Is Facebook benign, evil or indifferent?

Allecher said:
There is a funny picture going around Google+ (yes, I see the irony but stick with me here) that says "Facebook and You: If you are not paying for it you're not the customer, you're the product being sold".
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There is a very old Jean Shepherd broadcast from 1963 (you can find them online) wherein Jean goes on a blind date imagining some bucktoothed girl and finds that in fact his blind date was literally a beauty queen. Later in the theater he tried to put his arm around her shoulders and she pushed him away and said "Can you please stop acting like a kid?!"

And then it occurred to him.

HE was the blind date.
 
theprestige said:
Making analogies to things that are not the Internet only gets in the way, and retards humanity's necessary adaptation to the new environment it has created but not yet evolved to inhabit.
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I'm not quite clear on which is the faith talk - that analogies retard the necessary adaptation, or that the adaptation is necessary.

I see where analogies could retard adaptation because the underlying "connectivity" technology is in scale so far beyond what humans have been used to. If Facebook is a meeting place, that's a nice finite concept. If Facebook is a meeting place where your entire life/surfing/entertainment/shopping/dating habits are on record - it's a meeting place but also more. When you go out in public you can control your image to a certain extent. If you "live online," isn't there are a more or less permanent record about everything you do?

I have a feeling Mark Zuckerberg doesn't really understand why anyone would mind. To me that's unsettling, even if he's not a bad guy.
 
Facebook and sites/services like it are things people convinced themselves they needed to live and "stay connected" in the modern world. It's completely unnecessary and mostly a time sink for these sites and their partners (hello Zynga) to make money off you. Let go...unless you are a new Spotify member. Then you NEED facebook. Be wary of other businesses that will intertwine themselves with "social networking sites" like Spotify has done in the near future. Also be wary of Facebook, Foursquare, and any other "tool" that will in real time broadcast your exact location. Stalkers/thieves paradise. In short Facebook is evil.
 
Policenaut said:
Also be wary of Facebook, Foursquare, and any other "tool" that will in real time broadcast your exact location. Stalkers/thieves paradise. In short Facebook is evil.
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It seems so obviously wise not to publicly declare that you're out of town and your house is empty. But then that's not Facebook's fault. If you post:

cool getting hammered w/ u!!! think i'll walk home it's a nice nite!! :)

you are telling a limited circle about your location.

You mean the device will broadcast where you are using the phone as a trace?
So ... someone could kind of see you walking home alone?
 
Based on the film, it's thefting founders were evil. Hope it comes back to leave them broke and drunks.

ETA : real soon.
 
fuelair said:
Based on the film, it's thefting founders were evil. Hope it comes back to leave them broke and drunks.

ETA : real soon.
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I loved that movie. Watched it once, then straight through again with screenwriter/actor comments. The Zuckerberg portrayed clearly knew he was doing something underhanded but seemed to take his absolution for granted - like a kid stealing from the cookie jar.
 
Antiquehunter said:
Mostly benign. I really don't see how anything I put on my facebook account can do me any harm. But then again, I am more or less sensible about what I use it for. Misused, facebook can have evil consequences, but that's a bit like blaming automobiles for being sold without speed suppressors and portable blood-alcohol testers/immobilzers.
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That's how I feel about it. The new instant-feed of what your friends are doing made a bunch of people angry. They copy-posted a thing asking the people on their list to unsubscribe from them, because they "didn't want everything they post being public." :boggled: Then don't put it on Facebook!

Minoosh said:
I loved that movie. Watched it once, then straight through again with screenwriter/actor comments. The Zuckerberg portrayed clearly knew he was doing something underhanded but seemed to take his absolution for granted - like a kid stealing from the cookie jar.
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Great movie. But as far as I can tell, a pretty inaccurate portrayal of Zuckerberg.
 
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From what read about Mark Zuckerberg, he does not just "not care" about privacy -- he explicitely says that privacy is an outdated concept which impedes human interaction. It's not a "conspiracy" or "nefarious plot" in the sense of hidden motives -- Zuckerberg opposes privacy, and is quite open about it.
 
Well it is outdated or rather it is being exposed for what it has always been. All it used to mean was information that was not easy to find, so private information like your telephone number, age, and address where all publicly accessible to someone willing to do the legwork, all that has happened is the internet and the likes of facebook have removed a lot of the legwork and (some) people are feeling quite exposed.
 
I found the movie very hard going. Nasty posh kids stealing each others ideas and making out they are innovative. I guess it is no surprise since Apple made it cool to be late to market with other peoples ideas in a prettier package, as Microsoft did in the 80s/90s.

One of those films where you hoped they would all meet a painful end. I was never a big FB user but the movie convinced me to drop it for good. So do fans of the the film love to hate it, or is there admiration for these 'innovators'?
 
I like the film. I like Facebook. I do not believe the film is entirely historically accurate. Facebook IS an innovation, both in terms of technology and interface design.

delu said:
I guess it is no surprise since Apple made it cool to be late to market with other peoples ideas in a prettier package, as Microsoft did in the 80s/90s.
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MS never had the prettier package. The iPhone, iMac and iPad were not other peoples' ideas. Everyone said the iPad would flop; remember that.
 
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A report about 1200 pages of text data Facebook collected from a guy who used to think he deleted most of that data ... Well, Facebook obviously never forgets [Muhawawawww...] :

 
I think it's just a big data mining operation that can cause people problems if they are not very careful about what they put out on Fb. I have an account, but I rarely post anything, and my profile is empty. I only keep it because my kids are on it, and it's handy for that. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.

I especially don't use any of their apps or games, which require that you allow a third party outside of Fb to have access to whatever information you have in your profile etc.

Besides, they've had some security issues in the past that do not put them in good stead with me.
 
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