Reasons not to use Facebook | Hacker News Reader

Reasons not to use Facebook

stallman.org

188 pointsdguillot28 comments

The biggest reason I can see now based on current rhetoric, is that it's a trap.

Once in, you can't get out, even if you want to. That doesn't even factor privacy or advertising or whatever, it's purely that you are attached to a specific corporation just to maintain relationships.

If you want to get out: ask for contact details of those you need to communicate with and advise you are working out a workaround.

There's no reason group admins and businesses can't set up a mailing or instant messenger list that doesn't depend on Facebook, G+, Slack, etc. In fact the owners of such groups and companies should be offering such things to help everyone decide, now's a good time...

> In some regions, 10% of Facebook useds don't realize that talking to Facebook is using the internet. And Facebook is directing millions of people into having no internet access except to Facebook.

I've seen people think Facebook is the internet.

I have setup a facebook account a very long time but i always kept the same basic usage and sticked to it, connect with friends, mostly nice persons I meet while traveling. No photos, no walls, just a few messages now and then to say hi. Nothing that would generate a all marketing industry at the expense of privacy.

Who you friend are says a lot about you. So does what you talk about.

Sure, you're not generating the most marketing data out of all facebook users, but you are generating a decent amount of marketing data.

Don’t forget that as you use your machine for visiting other sites, your usage is being tracked using Advertising ID that most platforms expose. You don’t need the same browser, the ID is stable until you reset it.

Stallman hates the internet.

Stallman loves the internet. He very openly hates the modern commercialized internet which disrespects, spys on, disimpowers and manipulates users chasing financial gain and 'engagement'.

Give the man a credit. There's merit to what he says. He understands the slippery slope argument, he understand what giving away freedom & privacy could lead to.

He's right most often. You might disagree with his extreme attitude, but eventually it comes down to: Is he telling some truth?

Yeah. And he explains why. Every other day I find myself saying "Stallman was right".

So he explains some reasons why we should not use Facebook. Fine.

Next question is: do we have alternatives? You know, the "libre/FOSS" version?

GNU social or Diaspora, maybe?

This is just my opinion, but I think the answer starts with first replacing authentication mechanisms, thus allowing any group of people to try different social apps, forums and chat servers using their common auth.

In my Utopian world, small groups of technical people would host OpenLDAP servers and replicas. They would front end them with some open source SAML2/OAuth providers. That would allow them as a small group to have forums, chat servers, blogs, email, etc...

Their circle of non technical friends could then utilize all the services the technical folks share the support of. If the LDAP master drops out, someone else promotes their replica to master.

Why all this? No nation state back doors and potentially less risk if people reuse passwords, since this group can also host email.

Nitpick: He seems to consistently spell ‘users’ as ‘useds’ in this article?

Edit; he does so everywhere. What am I missing?

You are not a user of Facebook, you are used by Facebook.

I do wish Stallman articles wouldn't do this kind of thing. It's kind of like those guys who used to unironically write "Micro$oft" on documents during the 90's/2000's. How can anyone take a document like that seriously?

That page should be amazing because it's just a long curated list of every time someone has been majorly fucked by facebook. I really want a page like that so that whenever someone says "why do you hate facebook so much?", I can just say "read this" and then link them a massive litany of offenses.

Unfortunately, because it contains that snarky non-word, the entire page takes on an aura of conspiracy mania. It could read like a legal document, but with that one change it reads like a geocities site, and no one I link to it can take it seriously. What a waste.

Also referring to trans people as “cross-dressers” is generally not good form. I don’t think he means anything by it, but it tends to put people off.

Except that he is actually literally talking about drag/cross-dressing which is not the same thing as transsexualism, as you'd know if you'd clicked the link on that line:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/01/victory-d...

Unfortunately I must say I think you're looking for reasons to be offended, which never helps any discussion.

If that’s what he meant that’s what he should have said. Using terminology that can be even the least bit confusing never helps any discussion.

BTW, the link mentions trans people too. Stallman was using it as a catch all term. Again, don’t think he meant anything by it (that is another way of saying: “I am not personally offended by the words themselves because I understand and acknowledge the context and intent of them”) but words matter when you are trying to make a point.

From the article:

>Under pressure from cross-dressers, Facebook said it would relax the 'real name' policy and allow people to use aliases, but only if they are generally known by those aliases or if they were victims of certain types of abuse or stalking.

I fail to see what he "should have said" instead, and I don't see where confusion could arise other than the fact that trans & abuse victims were affected as well.

Thanks; should've figured that out on my own.

I really hope this practice of saying "Facebook useds" becomes a meme and goes viral.

Given that he's been doing so for years, I'm skeptical.

This is actually written in less of a hyperbolic tone than his usual articles.

Of all his pages, this one is by far the largest.

Was surprised to see how chill (very relatively speaking) he is about Twitter. In fact, it was apparently unobjectionable for some period.

He mentions Cambridge analytica, so this is contemporary.

(2013) should be removed - this page has been kept up-to-date, and includes mention of Cambridge Analytica.

Thanks, we've removed it.

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