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Comment by root_axis | Hacker News Reader

I wish people would stop contributing to the Facebook mythos that elevates a social media platform into some kind of software based deity. It's just a website, it's not a threat to "free will" any more than a cigarette or coke addiction is a threat to "free will". People recite grand expositions regarding how "I stopped using facebook and it changed my life forever! I've never looked back!"... wonderful, but I want to suggest that it's just not that big of a deal either way, it's a website where people post selfies, memes, and uninformed political opinions, it really isn't that life-altering. If you truly despise Facebook, stop feeding its delusions of grandeur.

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Strictly speaking, Facebook is a screen ('screen' being a technical term for the physicality of a digital experience). We can say that, to a good approximation, the sum total of our experience of the world beyond our immediate experience comes through screens. In this way, we say that all media is a screen.

So, there is your first order experience - your apartment, your car, the road on the way to work, your office, the restaurants and cafes you like, your friends; and there is everything else, ALL mediated by a screen. The world at large, how it looks to you, what you know about it, all mediated by a screen.

Facebook is not just a website to millions (billions?) of people. It is THE screen that represents THE most valuable, pleasurable part of their life - their friendly and familial relationships. What makes FB so potent is that it makes these relationships more efficient, and in some sense safer, and erodes that first-order offline experience of relationship, which makes ALL participants more dependent on the screen experience!

When you see a group of kids at a cafe hunched over their phones, or a couple on a date hunched over their phones, what do you think they are looking at? What first-order experience are they giving up? Is a thing that can literally steal your real, first-order life away from you, and in such vast numbers, really "just a website"?

> It is THE screen that represents THE most valuable, pleasurable part of their life - their friendly and familial relationships.

I disagree. Millions of people use Facebook, but not nearly as many people rely on Facebook as "THE" preeminent gateway to their loved ones. Most people use Facebook on a spectrum somewhere between "post a few times a day" and "lurk when I'm bored". People who centralize their entire lives around Facebook are pretty rare and are usually regarded as somewhat unhealthy in that regard unless they engage Facebook as part of their business or something similar. If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, people would groan for a few days but rapidly switch to SMS/Hangouts/WhatsApp/Snapchat or any of the other myriad communication services. The worst case scenario is that some people would lose some valuable contacts that they didn't already have backed up through iCloud or Google, but this isn't a life-changing event as anyone who has ever lost a cell-phone prior to 2007 can attest to.

> When you see a group of kids at a cafe hunched over their phones, or a couple on a date hunched over their phones, what do you think they are looking at?

People browse a variety of applications on their phone of which Facebook is only one fraction, especially among "kids" who are much more active on networks other than Facebook. Beyond that, "being haunched over" one's phone is more a sign of accessibility than necessity; if people could only access Facebook on a PC they'd just open up some other crap on their phone.

Seriously... it really is just a website.

It's not a website, it's a complex and sophisticated media and marketing platform with many, many different features and all of that comes with a bunch of pros and cons.

...that you can choose whether or not to use.

Thats not entirely true. Facebook will build a profile on you through like buttons and information shared from family/friends/acquaintances whether you choose to or not.

Why would I care about that if I don't use the product? How would anything that Facebook does affect someone who does not use it?

Well, someone could certainly take your photo and post it on Facebook without your knowledge and that could lead to serious consequences, however, one's photo could just as easily end up on reddit, imgur, HN or any other internet community. Incidentally, the photo posted on Facebook would at least not be indexed by google.

Not only post your picture, but friends can tag it with a name along with time and location, and now association with certain circles of friends. You are probably not going to get that kind of context with a picture on reddit or imgur.

What specific serious consequences could it lead to? Maybe Facebook has my photo through a friend, maybe it doesn't. I have no idea and have never needed to care.

I'm speaking generally, maybe you don't have to care, but that might not always necessarily be the case and certainly isn't the case for many people. For example, maybe you're supposed to be at work but a photo is taken of you at the beach. Maybe you're not supposed to be drinking (for legal or marital or personal reasons) but someone takes a photo of you at the bar. Maybe you told someone something that's not true but a photo ends up showing that to be a lie. I'm not saying these or similar scenarios will ever apply to you, but it's easy to see how someone who doesn't use Facebook could face serious consequences for a photo that they did not upload.

This is not unique to Facebook; Amazon, Google, Equifax and many other businesses build a profile on you regardless of whether you want them to or not.

Right, just in the same sense that Google and Equifax are not just websites, Facebook is not something you can entirely ignore without consequence.

Sure, but so what? How can some "profile" Facebook has on me affect my life in any way? I'm not going to be denied a loan because Facebook might know who some of my friends are. I've been ignoring Facebook without consequence for a decade.

[citation needed]

How can you even know if it doesn't affect you (either positively or negatively)?

I think the burden is on the person claiming bad effects to name examples of those bad effects. It’s silly to have to prove the non-existence of something you see no evidence of.

> just in the same sense that Google and Equifax are not just websites

My argument is that Google and Equifax are fundamentally different from Facebook, which amounts to pretty much just a website. Equifax obviously has immense impact on one's life because of the nature of the data they collect and their role in determining one's creditworthiness. Google also has a huge impact because of how critical their search product is to so many individuals and businesses. Facebook isn't really that important by comparison, it's just popular. For most people, Facebook is a silly addiction and time waster, using the site let's you view some photos and comments or maybe chat. That's it. It's just not a big deal.

I can't wait for GDPR.

Then facebook/google/whatever can't process data from me without consent (which they do not have without an account)..

"Under GDPR organizations in breach of GDPR can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover or €20 Million (whichever is greater). This is the maximum fine that can be imposed for the most serious infringements e.g._not having sufficient customer consent to process data_ or violating the core of Privacy by Design concepts."

http://www.eugdpr.org/the-regulation.html

> can be fined up to 4% of annual global turnover

I'm not overly familar with the English terms for all these economic stats, but I think "turnover" is "revenue", and that's $27.638E9 [1] according to Wikipedia. So the fine would be about $1.1E9. On the same Wikipedia page, I see that their net income is some $10.217E9. Is "net income" the same as "profit"? If so, does that mean that even this massive fine would only be 10% of their profit?

If so, I can easily see "annual GDPR fine" becoming a standard bulletpoint in their earnings report, as long as Facebook thinks that the data collected is worth more than the fine.

[1] 1E9 = 1 billion

That sounds more like a tax than a fine.

The fine is "pr incident" afaik.

Not once a year

That sounds like marketing speak. It's a website; yes it's a very sophisticated one, but the crux of all that sophistication (for the user) comes down to a web page with posts on it. There are pros and cons to everything so I'm not sure that's a very useful observation, but, once again, Facebook is nothing special compared to e.g. services provided by google, microsoft or amazon. I think that is the reason you see so many claims of "I quit Facebook and it was the best decision I ever made" and very few "I quit using Amazon and I've never looked back!"

facebook is as much just a website as the catholic church is just some buildings with a book. there is a lot behind it.

I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy.

This is a terrible comparison. A decade old tech company is not at all comparable to one of the oldest and most powerful and influential institutions in history.

I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy.

Zuckerberg with the strip of tape over his own laptop's camera is like the Pope, living in a palace wearing a gold hat while claiming to be all about the poor.

> This is a terrible comparison. A decade old tech company is not at all comparable to one of the oldest and most powerful and influential institutions in history.

Actually it's rather apt given that there are more Facebook users (2B) than Catholics (1.2B).

The reality is that Facebook has a disturbing amount of influence on what a quarter of the worlds population see and hear on any given day. No, Facebook can't directly give orders but as a mechanism for propaganda it has unparalleled reach.

> I suppose that makes Zuckerberg god in your analogy.

Closer to the Pope.

> Actually it's rather apt given that there are more Facebook users (2B) than Catholics (1.2B).

I apologize for sounding like a jerk, but have you ever read a history book? The impact of the Catholic church on human history completely eclipses Facebook's entire existence, the comparison is completely absurd. Comparing Facebook's monthly active users to the global population of Catholics is like comparing the total number of World of Warcraft subscribers to the total number of active duty U.S. soldiers; the difference in numbers is categorically meaningless.

> The reality is that Facebook has a disturbing amount of influence on what a quarter of the worlds population see and hear on any given day.

I don't really think it does. As I stated, the majority of people use Facebook for pretty standard social behavior like photo-sharing, messaging and comments. People go to Facebook because they can see what's going on with their friends and family or they subscribe to content providers that they already like and explicitly hide content they don't want to see. Don't misunderstand, this isn't to say that Facebook couldn't potentially abuse it's power for the purpose of spreading propaganda, but the reality is that this isn't really happening because people don't look to Facebook to form their opinions, they look to the echo chambers that Facebook allows them to curate at their own discretion. Facebook is a mirror of their users and that is by design because Facebook only care about eyeballs. Of course, whenever Facebook filters or deletes something people get up in arms and complain about censorship and blah blah blah, but 99% of the time this is just sour grapes from the community that favored the removed content.

FB's mobile app is used way more than their website. Intended to be left on and active 24x7, that's probably how most people use it -- so they're never out of touch.

If not a software deity, that's at least a 'daemon on my shoulder'.

Well facebook does attempt to track you on other websites though.

THANK YOU.

I find the "I deleted Facebook" meme incredibly odd. It's a website, you don't have to visit. You don't have to check/install the app. Do you really have no free will of your own?

Yes, the feed can be annoying, so just fill it up with things you like. Unfollow annoying people, like pages and groups that interest you, and suddenly your feed changes entirely.

If you have to delete Facebook to stop checking it, the issue is with you, not with Facebook. Facebook rapidly gets pretty bland and monotonous. It's useful, but not that interesting. Facebook wish it had as much power over you as some people seem to think it has.

Yes, I'm sure I'll be downvoted into oblivion, but honestly I've given up with this site. If you're not anti Facebook, pro libertarian, anti Microsoft, anti advertising...etc. you're not part of the 20 something know-it-all SV echo chamber and so get downvoted.

Yes, I know it's redundant but I think this is the last time I'll log in here. The echo chamber and shocking lack of pragmatism and common sense displayed on this website makes me think I'm living in a different world to the opinions displayed here.

I agree that the title of the article is hyperbole. I believe what people are reacting to is an increased recognition of the how effective advertising in general and social media in particular is at persuasion and how it affects our behavior. Free will or no, advertising is effective or companies wouldn't pay for it and Facebook wouldn't have the revenue stream it does.

You can choose to handle this a number of ways. One is to modify one's use of Facebook as you recommend. Another is to decide there's not enough value in Facebook to justify that effort. A reaction to the idea that you're having your buttons pushed can also weight one's decision to break off entirely. How long would you choose to stay in a relationship if you feel like you're being manipulated? On reflection you might behave rationally, but I can sympathize with some level of emotional response. It might be over the top, but I understand where it's coming from.

You seem to be choosing the latter with respect to HN: you'd rather leave than put in the effort to make it worthwhile for you. That's completely your choice. If HN notified you of content it thought you'd be interested in or reminded you to check on updates, you'd probably disable those as well. That's effectively what people are doing when they delete the app.

People also recognize that Facebook's utility is inherent in having as many people as possible on the platform, and that they may miss out on some events and information when people post only via Facebook (crikey, there's a meme for that too: FOMO). Part of "I deleted Facebook" is reminding people that not everyone is on Facebook.

One could uncharitably argue recursively that they find your type of post incredibly odd, that one doesn't have to respond to such memes, that one should exercise their free will (and self-restraint) to just let it slide. That would also fall into the same trap: it fails to recognize that you're responding in a similar way for the same reasons: you've had your buttons pushed in a way you yourself recognize as unconstructive. And you're taking action on it, exercising your free will.

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