A long list of reasons not to use Facebook, with references
Oh god Stallman
yeah FB sucks etc etc.
Thing is Iâm very wary of bandwagons. people are complaining about FB selling your data, and being able to use that data to know things about you, but this is nothing new. Weâve known about this for a while now.
Search curly fries TED talk for a video talking explicitly about how your data is harvested and used.
The whole thing currently s,ells a bit like a very politically motivated attack on FB, using fears of data use and manipulation as weapons. I suspect behind all of this are the politicians and businesses that donât like Trump, or stand to benefit from attacking FB.
Donât get me wrong I think FB needs taking down a notch or 2, but I think all social media companies, and companies using your data, need to be held accountable to a far higher standard than the current, not just FB.
This is also making the rounds this morning:
I think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned that Facebook and other companies are being unethical with user data. In particular, with machine learning techniques for serving pleasurable content, etc⌠those methods seemed like groundbreaking ways to engage users when they first were developed. Now, however, weâve started to realize that they often are unethical and/or reinforce biases across race, politics, and other factors of life. If we have a reckoning regarding the ethical use of data, itâs only proper that Facebook, Twitter, and other platforms, public and private (Cambridge Analytica) be part of the conversation. Credit bureaus fall into the same category. Facebook is huge and has over a billion people on its platform. The larger you get, the easier it is to spot problems because edge cases and abuse are magnified. Just because we see Facebook experiencing these problems doesnât mean theyâre the only platform that experiences them. It just means Facebook is the platform where we noticed. Certainly that will sour some peopleâs opinion of it.
Mainly that itâs their entire raison dâetre.
@Clay not sure if you are agreeing or disagreeing with me?
Sounds like agreement overall?
Some shifty dirty stuff FB and others are doing.
And no I donât have a legit solution right now. Banning them all clearly wonât work.
Interestingly, social media came up in one of my classes (I was using it as a lead in to get the kids to write a review of a website ) and of the 14 in my class, 2 used Facebook, all used instagram and whatsapp .
Serious data protection regulation backed up with enforcement. No use or sale of personal data without explicit consent. Strict rules on data breaches.
In other words, GDPR
Iâm not saying GDPR is the best way to go about it, but something like that, basically.
Every time a company mishandles data/gets hacked itâs a $1000 fine per person affected. Since they tend to lose these things in batches of hundreds of thousands or millions, then maybe companies will start taking it seriously.
Of course that would never happen because theyâd spend a few million to make Congress vote against it, if not vote to make it illegal to ever punish them for it.
Who collects the fine? If itâs the feds I would think the deficit could be paid down in no time.
NASA. Just because.
Donât we explicitly give our consent anyway everytime we install an app?
The GDPR requires you ask for explicit consent for each different use of the data. Blanket âby using this app you consent to these 29 thingsâ is illegal under that law. Other countries, Brazil, Canada, etc. have similar laws.
Sounds like the problem is solved then!
All hail Facebook⌠:s
From that Bloomberg piece:
This sort of thing is precisely why firms displaying internet advertising have to be made to host the ads themselves. How can you begin to pretend to have any vetting of advertising on your platform if your own reviewers donât even see what the users see? If it were up to me, Iâd ban affiliate marketing altogether, as it inevitably gets used to push scams, but I donât see any political appetite for that.
Dig into what FB and Google have about you!
90% porn searches and 10% get rich quick schemes, just as I suspected.
Sure, but then, why even try? Why try to develop critical thinking skills? Why try to function as rational entities at all?
Even if the Enlightenment turns our to have been a lot more aspirational than weâd hoped, I still think thatâs the best lodestar weâve got. And I think a countryâs educational system should be in the business of raising humans who can think critically and act in a considered way.
Nice.