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What's with the hate in this thread? He achieved something quite remarkable. Back then, most people wouldn't have guessed that this silly campus site ever becam

by WA 12y ago

What's with the hate in this thread? He achieved something quite remarkable. Back then, most people wouldn't have guessed that this silly campus site ever became as big as it is now. And now, Mark created a business with thousands of employees, changing how we communicate, how we discover information about the cities we live in. Give the man some respect. This isn't about his privileged background, but about the perseverance he showed for the last 11 years.

pen2l 12y ago
Basically it's his flagrant disrespect and violation of human privacy at a mindbogglingly massive scale. He got us here by tricking us with cheap tricks. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebooks-evil-interfaces https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebooks-evil-interfa... The way I see, he is one of the worst things to happen to the Internet if not the worst, but that's just my opinion.
- cymetica 12y ago
  I could not agree more!
- tim333 12y ago
  Meh - I'm on facebook all the time. Maybe they track my not very interesting interests and people use them to show ads which uBlock then blocks. His "flagrant disrespect and violation of my human privacy" doesn't really bother me. If I was doing anything I wanted to keep private I wouldn't do it on facebook - I just assume stuff on facebook is semi public. I'm not sure quite what the big problem is.
  - sqeaky 12y ago
    Your notion that you can simply maintain privacy by not using facebook is part of the problem. For a long time facebook tracked people using flash cookies (also called Local Shared Objects) to track people with opinions flawed like your own around various website that are not facebook. What if they use some more devious tricks now? You might say that you use noscript, adblock or something else, but what about profiling you based information created by you browser. Browser fingerprinting - https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint I would rather simply avoid facebook and deal with people without a history of ethical issues.
EpicEng 12y ago
>changing how we communicate... Perhaps, though I'm not convinced it was for the better. every time I log into Facebook I log off within five minutes wondering why I continue to waste my time with it. Maybe that's just my problem, I don't know.
- rtpg 12y ago
  This is highly dependent on your circle of friends. It's much more enjoyable when you're following people who are doing interesting things An RSS reader wouldn't be compelling if you're just subscribed to Buzzfeed, after all.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    Well, you're probably not wrong. 99% of my ~400 "friends" are people I knew in high school who I haven't seen in 15 years. I keep in contact with my actual friends, but not via FB.
    - tormeh 12y ago
      Unsubscribe from their feeds. Unsubscribing, I've basically ignored most of my facebook friends. It's great.
      - gizzlon 12y ago
        I'm defrending, trying to get to < 100. 50 would be perfect :) Guess your idea is better, but it's actually kind of fun to de-friend ppl. You should try ;)
      - SlalomStallone 12y ago
        So then what's the point? Since I deleted my account my relationships with my real friends and family has definitely improved. When I see them in person we actually have things to catch up on and talk about and those in person interactions have much more value for me.
- Kiro 12y ago
Red_Tarsius 12y ago
Agree. facebook made me unhappy, but it does give value to a lot of other people. For example, the older members of my family use facebook to keep in touch with friends in a way that wasn't possible before. You didn't see lots of grandmothers on myspace. Facebook stopped being a fad and became a staple. People who could not fathom using new technology bought a netbook and learned to use it just to find long lost acquaintances and keep in touch with their sons. It's not just chatting, but it's about the core experience: "We are in this together". Photos, silly daily updates and videos make distance less painful.
estefan 12y ago
Jealousy.
- snarfy 12y ago
  Envy. Jealousy is when you fear someone will take something away from you.
  - estefan 12y ago
    In your idiolect. They're synonyms.
enesunal 12y ago
Zuckerberg stole everyone's life, at least high percentage of lifes. What a "man", what a "success".
madaxe_again 12y ago
I met him around about this time - we were working on a variety of gigs in Cambridge, and ended up in a secret society house (don't ask me which, I honestly don't remember) at some point in a night out... someone might know - go in, up stairs, big withdrawing room with a pair of chesterfields perpendicular to a fireplace, wood panelling, that sort of thing. Remember shooting the shit with him about this social network thing he was working on - he was wearing a dressing/smoking gown and drinking from a plastic bottle of vodka... down to earth guy, not above getting blotto with a couple of random brits - and I don't think at that stage even he expected it to go anywhere near as far as it has. Not sure why I'm telling this tale, other than to illuminate that the guy's a human being, and an entertaining one at that.
- estefan 12y ago
  > Not sure why I'm telling this tale Maybe to brag that you've hung out with him? That's not meant to be snarky. It's the same explanation for why people want the autograph of someone famous - to try to convince other people they know high status, powerful people, and by association they are one themselves. We are often unaware of why we do what we do... or we tell people one reason and keep the real reason to ourselves :-)
  - madaxe_again 12y ago
    If I wanted to brag I'd tell you who I am and who I actually know, rather than an anecdote about a passing encounter! Actually thought twice about posting for this precise reason.
    - estefan 12y ago
      > If I wanted to brag I'd tell you who I am and who I actually know, rather than an anecdote about a passing encounter! Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. Experiments in psychology and neuroscience show how little we know ourselves; how we retrospectively justify our decisions to ourselves and others, and how we are experts in self deception. So it's entirely possible that some part of you was driven by the primitive urge to publicly align yourself with high status people, but finding that disagreeable, you then seemlessly deceived yourself with a different purpose, because of course you aren't so egotistical. Now I'm not saying that that is what happened, and no one can ever know. I am saying it is a pattern of human behaviour. > Actually thought twice about posting for this precise reason. That's kind of strange isn't it, when you think about it? I assume you mean that you thought twice about posting - in case people you'll never meet might think you were bragging - instead of thinking about posting your name? That doesn't really seem to make any sense to me. I mean, why should you care what people you don't know, and in all likelihood will never meet, think about you? From a logical stance, it doesn't make any sense. But then we aren't driven by our logical brains. It's been really fascinating for me to learn about this and then to see the walls of my logical reality crumble and realise how much emotion dictates my life and how little we actually know ourselves. Don't make the mistake that people are a) logical, or b) that you really know yourself (unless you're superhumanly gifted) and your reasons for doing what you do. Of course I don't expect you to like this post either, since this challenges our assumptions about ourselves at the most fundamental of levels :-)...
wahsd 12y ago
Sorry, but I think you have a slightly too naive perspective. I think the criticism of him and Facebook is valid front to back. Sure, some people move towards the rage range of the spectrum, but it is also warranted towards someone who openly said that he wants to replace the open internet and that privacy is dead.

by WA 12y ago

pen2l 12y ago

Basically it's his flagrant disrespect and violation of human privacy at a mindbogglingly massive scale. He got us here by tricking us with cheap tricks. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebooks-evil-interfaces https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/04/facebooks-evil-interfa... The way I see, he is one of the worst things to happen to the Internet if not the worst, but that's just my opinion.

cymetica 12y ago
I could not agree more!
tim333 12y ago
Meh - I'm on facebook all the time. Maybe they track my not very interesting interests and people use them to show ads which uBlock then blocks. His "flagrant disrespect and violation of my human privacy" doesn't really bother me. If I was doing anything I wanted to keep private I wouldn't do it on facebook - I just assume stuff on facebook is semi public. I'm not sure quite what the big problem is.
- sqeaky 12y ago
  Your notion that you can simply maintain privacy by not using facebook is part of the problem. For a long time facebook tracked people using flash cookies (also called Local Shared Objects) to track people with opinions flawed like your own around various website that are not facebook. What if they use some more devious tricks now? You might say that you use noscript, adblock or something else, but what about profiling you based information created by you browser. Browser fingerprinting - https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Device_fingerprint I would rather simply avoid facebook and deal with people without a history of ethical issues.

EpicEng 12y ago

>changing how we communicate... Perhaps, though I'm not convinced it was for the better. every time I log into Facebook I log off within five minutes wondering why I continue to waste my time with it. Maybe that's just my problem, I don't know.

rtpg 12y ago
This is highly dependent on your circle of friends. It's much more enjoyable when you're following people who are doing interesting things An RSS reader wouldn't be compelling if you're just subscribed to Buzzfeed, after all.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  Well, you're probably not wrong. 99% of my ~400 "friends" are people I knew in high school who I haven't seen in 15 years. I keep in contact with my actual friends, but not via FB.
  - tormeh 12y ago
    Unsubscribe from their feeds. Unsubscribing, I've basically ignored most of my facebook friends. It's great.
    - gizzlon 12y ago
      I'm defrending, trying to get to < 100. 50 would be perfect :) Guess your idea is better, but it's actually kind of fun to de-friend ppl. You should try ;)
    - SlalomStallone 12y ago
      So then what's the point? Since I deleted my account my relationships with my real friends and family has definitely improved. When I see them in person we actually have things to catch up on and talk about and those in person interactions have much more value for me.
Kiro 12y ago

Red_Tarsius 12y ago

Agree. facebook made me unhappy, but it does give value to a lot of other people. For example, the older members of my family use facebook to keep in touch with friends in a way that wasn't possible before. You didn't see lots of grandmothers on myspace. Facebook stopped being a fad and became a staple. People who could not fathom using new technology bought a netbook and learned to use it just to find long lost acquaintances and keep in touch with their sons. It's not just chatting, but it's about the core experience: "We are in this together". Photos, silly daily updates and videos make distance less painful.

estefan 12y ago

Jealousy.

snarfy 12y ago
Envy. Jealousy is when you fear someone will take something away from you.
- estefan 12y ago
  In your idiolect. They're synonyms.

enesunal 12y ago

Zuckerberg stole everyone's life, at least high percentage of lifes. What a "man", what a "success".

madaxe_again 12y ago

I met him around about this time - we were working on a variety of gigs in Cambridge, and ended up in a secret society house (don't ask me which, I honestly don't remember) at some point in a night out... someone might know - go in, up stairs, big withdrawing room with a pair of chesterfields perpendicular to a fireplace, wood panelling, that sort of thing. Remember shooting the shit with him about this social network thing he was working on - he was wearing a dressing/smoking gown and drinking from a plastic bottle of vodka... down to earth guy, not above getting blotto with a couple of random brits - and I don't think at that stage even he expected it to go anywhere near as far as it has. Not sure why I'm telling this tale, other than to illuminate that the guy's a human being, and an entertaining one at that.

estefan 12y ago
> Not sure why I'm telling this tale Maybe to brag that you've hung out with him? That's not meant to be snarky. It's the same explanation for why people want the autograph of someone famous - to try to convince other people they know high status, powerful people, and by association they are one themselves. We are often unaware of why we do what we do... or we tell people one reason and keep the real reason to ourselves :-)
- madaxe_again 12y ago
  If I wanted to brag I'd tell you who I am and who I actually know, rather than an anecdote about a passing encounter! Actually thought twice about posting for this precise reason.
  - estefan 12y ago
    > If I wanted to brag I'd tell you who I am and who I actually know, rather than an anecdote about a passing encounter! Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't. Experiments in psychology and neuroscience show how little we know ourselves; how we retrospectively justify our decisions to ourselves and others, and how we are experts in self deception. So it's entirely possible that some part of you was driven by the primitive urge to publicly align yourself with high status people, but finding that disagreeable, you then seemlessly deceived yourself with a different purpose, because of course you aren't so egotistical. Now I'm not saying that that is what happened, and no one can ever know. I am saying it is a pattern of human behaviour. > Actually thought twice about posting for this precise reason. That's kind of strange isn't it, when you think about it? I assume you mean that you thought twice about posting - in case people you'll never meet might think you were bragging - instead of thinking about posting your name? That doesn't really seem to make any sense to me. I mean, why should you care what people you don't know, and in all likelihood will never meet, think about you? From a logical stance, it doesn't make any sense. But then we aren't driven by our logical brains. It's been really fascinating for me to learn about this and then to see the walls of my logical reality crumble and realise how much emotion dictates my life and how little we actually know ourselves. Don't make the mistake that people are a) logical, or b) that you really know yourself (unless you're superhumanly gifted) and your reasons for doing what you do. Of course I don't expect you to like this post either, since this challenges our assumptions about ourselves at the most fundamental of levels :-)...

wahsd 12y ago

Sorry, but I think you have a slightly too naive perspective. I think the criticism of him and Facebook is valid front to back. Sure, some people move towards the rage range of the spectrum, but it is also warranted towards someone who openly said that he wants to replace the open internet and that privacy is dead.