Zuckerberg vs Congress

This is why we need younger people in government.

I'm at 5:38 on this video and Cenk is just as wrong as the senator, in the same way. This doesn't bode well.

I am operating within established parameters.

Here is the problem with entitlement. I have never paid Facebook a dime for using their system. They have to make money to pay for their bandwidth, and their computing. Either I pay a fee for their service which would eliminate a lot of people from using it, or I deal with the fact they will find buyers for ads and work with the people who are paying them money to see what I do on their services. That is why they are free. I have no right to use Facebook. I have no right to take advantage of their established programming and data storage and transport. I have no right to any of that. Any day I don't like what they do I can walk away and stop using their free product.

It is just like the people who whine about this place. It is basically free for most of us and is on someone else's dime. These are not utilities you cannot live without. These are services that need to make money and you can live without any day you stop liking what is going on with your data. Why do people think they have a right to services that are free to use but cost money to maintain?

Your Constitution gives the government the right to establish a post office and post roads. It seems obvious to me that internet and social media are part of the current version of this. That obviously doesn't entail any specific obligation on a private company such as Facebook, but it does suggest there should be a public alternative.

Actually, you can't. See, one of the things about Facebook that people don't know is that even if you've never joined Facebook, they still have lots of data on you. Any web page with a Facebook "Like" button on it, is gathering data on you via a process known as "browser fingerprinting." So, you can say you don't want to be a part of Facebook, don't want to have your information collected and sold by Facebook, but they're doing it anyway.

Here's the thing, though: I'd happily use Facebook without complaint if they structured it to my wants and desires, they don't, however. And unlike a site like Wordforge, they actively structure their site to ensure that I can't use the site as easily as I want. Why? Because they make money off the amount of time I spend on the site, and it's far, far easier to bury the stuff that I'm interested in than it is to make compelling content for me to consume. This is why the default on your newsfeed is "Most Popular," rather than "Most Recent." Nevermind that this means you can miss a post a close friend of yours has made a few seconds ago, saying that they're on the way to the hospital, if it gets you to respond to someone's lunch picture they posted a week ago, that's all that matters.

Even worse, Facebook makes it impossible for you to tell them the kinds of things that you want, because the geeks at Facebook are so enamored of their algorithm that they think it knows you better than you know yourself, when that isn't the case. The same is true of other tech companies, BTW. I can remember being on my lunch break at work, and launching Twitter to see what reactions were to people testifying before Congress in the Russian election interference hearings. Twitter, however, wanted to show me shit that I "might have missed" which had happened hours before. On an average day, this wouldn't have been terribly annoying, but on a day when much of the country was wanting to find out what was going on with Congress, it was stupid.

I would love to go into this a bit deaper, but I can’t at this time. That being said,FDR said it best, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

You really do not have a legitimate right to privacy over your data streaming over any number of systems you do not own or control. The right you have is not to use them. If you are a person who needs all that privacy then you do not get on social media. It is as simple as that. I grew up in a time with no social media. It is possible to do, and you can live like that. Know this sort of thing is going on. It is like me broadcasting everything about myself in the middle of the street. I have no right to privacy there in accordance with the law. I cannot expect the community to turn a blind eye to my genitals if I expose them in public. That is what your home is for and what your curtains are for. That is what shutting off your access to the internet is for and getting some privacy. Other people are going to do things with what you broadcast and the internet is inherently broadcast. You can encrypt all you want, but you have to make it as hard as possible to track things, and even then the path of your data is information that can be used.

Sorry but entitlement and ignorance of how privacy works does not make things private when you are exposing your ass to the world through the internet.

I don’t think anything prevents the government from creating a post office website.

https://m.usps.com/m/Home

As you can see, it’s less interesting than Facebook but is a good tool to track packages.

Except, of course, I have no way of knowing that my data is going to be mined by someone until after I give consent to them. I have no way of knowing that any particular link I click on will direct me to a page which has a Facebook "Like" button until I get there. At which point, no matter what I might think of Facebook, I'm still giving them my information. That's not how it's supposed to work.

@Order2Chaos, apparently you disagree? Mind telling me why?

Yep. Companies like Facebook have an all pervasive web presence, and that includes Google. These companies are data harvesters, because that's where the real money is, and in return they offer you a few services to make it look like you're just a consumer, and not the one being consumed. Granted, Google gives you a lot more services, but they also take just as much. Facebook, Google, these sites watch everything you do, what you type (before you hit enter), and where you go, even if you've never used their services directly. People are becoming apathetic about it, but I don't want to lose my right to privacy.

Nobody is forcing you to, but if you want to enjoy the magic of the internets, that's the deal they're offering.

It's a shit deal, and I'm going to call them on it.

Maybe. I have multiple loyalty cards in my wallet that companies use to track my every purchase, and all I get for most of them is a discount that amounts to less than a penny per dollar, or access to sale prices that used to be available to everyone. Facebook and Google are at least giving me access to a suite of programs and services that would otherwise be pretty costly.

All the same reasons I disagreed last time you brought up this idea.

Under a legal definition of privacy our rights were eroded before the internet was ever here. It is mainly due to the drug wars and the fight against organized crime. Over and over more and more became acceptable for police and your legitimate expectation of privacy was really in your house shielded from any broadcast energies. Cops can literally watch the heat from your house to determine if you are doing something strange with electricity and get a warrant to search your house for a grow because of the lights you use and how much you use them. Your outdoor private property is not secure from someone wandering on it even with a fence and no trespassing signs posted about. That is because according to the courts someone might ignore the signs and be there. If a cop can see into your home because you let them in you are fucked even if you just open the door too much.

All of this was well before any social media aside from landlines existed. Now your house has all sorts of smart options broadcasting over very public resources and we have FISA courts. Privacy is an illusion we create for ourselves. With places like Facebook eliminating our ability to use anonymity because they really require a real name and verification from people you are not really keeping yourself private. I know people who only have a very static Facebook profile and only have office friends who never post party pictures or anything because their jobs look and require you to spy on yourself. I have already established a new stage name for my presence on the internet just due to past activity I do not want linked. I don't friend any relatives or friends who are not secure in their jobs because of what it might mean for them to be associated with me, and people think I am weird when I do not want to have my name on their pages because of what other people will and have done. Facebook does like to make those connections.

Until Twitler or the government starts tossing the alt right into a hole for intimidation and threats I am pretty much going to continue monitoring what I do. People have no idea how easy and fast it is to pull your name out of the data mine with everything you do. None of those services that are supposed to protect you actually do much to remove your name.

Instead of grilling Zuckerberg, they should be grilling the NSA which has been doing this a lot longer than Facebook.

All of my loyalty cards have old information on them, and I still get my discount. Win/win!

That said, I know what you mean, it's just I really dislike the idea of opening up my habits for the perusal of others who want to monetize me. At least with commercials I know they're trying to sell something, but with this kind of data harvesting, they're willing to twist reality in order to present me with something they want me to buy, but I won't realize it's not true. Ads are like propaganda but with a disclaimer that every experience is unique, can't promise this or that, blah blah blah, but what these companies do is make it seem like "yes, this is the truth, this is fact," all to make money. It's highly unethical on every level, and it's dangerous.

I despise the war on drugs (except for these guys: ), because it has long been an excuse to dig into people's lives and take their rights and belongings with impunity and immunity. I hate that people judge others because they smoke a little weed, or pop a few pills in their off hours. that these same people will drink a beer, smoke a cigarette, and talk about how we have to keep drugs off the streets. You fucking idiots, what do you think you're holding in your hands? THOSE ARE DRUGS! They're just socially accepted ones. Again, it's why I'm so against the notion that legality = morality. As long as we're willing to suspend out disbelief for that nugget, people will continue to allow things to happen to them, and spout stupidity like "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear," because if there is anything I have learned, it's that there isn't a soul on this earth who has nothing to hide, and we have a right to secrets. We have a right to keep things to ourselves, to enjoy privacy, to keep thoughts in our head even if they become unpopular.

What is legal and socially acceptable today may not be so tomorrow, so that these companies have our data, that they know every secret about us, should chill people to the bone, because you never know when being gay, or being a Communist, or having a history of posting anti-government sentiments is going to come back and seriously bite us in the ass. I'm not willing to sell myself to use a shit tier website like Facebook, or to save 10 cents on wax paper.

I maintain very little on Facebook after they went and banished as many anon accounts as they could. I see the reasons why Facebook removed a lot of accounts created for nothing, and that is their choice. It is how they were able to sell their data by eliminating as much false data as possible. It also means they can do a lot more moderation as they make trolling accounts harder to keep.

It is just too damned easy to start screwing with someone on Facebook. You can really screw someone's whole life up from a distance due to prejudices using info you get from Facebook. The only thing keeping you safe on Facebook is really keeping yourself small and not worth fooling with. Facebook really cannot regulate that and maintain a place where you can post your life. You have to decide your level of social media interaction and balance that with your privacy. People have no idea. I have had to smack phones out of people's hands because they wanted to put pictures of weed and drugs onto their social media at places where regular people with jobs and kids were. All you need is one asshole to go to CPS or the jobs of people there and people are going to lose. You have no idea who is watching when you broadcast that stuff. Think of what happened to mittens romnifeller in the last election when the help recorded a private function where he was mocking poor people. That was his home and because he invited people in there he had no expectation of privacy and he lost votes due to coming off like the elitist goon he was.

In the mid nineties I took a class about the internet. The teacher way back then gave the best advice ever. If you do not want to see it on the front page of the newspaper never put it online in any way. You cannot guarantee it won't end up there.

No reason they couldn't do both. Deciding who gets to sell you out is not your only option here.

I think the whole country, no the world, has to sit down and figure out what we want for privacy and how to get it.

Does Facebook, Google or any company for that matter need everything I've ever done? Can there not be a limit on it? Anything past say 5 years gets erased automatically?

Something has to be done.

Even a number of tech leaders think the net is fucked up.

More at the link.

Oh, and for some reason, Facebook thinks I'm Nigel Farage.

Yet they're too busy asking him about what hotel he stayed in.

Fun fact: Even if you don't "check in" with Facebook or a similar service, Facebook does know exactly what hotel you're staying in and will happily sell that information to anyone with enough money.

Yeah, and I'm sure google does the same.