and can eventually be connected back to a person who can make a judgement on that individual's life path without the awareness and consent of the individual, I think we've made a big mistake as an intelligent species.
MisterWebz 12y ago
When you're highly invested in the tech scene and are depending on its continuing profitability, then it's only natural that you denounce people who attack it. What we're seeing here is a conflict of opinion between the so called hackers and the people who think they're working on something that will be acquired by one of the tech giants.
- xxxyy 12y ago
  You've got a point there. However, not every modern tech-buzzed startup wins the market by rejecting privacy and playing the next Facebook. Consider Xiaomi, Uber or SpaceX good examples. Or in other words: social media is not everything there is in the tech scene. The landscape is not simply a battle of bearded-hardcore-hackers vs brogrammers. Seriously, there's plenty for everyone.
frostmatthew 12y ago
> defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy People post things to Facebook with the intent of sharing that information with others. I'll admit there may have been some valid criticisms that their privacy settings are/were difficult for some people to fully understand but that's certainly not a blatant invasion of privacy. As for taking information and using it for targeted advertising that's no different than what companies like Google or Amazon do (which have historically had a higher "reputation" on HN). If you want to consider such practices blatant invasions of privacy that's fine, but there are certainly far bigger offenders out there.
pessimizer 12y ago
I think that a higher percentage of people that post on HN work for facebook or companies with even more invasive business models than once did. The privacy questions hasn't changed, it's just that most of the adults have left.
voodoomagicman 12y ago
I dislike Facebook because social networking is a natural monopoly and they have managed to grab ahold of it.. they have replaced some of the open and decentralized nature of the internet with the centralized and closed service they control. Competing with or replacing facebook will be very difficult because everyone's friends are already on facebook. Wouldn't it be great if someone at harvard had come up with an open social networking protocol instead?

by SeanDav 12y ago

u23KDd23 12y ago

Facebook allowed a research project to experiment on people's emotions by modifying the content displayed on their news feed. Human experimentation in doing things like this is against all ethical principles important in science. If they are willing to commit such a blatant violation of ethics what makes you think they aren't participating in something far worse? I commend Stallman for sharing his opinions on facebook, a modern day societal cancer.

kretor 12y ago
Universities have a lot of "ethical" requirements for experiments, that are, in a large part, over the top. We should get rid of most of those ethical requirements at universities, rather than expand them to Facebook.

whybroke 12y ago

Astroturf of course, notice the conversations around the FCC ruling. How to deal with it is an interesting and I'd say very important problem to community viability. On the upside it's certainly complimentary to the perceived influence of HN.

karmacondon 12y ago

Facebook doesn't invade anyone's privacy. They aren't going into your house and rifling through your things. People post things on facebook because they want other people to see them. If you don't want to do that, then don't use facebook. You can't stop other people from talking about you, or from taking pictures of you or relating stories that involve you. That's always been a part of social life. If you consider that to be an invasion of your privacy, then leave society and live as a hermit. It probably won't be fun, but it will be very private. I know several people who don't use facebook, myself included, because they just aren't interested in the service that it provides. Philosophical concerns about the nature of privacy don't really factor into it. The social fashions about what's cool and what isn't cool will change with the winds. It isn't worth paying attention to. If facebook or any other social software is valuable to you, then good, use it. If not, no sense complaining about what other people decide to do with their time.

forthefuture 12y ago
I'm surprised that more people don't agree with this. When the first articles came out that said facebook saves everything you type in messages and status' even if you don't press save, I stopped using facebook for anything other than nondescript one line responses to groups I'm in. It's just so easy to realize that if you don't want incredibly personal things to be saved online for eternity, don't write those things online.
- Moru 12y ago
  I can't control what others write about me.
  - raphael_l 12y ago
    You also can't control what others say about you. Or post on any other website about you. Or someone showing a friend of his a picture of you. (excluding malicious intent of course)
    - click170 12y ago
      You can't control what others say about you, but you can control who your friends are. I don't tolerate friends who do not respect my privacy.
pckspcks 12y ago
There is no way to not use Facebook. Let me repeat that: THERE IS NO WAY TO NOT USE FACEBOOK. Everyone's photos: Mine, yours, Stallmans, get posted to Facebook, annotated with our names (which is increasingly becoming easy enough to do with ML -- the human component will increasingly decline). If at least one of your friends uses Facebook, Facebook has profile information on you. Stallman doesn't have a Facebook account, but things posted to Facebook identify where Stallman is, who his friends and peers are, who he interacts with, etc. Signing up for a Facebook/Google Scholar/Researchgate/etc. simply gives you some level of control over the visibility of the information collected about you. If you care about your personal brand, there is strong reason to do it. It's almost blackmail. But if you don't do it, you're still on Facebook; simply without the EULA, and without any control.

cheatsheet 12y ago

There are the people who grew up watching the privacy invasion happen, and there are the people who grew up with it. I felt often like I was in the middle, but bad experience made me realize that privacy is something worth fighting for. We've picked the low hanging fruit of clever applications of the data analysis of 'the general population' to recommend us better movies, better things to purchase, search engines adapted to our tastes, and so on. The absence of privacy is an absence of a safe mind. I grew up enjoying privacy on the internet (or the illusion of) because I was able to learn who I was, and I was able to have my own voice and my own opinions. When my mind became convinced that that was only an illusion, it mentally crippled me. I wasn't able to follow thought paths I deemed unsafe. The definition of unsafe comes from a collection of reasoning (or rationalization) that is mostly irrational - being that it is contextually formed without careful analysis and methodical direction. When one feels like every machine is stalking them, and can eventually be connected back to a person who can make a judgement on that individual's life path without the awareness and consent of the individual, I think we've made a big mistake as an intelligent species.

MisterWebz 12y ago

When you're highly invested in the tech scene and are depending on its continuing profitability, then it's only natural that you denounce people who attack it. What we're seeing here is a conflict of opinion between the so called hackers and the people who think they're working on something that will be acquired by one of the tech giants.

xxxyy 12y ago
You've got a point there. However, not every modern tech-buzzed startup wins the market by rejecting privacy and playing the next Facebook. Consider Xiaomi, Uber or SpaceX good examples. Or in other words: social media is not everything there is in the tech scene. The landscape is not simply a battle of bearded-hardcore-hackers vs brogrammers. Seriously, there's plenty for everyone.

frostmatthew 12y ago

> defend and even support companies like FB that blatantly invade privacy People post things to Facebook with the intent of sharing that information with others. I'll admit there may have been some valid criticisms that their privacy settings are/were difficult for some people to fully understand but that's certainly not a blatant invasion of privacy. As for taking information and using it for targeted advertising that's no different than what companies like Google or Amazon do (which have historically had a higher "reputation" on HN). If you want to consider such practices blatant invasions of privacy that's fine, but there are certainly far bigger offenders out there.

pessimizer 12y ago

I think that a higher percentage of people that post on HN work for facebook or companies with even more invasive business models than once did. The privacy questions hasn't changed, it's just that most of the adults have left.

voodoomagicman 12y ago

I dislike Facebook because social networking is a natural monopoly and they have managed to grab ahold of it.. they have replaced some of the open and decentralized nature of the internet with the centralized and closed service they control. Competing with or replacing facebook will be very difficult because everyone's friends are already on facebook. Wouldn't it be great if someone at harvard had come up with an open social networking protocol instead?