
I can’t just stand by and watch Mark Zuckerberg destroy the internet - pedrodelfino
https://medium.freecodecamp.com/mark-zuckerberg-is-the-most-powerful-person-on-earth-but-is-he-responsible-5fbcaeb29ee1#.56198o9b0
======
ramblenode
> Unfortunately, deleting your Facebook account won’t help.

Yes, it will. In fact, it may be the only thing that will help.

Facebook has shown willingness to make unpopular changes if it can get away
with it--and it always gets away with it. The fact that an informed and
visible critic like the author can't even manage to give it up is a case study
in why Facebook can and will keep calling bluffs. Complaints mean nothing if
you are giving the site the same eyeball time. Facebook's success is due to
the size of its social network. The network effect works both ways, though; if
enough people leave then those remaining will have less incentive to stay on
board, and the network will unravel inversely to how it was built. Only when
the eyeball count starts declining will Facebook take users' wishes seriously.

~~~
dasyatidprime
Facebook can stay dominant longer than you can survive in isolation.

~~~
drc0
the narrative that puts you in isolation if you don't use facebook is just
wrong. This is the excuse that made the author of that post keeping his
account, and one the reason fb is successful.

~~~
NotOscarWilde
Listing a couple of examples from my life:

* A group of my friends who play badminton together organize weekly events only through Facebook. They use "Going/Not going" as a way of knowing how many people are coming.

* One of my friends organizes film nights occasionally. Again, he does it through Facebook. He sets the date differently each time, so that all people can attend at least sometime. There is no info about this outside Facebook and we do not meet in real life otherwise (he is not my coworker and he lives in a different part of town).

Is what you are suggesting really "cut from your life a portion of your
friends that synchronize only through Facebook"? Surely it will not lead to a
complete isolation for me, but being an introverted person, it will reduce my
social life by a significant margin.

~~~
harlanji
This is what makes me keep mine too... events. Only events. Eventbrite is free
but I've not hosted through it yet as I've not held (m)any events recently.
That's a possible way out if it's low friction enough, seems most outgoing
people in the BA have an EB account for concerts/meetups/etc... could possibly
rally a couple people in your groups with anti-FB sentiment and pave the way
off FB for these events. Many people I know feel somewhat trapped by some
slice of FB/Google functionality so alternate suggestions could be welcome.

~~~
greenhatman
I wish I could get everyone to use something like Retroshare.

[http://retroshare.net/](http://retroshare.net/)

~~~
unclenoriega
This is the first I've heard of Retroshare. It looks interesting, but there's
no way I'll be able to convert enough friends and family without a mobile app.
I'm going to try out it out, though, and keep my fingers crossed.

------
unimpressive
The weakest part of this essay is its conclusion. What to do - use Facebook?
There's nothing else that can be done at this stage, really?

How about:

1\. Go out of your way to support alternative distribution platforms such as
the 'indie web', gnusocial, etc. (Whether through use, development, etc. Every
bit helps.)

2\. Figuring out some kind of movement or legislative action we can take to
end free basics, since it's egregious monopoly behavior.

~~~
kennywinker
Seriously. Bad conclusions. Facebook's news feed algorithms mean what users
put into facebook has very little to do with what users get out of facebook.
The author doesn't want to live in an "enlightened literati echo chamber", but
is resigning himself to living in a algorithmic clickbate echo chamber.

~~~
vehementi
Not "resigning", but rather hopefully leveraging it

~~~
kennywinker
I guess my point was I don't think you _can_ leverage it. The algorithm will
just hide stuff that doesn't fit Facebook's agenda.

------
dzmien
"Facebook is already on our phones and computers, pestering us with
notifications."

That quote from the article really baffled me. Facebook isn't on my phone or
computer pestering me. That's because I choose not to use it. The article goes
on to worry about the lack of a "disable notifications for good" option. Are
people really that helpless? It makes it sound as if there is literally no
choice but to use facebook. If facebook is really hurting your quality of
life, then stop using it. Or at least uninstall the app.

~~~
BipolarElsa
A lot of people need to use Facebook to stay in touch with family members and
friends they otherwise would not be able to communicate with due to distance,
past, or what have you. This is a problem of "not enough good competition."
Facebook has a de facto monopoly on social networking. Google _tried_ in vain,
but they lost miserably. Until someone can step up to Zuckerberg, Facebook
will do what they want when it comes to shitty news, annoying notifications,
and over-bloated web design. I've used Facebook since the day it was released.
It used to be really, really good. Now it's just crap. I hope a new competitor
shows them what's up.

~~~
greenhatman
It's really simple, if you need to be on Facebook, just set it up to send you
notifications to your email. Only check Facebook when you get a notification.

If you want to talk to people, talk to them directly.

Just never go on the feed.

------
muninn_
Me either. Stop using Facebook and help make sure your friends and family stop
using it as well. Encourage them to not use their Facebook login for anything,
and ensure that they uninstall the app from their mobile phone. Explain to
them the FakeNewsBook, the not giving a crap about user privacy, how the
service makes people depressed and have low self esteem, and how much of a
waste of time it is.

~~~
artemist
The problem with telling people to stop using Facebook is that they want some
way to communicate with extended family and former friends.Before you can tell
people to simply stop, you need a replacement. I have not yet seen a solution
which would be able to replace Facebook for that purpose. Email is much
clunkier and does not work to communicate with many people. IM and other
messaging, including Signal, are quite different and can't be used to
communicate with many people. There have been a few attempts, such as dispora,
to federate Facebook but they have not caught on and may cause some problems
with e.g. searchability.

~~~
maglavaitss
How were people communicating before FB? When you have that answer, you
realize how futile is to depend your whole life & friends' \+ family's on FB.

~~~
kazinator
Let's read parent comment again it says: "communicate with extended family and
former friends"

Before Facebook and its ilk, part of the _definition_ of "former friends" and
"extended family" was that they are categorized as people you rarely
communicate with, or not at all.

Before Facebook, you didn't need Facebook to ignore your _former_ friend or to
rarely talk to your second cousin on the other side of the continent. Today,
you still don't need Facebook for this.

------
kinkdr
The sad part is that people were warning about FB years before that only to be
mocked.

Pretty much the same way people are warning about Google today but get
ignored.

Pleas stop using FB and restrict the amount of Google services you use.

~~~
tpeo
There are strong network externalities both to Facebook and to Google
services. The more people use them, the better they are, and so much more
higher are the opportunity costs of switching to other websites. Pleas won't
change the incentives involved.

That being said, I think tech journalism overstates the amount of control
which either Google and Facebook can actually exert over their users.

~~~
kinkdr
> That being said, I think tech journalism overstates the amount of control
> which either Google and Facebook can actually exert over their users.

That's how they win, by being underestimated. Better to overestimate IMHO.

Call me a Cassandra, but I won't be surprised in the next POTUS is Zuck.

~~~
markharris99
If Zuck shaves his head and becomes POTUS, then strap yourself in because
we'll be getting WW3 and Superman won't be there to stop him!

------
Steer
This essay validates my decision to never create a Facebook account in the
first place. I understand that this is not the authors conclusion, but it is
my conclusion from reading the essay. I do not want to be a part of that eco
system.

------
knice
It is not in Facebook's monetary interest to identify or remove fake or
questionable news from our news feeds. By it's nature, fake news is emotional.
It causes an emotional, gut-level reaction ("OMG, must like and share this!")
that promotes virality. Virality === $$$ for Facebook. I imagine they have
already experimented with news feed filters that reduce noise and I'm sure the
result was reduced engagement. As long as Facebook profits from attention, we
should expect them to be tepid at best about any change that reduces their
share of our attention.

------
kafkaesq
_Mark Zuckerberg — Facebook’s CEO — is probably the most powerful person alive
today. He may even be the most powerful person ever._

The first assertion isn't even remotely true. And the second is just plain
silly.

------
jondubois
Facebook should be nationalized and then the government should remove all
advertising from the platform.

When a company has a monopoly over something, bureaucracy actually works - It
slows things down, reduces risks, makes life better for employees and improves
moral ethics within the company.

The fact that CEOs are legally bound to maximize profits doesn't make sense
when the company already has a monopoly over its industry - The only way they
can keep increasing profits is through scorched-earth policies which are
damaging to society.

~~~
visarga
Problem is, when it is nationalized, which party should nominate the CEO?

~~~
jondubois
The president I guess. Maybe Facebook should be an independent entity like the
Fed.

I'm a lot more worried about corporations exerting undue influence on Facebook
(which is what's happening now) than the government doing so.

~~~
poikniok
Why should Facebook be nationalized though? Why shouldn't the government make
its own social network if they want to? The answer is of course nobody would
use it.

~~~
visarga
You can justify nationalization by public interest.

------
pasbesoin
I hope (but don't unrealistically expect) that Musk can keep his micro-
satellite network free of undue influence by any particular national
government or set thereof.

What we need are some new and independent physical layers.

And if we're smart, the "smart people" will keep them to themselves for as
long as possible. (Something Musk's network won't be able to help with.)

I miss the inquiring, helpful Net of increasing yore. Enough other people do,
too, that I haven't given up hope it may find a home somewhere.

~~~
markharris99
> I miss the inquiring, helpful Net of increasing yore. Enough other people
> do, too, that I haven't given up hope it may find a home somewhere.

Not sure how old you are, but I used to use 300 baud modems. I was pre-
internet. I remember then 1997 on irc, then when the masses really woke up to
the Internet around 1999-2001.

Anyway, people around that time really had hope for the internet.

Nowadays, well millennials just don't seem to have the same feeling. I figure
they are in their bubbles happy to have whatever sandbox they are in keep the
status quo and everything else, as long as their wants and needs are met,
doesn't matter.

Give it a generation or two and we'll be just like Wall-E. Drones on basic
income, with smartphones incorporated to our brains with all the corporations
telling us how to live, work and think.

Seriously, this dystopia is not that far away. Just a few key ingredients for
this to happen.

~~~
ashark
I trace the death of the Web I loved to around 2007-2010. That's about when it
seemed like it stopped getting better and started getting worse.

\- Google seemed to give up the spam war and start just returning only major
sites for the top of most results around that time.

\- Youtube started to become a way to make money, which was the beginning of
the end for it. Google advertising IIRC started to get big on it around that
time, too.

\- Facebook started to expand beyond college networks and the recently-
graduated to grandma and grandpa.

\- Google generally started to Be Evil in a real way, fairly consistently.

\- Amazon started to get all crapped-up with 3rd party retailers and print-on-
demand garbage infecting even their book results, making it worse overall.

The main difference now is that instead of sorting through some small-time
spam and ad-junk material to find the good stuff, the _whole damn thing_ ,
practically, is spam and ad-junk. Local news sites look like click farm ad
spam sites from the early 2000s. Ads in google results. Wading through
disguised and explicit advertising and self-promotion on Youtube to find
anything good. "1 weird trick!" on once-respectable sites. "Buy my (shitty)
ebook to learn my secrets!" everywhere. We didn't beat spam—it ate the Web. It
_is_ the Web. The weird-but-good still exists but is harder to find. The Web
kinda sucks now, unless you like advertising.

I'm pessimistic about it ever getting better. Maybe some new frontier will
follow it, and that'll be OK for 1-2 decades before it gets ruined, too.

~~~
partisan
>> We didn't beat spam—it ate the Web. It is the Web.

That hits the mark for me. It feels as though the entire web is one big
advertisement for stuff you don't need. It's made people apathetic. They don't
even see it though it enters their subconsciouses.

------
FrancoDiaz
It's nice to have never used Facebook, then you don't have to give it up.

------
curioussavage
This is so ironic to me. Last time I was on his forum I said something
critical of google (this was when the snowden stuff was still in the news
more) and he was super defensive, according to him google did and could do now
wrong blah blah.

Ill bet he hasn't changed his mind about that either even though google is
arguably even more dangerous to privacy/freedom of speech and the open web.

~~~
redstar92
Ending of the article is kind of funny, use gmail, chrome, etc... so facebook
is no good but google is great... Yeah right.. I am with you :)

------
mastre_
"Facebook everywhere -- Facebook is already on our phones and computers,
pestering us with notifications"

One thing that iOS got right from the very beginning is granular, a la carte
permissions. While I have Fb installed, it has almost no access -- no gps, no
contacts, no notifications. It cannot intrude, I need to consciously start the
app to see anything Fb-related. Same with Messenger.

I've recently removed Fb's media access (called "Photos" on iOS) because I
noticed it was doing collages of the photos I took previously during the day
-- I would like to think they are not uploading any data from my gallery to
their servers, but would not put it past them.

Also, the mobile web version is usable, I think they purposefully hold it back
to push people to the app, but you can get by. Because I'm not sure if they're
scanning my gallery and extracting/communicating metadata back to their C2, I
now do picture uploads thru mobile web, that way they do not have permanent
access to my media. Would be nice for this to be an app permission, one-time
and/or user action-initiated access vs the current permanent access, which
includes unrestricted background access.

Another permissions to disable is "Background App Refresh," which if you have
notifications disabled there should be no reason to have enabled. They can
send a C2 ping which has IP information and who knows what other device
profiling which, even with GPS disabled, can still probably give them a lot of
information on your whereabouts. Unfortunately, on iOS, the main Fb app is
implemented in a tricky way and does not even list itself in the main app
permissions list, you need to find some of the permissions individually, and
BG App Refresh does not appear to be defeatable. The Messenger app does list
itself normally and can have all the perms turned off in one place.

------
tmalsburg2
Damn, it's almost as if Richard Stallman had been right all along.

------
Gys
I think the writer is mixing up cause and consequence.

The internet != Facebook

Although for many people internet == Facebook

But that is because for many people Facebook is what they want the internet to
be. If people wanted internet to be something else, Facebook would be
something else.

The essence of being successful is to give people what they want.

Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Donald Trump are examples of people who
understand very, very well what the masses want. Without loosing focus on
their own needs ;-)

~~~
littletimmy
What about people who have no other options? Like people in poor villages who
haven't known anything else?

------
Sphax
Facebook didn't make or launch a satellite. Spacecom owned the satellite,
Israeli Aerospace Industries made it. Facebook leased capacity on it. Just
fyi.

------
disordinary
I'm at the age that all my friends are having kids so I stay off Facebook.

Really it's only good for checking in on people every now and then, most of
the stuff on my timeline is now spam. I know a lot of people feel the same
way.

I wouldn't be surprised if the actual engagement on Facebook is a lot lower
than we're led to believe.

~~~
jrnichols
what caused me to engage with Facebook a lot less often is the fact that if I
post on some article, it shares it on my friends timelines. That "(friend) has
commented on ..." stuff. I don't want that. I have a very diverse group of
friends, and no, i don't want it being shared that i posted on a pro-gay or
pro-clinton or pro-trump article. it's sharing unnecessarily.

------
MK999
It's literally just a website and no one is forcing anyone to use it. It's
only as interesting as a person's friends are. The more censorship they
implement the less interesting things will be said due to overt or self
censorship. If it becomes less interesting people will spend less time there.

------
datashovel
I think in a "normal" situation a government could fund programs that will
help citizens understand how to deal with this relatively new phenomenon
(ubiquity of fake news). The problem is approximately 50% of the US doesn't
trust its government, and they also don't trust "elite" groups to teach them
anything.

The lower class (and quasi-illiterate) citizens of this country (US, and
probably many other countries) are becoming empowered and vocal members of
society at such a rapid pace it is eclipsing our ability as a society to
prepare them in such a way that the rest of us can trust that they will take
this responsibility seriously.

------
wheelerwj
Mostly agreed, but Id argue the problen is much much bigger. when they said
ww3 would be fought over idealogy, i dont think anyone considered it wouldn't
be nation states fighting, but corporate vs public interests.

------
mrmrcoleman
A significant number of the comments here could apply to alcoholics
contemplating sobriety if we just ran:

s/Facebook Events/beer/g

I'm actually disappointed and I thought I'd stopped falling into that trap.

What the actual f*ck

------
kahrkunne
Tbh, even as someone who is pretty concerned about big corporations, I'm not
too fazed by Facebook. As someone who doesn't use it but still manages to have
a good (social) life, I know Facebook doesn't provide anything people actually
_need_. If Zuck ever does anything that the general public really cares about
and despises, Facebook will lose its users way faster than most people would
think.

------
aq3cn
I used uBlock Origin to block side panel to find out that every time I refresh
the page ID of blocked elements changes and those side panel come back.

I rely on Feedly to get news and I hope it will not turn up into another
Facebook. Even Feedly has it's own lock in as it does not allow us to export
read later articles. For long time export option for OPML of subscribed RSS
was not available too.

~~~
devoply
Someone needs to create a let's encrypt of facebook and twitter. Just an API
to facilitate social networking. Everything automated. Everything in a user
controlled silo to share with whatever app they want. That's right there a
multi-billion dollar industry you can bring down over night with probably a
few million dollars in investment. Google should do it as a strategic move.
Embrace the open internet.

------
gambler
It's not just Facebook. All current hyper-centralized platforms (Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, etc) slowly screw up the Web in many subtle ways. The
biggest one is that they are designed around consumption and production of
content at the detriment of everything else. (Everything else being analysis,
discussions, asking questions, learning and even making new social contacts.)

~~~
stcredzero
The current web has a toleration and free speech problem. When only a minority
of researchers, professionals, and students were online, there was enough of
an online culture of intellectualism and respect (though it still got pretty
wooly even in the 80's) that things still kinda worked.

Generations of internet f#cwads, forums with deletions, and heavy-handed
moderation has taught the general populace that the other side is stupid,
ugly, and deplorable, and that only moderation mechanisms and the shouting of
the crowd prevail. Things have gone from the internet as a repository of
knowledge, to an unstoppable font of clickbait and fake news.

It's true. We can't have nice things. We, being human beings without social
pressures to keep us in check.

------
owly
Smash the control messages, smash the control machine.

------
stcredzero
_He’s even creating AIs and launching satellites (though his first one ended
up exploding on the launch pad)._

Whoa. I'd never made that connection before!

------
debt
finally someone with a semi-large following is taking a stand against big
social.

------
palerdot
I'm posting my comment I made for the original article.

There should be a law stating that a service like Facebook which thrives on
public data, should expose all of their data once they reach a critical mass
like 10 Million people. Exposing may or may not be without people's consent,
but getting the consent of users should not be a problem. This will make sure
that a competitor or alternate entity can bootstrap their service with this
data. You don't need to stay in facebook to stay in touch with your family.
You can stay in your own service and you still will be able to communicate
with people on facebook and similar other services.

This will give a level playing field and stop having monopolies of
corporations which thrive on user behavioral data.

This idea was suggested by someone in a different form in a similar discussion
here in HN, and I think it is terrific and it will solve most of the problems.

It is not even necessary to have the law act when reaching a 10M critical
mass. If some service calls itself a social network or related service, then
they are bound to submit the data collected by them which is owned by the
content user and not the service. Sure, they can operate by declaring
themselves not as an social service, but by the time people realizes then
there should be a penalty and immediate surrendering of past collected data.

There are few concerns though IF this comes to fruition.

Security:

Right Now, all the FB related stuff are secured by some of the bright minds
hired by Facebook. They have the financial muscle to protect the data they
collect, even though that money might have flowed some unscrupulous
advertising and tracking stuffs. If all the user behavioural data ends up in a
central entity/repository, then there should be some neutral agency like UN
handling all this data. But on the other hand, hiring highly technical people
to safeguard this public information might not be possible financially and
logistically. For example, Facebook has its own personal interests to secure
the user related data. A common entity might not do as efficiently as it
should, and even a small leak will lead to catatostrophic results with all the
user information across different services laid bare.

Accessibility:

If all the user information shared across the internet ends up in a single
place, then ownership and accessiblity of that data should be more refined and
robust. I should have the ability to choose to whom I can share all that
information irrespective of where I posted the content. People should be able
to grant access to all of their data to be used by people like Facebook, even
though the content was originally posted in facebook.

Of course, there is Facebook in between if we have to realize anything
remotely like this.

------
bikamonki
Facebook Zucks

