
Is Facebook a Structural Threat to Free Society? - jonstokes
http://www.truthhawk.com/is-facebook-a-structural-threat-to-free-society/
======
DanielBMarkham
When I was a kid in the 70s I remember reading a national magazine article
about another kid my age who had his own computer. Amazing! This was something
I wanted.

Reading on, it described how he had built his computer from electronics and
operated it from his attic. He had quite a few programs for his computer. One
he liked the most allowed him to simulate buying and selling of stocks.

If you've ever read any ads from that period, the implication is clear:
computers are awesome because they are going to challenge us to become better
people. They will teach us at a speed we can learn, they will reward us as we
progress, and the obstacles and learning will get more and more advanced.

People who don't have computers are going to be missing out -- on self
development.

Contrast that to my trip the other day by commercial air travel. Everywhere I
went, people were on their phones. Were they learning foreign languages?
Becoming experts at symbolic logic or global politics?

They were not.

Instead they were playing the stupidest games imaginable. Facebooking, taking
quizzes where any moron with the ability to type would get 90% correct -- and
then sharing the results with their friends.

Zuck and others figured it out. Computers don't have to be computers. They
have to be video games. Who gives a shit whether the guy on the other end is
learning to be a better person. Challenge them with idiotic trivial tasks,
then reward them with blinky lights, sound effects, and the imagined praise of
their peers. They'll do that shit all day long. All they need is more
batteries.

Yes. It's a problem.

~~~
christoph
Long time deleted FB account holder here.

I don't miss it at all. Not one bit. It amazes me how much time my wife spends
mindlessly looking though stuff on it and the negative feelings that sometimes
flow out from it.

I recently read a truly fantastic speech by Charlie Munger, which imparted so
much clear & concise information in an easily digestible way that I could
instantly relate to, it made me realise just how little I know. Specifically,
he mentioned that you really need to notice when technology is going to help
you and when it's going to kill you. It's made me re-evaluate my current
relationship with technology and how negative it can be at (most?) times. I
hope over time, people start to question their relationship with technology a
lot more. I already see hints of this with mainstream media in things like
Black Mirror.

I am amazed at the quantity and quality of some of the content on something
like Kahn Academy that I have no idea why I haven't made more of an effort to
try and grasp topics that otherwise are completely alien to me. Many of these
will probably help hugely in my day to day life as well.

Recently I listened to an interview with a UK fund manager called Terry Smith,
who said they don't invest in tech shares like FB, Netflix, etc. as they are
such new areas which are still open to such massive change. Long term
(decades) they probably aren't safe bets i.e. Netflix is great now, but once
upon a time so was Blockbuster.

I do wonder if "peak" Facebook is over. There's already a large generational
shift happening in younger demographics to things like Snapchat, etc.

I do hope that whatever may or may not replace it has a better balance towards
positivity.

~~~
equalarrow
Yup, deleted my account a while ago, haven't used it in years. Don't miss it
one bit.

At home, we are starting to have a 'problem' because my wife is constantly on
FB. In the car, on trips, in restaurants, at the dinner table. It's fucking
ridiculous. I have said a few times "what can be more important on fb than
what's going on in the present moment with your family?". Behavior hasn't
changed much.

What is starting to freak me out is the generations coming up. I have two
young kids - pre-fb age - and they already have some questionable habits on my
wife's iPhone - as soon as it comes out, they wanna look at pictures, go on
youtube and fight over it. The second they see it...

I've been programming since I was 13 - a long time ago. Back then, you sat
down at a table/desk to use your computer and then when you left, you did
other things. You went out to play with friends. Ride bikes around. Go
swimming. Go look at bugs. Eat something.

Nowadays, things are different. Different though because we let them be that
way. Most parents I know are helicopter and at meet ups I'm always hearing
about some bad thing that happened to someone they don't even know or is half
way around the world. I'm not saying we embrace ignorance, but unless you can
do something about that - and you're willing - then I don't see the point of
fb and the news cycle.

As a parent (and developer), I have to be proactive and get the family back
into the world. I'm not against tech in general (I'm teaching my son Basic
right now), but the pendulum has clearly swung a little too far in one
direction and fb/snapchat/etc, with their addictive behaviors, in my mind, are
not good things for society.

People, to me, just seem happier when they're not inundated with gossip and
negative news. I'ld love to see fb lose its dominance on the people who have
their faces buried in their phones constantly. But, I don't think that will
happen anytime soon. As long as people are checked out of the real world
around them, it will be that much easier for them to get sucked in to fb and
the like.

~~~
robotic
Long time facebook addict. I was the kinda person that would check FB every 10
minutes -- yeah, it was a huge issue for me. I could tell it was effecting my
work and job.

6 weeks ago I had my wife change my facebook password and log me out of
everything. There was a genuine feeling of loss and withdrawal for the first 2
weeks. I felt very disconnected and felt like I was missing out. I asked my
wife to sign me in on Sunday. I had 100+ notifications and a few messages.
Only 1 direct message and 1 direct post - both from the same person about the
same topic. Everything else was just junk.

It turns out that Facebook was providing nothing of value to me. It wasn't
even connecting me to friends in a meaningful way. 2 messages relevant to me
in 6 weeks. It is mind blowing how much time I was spending reading status and
linked articles and looking at photos. Just wasting time and energy.

~~~
laughfactory
I'm not on FB, and haven't been for years. My problems are Netflix/Prime and
news (Google News feed and Hacker News primarily). I'd literally LOVE a
smartphone which limited me to maps/navigation, camera, minimal search (for
looking up crucial info on the go), email, SMS, and Slack. Oh, and Kindle. I
HATE that my damn smartphone makes it so easy to fritter my life away. And
that the only alternative seems to be completely dumb phones and carrying
around a separate camera and GPS device. Ugh. I don't want a dumb phone, or a
feature phone, I just want a dumber smartphone. And hell, I'd pay what I paid
for my Pixel (unlocked) for one. I want something which values my time,
privacy, and life as much as I objectively do...But am, apparently, too weak
to govern myself.

My issues suck because I can't simply have my wife reset my password. I can't
remove the Google News feed. And as long as I have a browser I can see Hacker
News. Sigh.

~~~
toothbrush
I have a love-hate relationship with the crappy smartphone i do have. Like
you, i often read HN in dead moments but don't have FB, but find the
smartphone useful for directions or quick picture snapping. I'm however still
strongly considering going back to a dumb phone (although i've been saying
that for about the full 1.5 years i've owned this smartphone) and to hell with
the random pictures. Our grandparents seemed perfectly happy and could only
capture a 24 roll of family photos every now and then (unless they were
journalists or whatever, but you get my drift). I don't know. Part of me does
fear i'd miss out on social events or get lost or not be able to take that one
picture or...

Probably i should just have more self-control...

------
ruddct
Facebook is:

* One of the most addictive products the world has ever seen (Opioids, another such product, were used to overthrow countries)

* The single most important media company in the world

* Controlled by one person

Threat to free society? Jury's out. But at this point, it certainly seems
worth regulating.

(Edit: The above points are not meant to paint FB/Zuck in a bad light. To
their credit, they've built an incredible ecosystem and a mind-bogglingly good
product. We all strive to create sticky/addictive products.

My point is: When your product is incredibly addictive to a large chunk of
humanity, regulation should be considered)

~~~
amelius
> When your product is incredibly addictive to a large chunk of humanity,
> regulation should be considered

Yes. Let me compare FB to a phone company. When telephony was first invented,
it quickly turned out to be addictive to a large chunk of humanity. Did we
leave it unregulated? No, we didn't. In fact, there was regulation stating
that telephone conversations may not be eavesdropped by telephone companies.
Other regulations allowed other companies to be active on the same network so
people could call eachother, regardless of their operator.

But somehow, we think that these types of regulation should not apply in this
day and age. Strange.

~~~
neolefty
That's a great comparison. Facebook has taken on that kind of quality for me.
It's become one more communication channel. Fantastic for keeping up with my
friends who use it, but not intrusive. I'd say telephones are still addictive
(along with email and other forms of communication as a whole), but more in
the category of food being addictive than drugs. Yes, some people used to ring
up $2000 phone bills, but the more common case was legitimate communication.

~~~
Zak
One theoretical framework that justifies regulating telecoms, but not
necessarily Facebook is that telecoms usually have special privileges granted
to them by governments, up to and including monopoly status.

Building the hardware layer for a telecom network requires access to public
land, and often private land where the landowners may not be cooperative. In
exchange for the government enabling the telecom to build its network, the
government gets to impose rules, sometimes even mandating competitor access to
said network.

Facebook is different. The internet is already there, and is not owned by any
single entity. Facebook does not need to compel cooperation from anyone to
operate. It does not _invite_ regulation in the same way a telecom does.

Now, there are plenty of people who believe that anything is fair game for the
government to regulate if it's in the public interest, but I think that
position is less universally accepted than that of trading special privileges
for regulation.

------
gthtjtkt
It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing Ourselves
to Death: [http://a.co/frMmE2s](http://a.co/frMmE2s)

 _“We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn
't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of
liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at
least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.

But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another -
slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and
Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome
by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is
required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw
it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that
undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that
there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted
to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley
feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity
and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley
feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we
would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial
culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and
the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited,
the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose
tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for
distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting
pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In
short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what
we desire will ruin us.

This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.”_

~~~
astrange
> It's not Facebook, it's the fact that we're all too happily Amusing
> Ourselves to Death:

Sounds like the audience of depressed pedants on this website will save us,
then.

~~~
rs86
This sounded pedant

------
alistproducer2
The events of the last couple of years caused me to evaluate the psychological
toll that me self-induced exposure to media, of all forms, was taking. I came
to the conclusion that with social media, mankind was participating in the
largest social experiment of all time and just hoping that things turned out
well. I decided the results, so far, have not been promising and I no longer
wanted to participate. I deleted my FB and canceled cable. Now I chose what
I'm exposed to. I advise more people to do the same.

~~~
timthelion
Unfortunately, HN is addictive too.

~~~
mrkgnao
HN does have a noprocrast timeout available, although it's almost
undocumented.

~~~
oaktowner
Whoa. Had never heard of that.

Check [0] if you, like me, hadn't.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html)

------
decasteve
The threat is that Facebook has become too big to fail. A major leak of
private data and messages of its users would be devastating to society given
the scale.

What happens if/when Facebook fails as a company? What happens to the data
then? It gets sold off. That's a scary prospect.

Facebook is in the fickle game of Internet advertising. When the noise
overcomes the signal in what Facebook shows, when the content of the users'
connections gets drowned out to advertising, people will leave in droves. When
advertisers fail to see the return on their investment, the money will dry up.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
What data can facebook possible have that would "devastating" in a leak
scenario? Facebook has only what users have put on the site to share, and all
data present is at least semipublic. There are no addresses, no bank accounts,
no SSNs. The valuable part of facebook is already freely available: your list
of "liked" pages and your social graph.

~~~
sfRattan
It's very reductive to claim that only addresses, bank account [numbers], and
SSNs could be dangerous if leaked.

What about people who discuss private matters in chat? (e.g. sexuality,
medical history, drug use, etc.) Yes, _we_ know that's a bad idea, but most
people aren't HN readers.

What about state actors using Facebook's metadata alone to quash democratic
movements before they get off the ground?[1] To advertisers, most of the
social graph is available only in a semi-abstracted form (e.g. target X, Y,
and Z qualities and degrees of connection). A leak or sale could make that
information available directly.

What about criminals using a public leak of location data and some predictive
algorithms to strategically rob homes? (and maybe also using patterns of likes
and connections to predict whose home is worth burgling?)

Really, to say that the valuable part of Facebook is already freely available
brings to mind the words "limited imagination." Facebook keeps the valuable
part to itself and meters even limited access to it. And there is extensive
danger with the possibility of a leak or sale of the raw data.

[1]: [https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-
metad...](https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metadata-to-
find-paul-revere/)

~~~
macawfish
That's what I'm saying... Actually, it reminds me of when Wikileaks first came
out, and I'd been reading the book of Revelations (as literature, it's an epic
poem). There is this part where there is a scroll with 7 seals. An angel asks
"who is worthy to break these seals?" People are weeping about it.

What kind of society can handle a full disclosure of information on this
magnitude, now or even in the future, looking back? Imagine living 40 years
from now, and your parent's full social media records have just been leaked in
a mass dump of some data collection company. Could you handle that?

Okay and without appealing to apocalyptic literature, just think about the
potentially devastating consequences of mass numbers of people getting access
to their enemies' private data all at once. Good for you if you survive that
kind of dump personally, but what about your community, your family?

But back to the metaphysical level, shit's about to get real wild if
scientific knowledge keeps growing like it has been, especially as "ai" comes
more able to translate and interpret these masses of digital data... Plus the
vast stores of biological information waiting to be tapped.

~~~
lordCarbonFiber
Really, a history of likes, a corpus of chat messages, a corpus of public
status, and some corpus of potential location data/ usage data depending on
the devices used; that's what you liken to an apocalyptic event? Your family,
your community, everyone will be just fine. Potentially some population
already living in oppressive situations will be impacted (your religious
family learns you're gay, etc) but the vast majority will just stop using
Facebook and move to the next social media site. What kind of data do you
imagine people storing on facebook (remember nothing is there you, the user,
hasn't explicitly decided to share with someone aside from whatever they track
internally interms of usage and location).

By default a person's friends list is visible from their public profile so if
you want to go put together a graph you're welcome to.

~~~
macawfish
First off, yes, I also think people will make it through this and be better in
the long run. But I think this stuff is inevitably going to be a major source
of heat, and it's going to take some processing. There is a lot of 'potential
energy' stored up in private information (I'm not just talking about
Facebook). People keep secrets, and the amount being held behind cryptographic
algorithms is only growing by the year.

I'm mostly talking about private messages, browsing history, stuff that people
would prefer not to be known widely because of pervasive judgements and
stigmas in our society.

"What kind of data do you imagine people storing on facebook..." Nude photos
and videos, secrets, accusations, candid personal details, private plans,
irrational fears, fantasies, love notes to people who aren't their spouses,
etc.

The human web is thickly interwoven. You say "Potentially some population
already living in oppressive situations will be impacted". Well, their
experiences would not be trivial, and your experience is not disconnected from
"those people" either for that matter. I'd imagine they are your friends, your
neighbors, your community too. People around us are having secretive
relationships ("affairs"), while others hide domestic or sexual abuse. People
have skeletons in the digital server closets, things they'd rather forget
about and move past, but which are lingering on redundant backups somewhere.

And my larger point is not so much about Facebook messages, but about
biological data... [http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Yale-study-Brain-
scans-m...](http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Yale-study-Brain-scans-may-
help-determine-11000433.php)

------
darpa_escapee
Any kind of non-democratic for-profit organization is going to have incentives
that don't align with "free society".

When one of those organizations runs the top centralized content and
communications silo, use it to censor, stalk its users and promote its or its
sponsors interests, it becomes a threat.

~~~
fwn
Of course also democratic non-profit organizations wildly disalign with what
one might call a "free society".

Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition.

~~~
darpa_escapee
Non-democratic organizations inherently don't represent all parties and
interests participating within it. If they did, they would be democratic
organizations. A non-democratic organization will be influenced by, and will
bend to the interests of, the few.

A for-profit organization inherently has incentives that are perverse.
Historically, the profit motive has incentivized things that run contrary to
the well-being, and rights enjoyed by, society. It is profitable to censor,
erode privacy, erode labor protections and rights, use psychological
manipulation to influence the behavior of others and push negative
externalities onto others.

Yes, democratic non-profit organizations can misalign with a "free society".
However, a non-democratic for-profit organization is fundamentally
incompatible with the ideals expressed in the article.

> Those adjectives mean little (as does "free society") without a definition.

Merriam-Webster works for most when colloquial definitions bottom out or are
hard to recall.

------
notacoward
(Disclosure: I have accepted a job offer at Facebook, but not yet started)

Does Facebook really have a _unique_ amount of data? Google also knows a lot
about people through billions of searches a day. Apple can learn a lot through
people's iDevices, and Google (again) or Samsung can do the same with Android.
So can any cellular service provider, or anyone running coax or fiber into
your home. The government can tap any or all of those. At least Facebook
doesn't have an army, or paramilitaries like DHS or just about any sheriff's
department I've ever encountered.

I'm not saying the author's concerns are invalid. I've had occasion to think
about these exact issues a lot, and I'm sure many of my soon-to-be colleagues
have too. The way I see it, Facebook and other social media occupy much the
same position as phone companies used to, both in terms of how they facilitate
interaction and in their privileged financial/infrastructural positions they
occupy. There's good in that (e.g. ability to pursue the kinds of speculative
projects that Bell Labs was famous for). There are also dangers, no question.

The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else. There's no
shortage of others ready to step in if Facebook alone were targeted with laws
and regulations. Instead of worrying about Facebook specifically, we need to
think about what a modern "common carrier" law should look like in the social-
media age. Perhaps some kinds of regulations on use of information do make
sense, but that dialog isn't likely to be very constructive so long as most of
the people on one side seem to be free-market fundamentalists betraying their
own principles by singling out one company among many.

~~~
strgrd
> The thing is, if it wasn't Facebook it would be someone else.

You will make a good Facebook worker drone

~~~
notacoward
Would you rather have a Facebook with people who actually think about these
kind of issues, or a Facebook without such people? At least there are debates
within Facebook about such things. I've heard - publicly, long before I had
any thoughts of working there myself - that they can get quite fierce. Never
hear of such things at Twitter or Google. Is it better that people there just
don't seem to give a damn? I don't think so.

If people rule out or discourage internal regulation with nastiness like
yours, all that's left is the external kind. I'm pretty sure that's against a
lot of people's principles, but I guess those who failed the coding test are
willing to sacrifice principles for revenge.

~~~
thr0waway1239
Look, here is a simple suggestion. Come back here in about 6 months after you
join FB (settle down first). Since there is no realistic chance for FB to
improve their practices within that timeframe, there will be one more
complaint thread about some ethical practice or the other at that point. Give
us a little inside peek into these supposed "fierce debates". Just participate
and add something meaningful to the discussion by telling us the different
positions people took in the debate and what the outcome was. We will even
give you a handicap - you don't actually have to tell us who took which
position. Since you seem to be so passionate about this, I don't think you are
going to make up stuff.

If you actually manage to do this, then not only will people here appreciate
you, but more importantly, I am sure you will be doing a heck of a lot of good
for your soon to be employer's image.

------
jimmytucson
I find it amusing that news media outlets are stoking fear and resentment over
the government hacking technology to spy on us when the information it gathers
is a mere shaving of what corporations like Alphabet and Facebook have access
to on the back end.

How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded,
private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or
arguably yourself)? Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic
government agency led by Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher
in artificial intelligence, who owns the index to the entire internet, and
creates things like this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7xvqQeoA8c)?
Why is Wikileaks working so hard to protect these companies?

~~~
throwaway729
_> How is it preferable that a handful of incredibly talented, well-funded,
private companies know more about you than your mother or your best friend (or
arguably yourself)?_

It's not preferable, but it's less worrying. It's less worrying because
companies can't legally throw you in jail or take all your money or kill you.

And scary robotics promo videos aside, they aren't in command of the world's
most powerful military and an enormous police force to boot.

If at any time they threaten you in a meaningful way, you can freely leave
their services. If things get particularly bad -- like, worst case scenario --
you can even flee to a part of the world where they have less influence.
Government does not provide you any of those options.

People are right to be more worried about government intrusion than private
intrusion. (They are of course also _wrong_ to be unworried about private
intrusion.)

 _> Why are people more frightened by a bureaucratic government agency led by
Donald J. Trump than the world's leading researcher in artificial
intelligence_

If it comes down to a forced choice, I'd much prefer Page or Brin over Trump.
At least the former two are on IMO the correct side of existential issues --
nuclear arms, global warming, and so forth. (Of course, as indicated above,
I'd prefer neither.)

~~~
dredmorbius
_It 's less worrying because companies can't legally throw you in jail or take
all your money or kill you._

But they do this all the time. Sometimes illegally, sometimes with full force
of law.

The settlement of the Americas, through what might be considered a public-
private partnership on the part of several nations (Spain, Portugal, England,
France, Holland, Russia, largely), resulted in the genocide of a native
population once numbering perhaps 40 - 50 millions. What this lacks in the
intensity of nuclear annihilation, it greatly exceeds in magnitude.

The public-private partnership of Belgium in the Congo saw untold atrocities,
including the unhanding of hundreds of thousands or millions of Congo natives.
See Joseph Conrad's The Heart of Darkness.

Or of England, the East India Company, its private government and army within
India, and the Opium Wars against China -- chemical, biolical, and
conventional war against two entire cultures.

Labour unionisation, a concept and principle defended by Adam Smith, John
Stuart Mill, and other classical economists, say violent opposition by factory
and mine owners particularly in the UK and United States. U.S. Steel, the West
Virginia Mountain Wars, the Wobblies, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire,
and more.

Industrial accidents have killed or destroyed many tens or hundreds of
thousands: the Halifax, Galveston, Port Chicago, and West, Texas, explosions
-- some entirely private, some public-private partnerships. Mining accidents
claimed an average of greater than 2,000 lives/year for much of the first half
of the 20th century, statistics tabulated by the US Department of Labour, and
available online. That's on the order of 100,000 souls over the century,
virtually all of their deaths preventable. The Union Carbide Bhopol disaster.
Dam failures, including Johnstown, in the United States (this was the
instigation of the Red Cross as a disaster releif organisation, and of
significant concepts expanding liability law). For public-private
parternships, the Vajont dam disaster, claiming 2500 lives. And showing that
poor management, planning, engineering, and response aren't solely the remit
of nominally capitalist societies, the Banqiao Dam disaster of 1975, in China,
in which some 170,000 souls perished, on par with your nuclear bombing
example, though it was but 25 thousands who died immediately from drowning,
the others were lost due to starvation and disease in the following weeks --
as I said, exceedingly poor planning and response.

There's the US housing bubble leading up to the 2007-8 global financial
crisis, and the robosigning and fraudulent documentation depriving people of
their very homes.

For raw corporate aggression, I'd suggest the Johnson County War:

On April 5, 1892, 52 armed men rode a private, secret train north from
Cheyenne. Just outside Casper, Wyo., they switched to horseback and continued
north toward Buffalo, Wyo., the Johnson County seat. Their mission was to
shoot or hang 70 men named on a list carried by Frank Canton, one of the
leaders of this invading force.

I've written on this previously:
[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/xwjjk1bh7yki6ja4lrg7ka)

There is the insidious poisoning of millions through lead, asbestos, tobacco,
mercury, and dioxins, both generally and across specific sites, all whilst
paid corporate shills actively and deliberately sowed confusion on the matter,
knowing full well that their position was false. Naomi Oreskes and Eric Conway
have covered much of this history excellently in Merchants of Doubt.

And there's the little matter of carbon dioxide emissions and their effects on
global tempeatures and ocean chemistry, known since the 1880s, and recognised
as a major threat since the 1950s, but still actively denied by numerous
interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth
and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they
share it with.

~~~
scholia
* > still actively denied by numerous interests more concerned over their trillions of dollars of accumulated wealth and power than over the fate of the planet they live on and the souls they share it with.*(

Interests that are now controlling the US government....

~~~
dredmorbius
And one of the more plausible conspiracy stories I've heard for who's
benefitting from the whole situation. Need to track down that article...

~~~
scholia
Not sure where the conspiracy is.

However, Trump says climate change is a Chinese hoax and bullshit. Trump's
advisor Myron Ebell says the environmental movement is "the greatest threat to
freedom and prosperity in the modern world". Trump's head of the Environmental
Protection Agency is Scott Pruitt, who believes the EPA shouldn't even exist.

Trump's Secretary of State is Rex Tillerson, former boss of Exxon. Exxon is
being investigated for spending decades ignoring its own scientists’ research,
which tied fossil fuels to climate change. It also has a $500 billion oil deal
with Putin, for which Trump will have to remove sanctions.

Trump also says he's going to bring back "beautiful clean coal".

So, under Trump, there's a green light to destroy the US environment and the
whole planet for the pursuit of profit.

Trump is using the presidency as a marketing platform to promote himself, his
properties (including Trump Tower and Mar a lago), his daughter and in-laws.
The GOP is using it to give very rich people $600bn in tax cuts while ensuring
that (if its AHCA goes through), tens of thousands of ordinary Americans die
because of a lack of health insurance.

What's going on in broad daylight is bad enough. The behind-the-scenes
corruption is probably worse.

~~~
dredmorbius
As I said, it was a specific article I had in mind. Turns out it's Charlie
Stross (@cstross):

[http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/02/some-
not...](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2017/02/some-notes-on-the-
worst-case-s.html)

 _[I]if you have heavily invested in fossil fuels, time is running out to
realize a return on your investment. Buying a US administration tailored to
maximize ROI while fighting a rear-guard action against action on climate
change and roll-out of a new, rival energy infrastructure is therefore
rational (in business terms)._

 _Russia and the Putin angle is best understood as part of this; oil and gas
exports accounted for 68% of Russia 's export revenues in 2013. The
possibility that Trump is personally heavily invested in Rosneft via shell
proxies while being at loggerheads with Merkel might be an inversion of the
normal state of affairs in international relations for the past 70 years but
is entirely consistent with the big money picture: Germany is trying to push
(heavily) for renewable power...._

This, quite frankly, makes as much sense to me as anything else. If not
considerably more.

An: sometimes a conspiracy _really is_ a conspiracy, and _they really are out
to get you_.

~~~
scholia
Interesting piece. The move to exploit dirty energy while destroying the
environment is clearly the centrepiece of Trumpism, as I said above. Whether
Bannon is actually planning some sort of "final solution" is open to question.

The real problem is that the world burns whether there's a conspiracy or
not....

~~~
dredmorbius
There's a tendency toward this among all living things, and worse cases in the
past: Great Oxygenation Event and Snowball Earth being an extreme case.
William R Catton, Jr., made the point, in _Overshoot_ , that assigning blame
isn't particularly useful. It's the dynamics which drive the thing.

At the same time, humans can, and do, know better. Yet we're headed down that
same path. And there definitely appear to be those capitalising on the short-
term view.

------
aaron-lebo
Yes, as is Zuckerberg.

He wants to run for president. That's why he's found religion, why he's
touring the country, why he changed some rules so he can control Facebook
while holding office. There's been a creation myth about Zuckerberg for years.
Even Jobs didn't get a Hollywood movie about him until he was dead.

Zuckerberg is dangerous because he's so damn vanilla. Outside of his
contemptuous statements about his users being "dumb fucks" when he was a kid,
everything he does is a PR move. Having a child? Better make a social
statement out of it. Headed to Nigeria? Better have someone take pictures.

If you listen to Zuck obviously he's intelligent but he'll never say anything
controversial or especially enlightening. He's had the world in his hands
since he was 21 (or younger), never been challenged. What does that do to
one's ego? Some of us talk too much and we've never ever done anything. What
happens when you've been a billionaire since you were 25 or are worth $50
billion at 30?

He's far more dangerous than Trump ever was. He's normalized invasions of
privacy, has more information on people than anyone in the world save maybe
some government agencies and Facebook has more clout than many countries.

It'd be nice if Facebook was replaced by something better, but I hope people
will stand up against what they are doing. It's unethical. If you ever combine
that mindset with government, it's over. Maybe not by Zuckerberg but by the
next Trump, which is the great irony in Zuckerberg and Facebook's social
positions.

~~~
maxerickson
It'll be interesting to see if he tries.

My impression is that he has the charisma of a loaf of bread and won't do real
well in politics.

~~~
TallGuyShort
Some people certainly seem to like Trump, but I can't say I see the charisma
myself. Some pretty toxic, hideous, unpleasant people have been elected to
very high positions.

~~~
maxerickson
Trump is extremely charismatic.

Look at the pundit reaction to his speech a couple weeks ago, or at how well
people respond to his extemporaneous word salad.

------
owly
Deleted FB a few years ago, I haven't missed it for a second. I thought we
reached peak FB about a year ago and was obviously wrong. I honestly don't
understand why people can't communicate directly with each other given the
insane amount of tools available and how cheap data, domains and services have
become. There is absolutely an "us vs. them" going on between those who are on
FB and those who have opted out. I'd love to get more people to opt out and
this article is one of the better arguments out there. For those who want to
try a true block of FB and all its works, try this...
[https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporatio...](https://github.com/jmdugan/blocklists/blob/master/corporations/facebook/all)

~~~
macintux
I really wish this weren't being reframed as an "opt out" discussion. The
article is expressing valid concerns about the collective impact of FB. Opting
out, even in large numbers, won't change the fact that the company has
tremendous, unchecked influence on our lives.

~~~
owly
I really believe if people left FB in significantly large numbers to something
else with better practices, FB would be compelled to change. Even if they
didn't change, at least you would not be a part of their bad privacy
practices/manipulation/etc.

------
twsted
Yes and "tech savvy" people should educate their friends when possible.

Most of my friends, for instance, ignore that FB knows most of their web
chronology through the omnipresent Like button.

And we must fight the "I-have-nothing-to-hide" attitude.

------
bantunes
For me, the scariest bit is that I tell people about this (techies and non-
techies alike) and they are made aware of the consequences of their every move
being tracked and they still don't care. At all.

We're either collectively retarded and it will take very little to rule us
all, or venturing toward a society where privacy simply does not exist but
it's... fine? Can society adapt to this and someone having a sextape or their
browser history leaked be no big deal to anyone?

I don't know which is scarier.

~~~
kakarot
One problem is that most people decide very early on in their life that they
will keep their heads down and never question the violent totalitarian
authority that controls them, and thus see no reason why the government would
use this data against them.

But then you try the insurance / health care angle and they still just don't
care. We've been raised this way. Raised to be like scared children who do not
know how to look towards the future or how to accurately assess any complex
situation not immediately under their area of expertise

------
tunesmith
I deleted Facebook from my phone a while ago, and don't miss it. I've been
surprised how much I don't miss it, honestly - I get less notifications and
haven't been tempted to reinstall it once.

The website is another matter. I felt reluctant to cut the cord entirely. At
least visiting the website feels more deliberate than reacting to all the
phone notifications.

But shortly after the election, I did log out, and kept myself logged out for
a while. My fingers would still take me to the page, but the login screen
would remind me, and I'd close the tab.

I finally logged back in a couple of weeks ago.

I do feel like I've noticed a couple of subtle differences. I think the
political discussions are a lot less useful than I used to think. I especially
think my friends posting political awareness posts are less useful than I used
to think. No sense preaching to the choir unless it's actual surprising
information. I think the months off started to make me feel less like a
Democrat and more independent (although far from Trumpy-Republican.) I'm more
free-speech and less boycotty. I'm less tempted to unfriend people that voted
differently than I did.

I generally believe that the most ridiculous opinions I see in comment threads
on facebook are... well, I have no way of knowing whether those comments are
by real people or by bots. So I feel less like engaging with them.

Facebook is more enjoyable when you use it to connect with your friends -
sharing photos, good personal news, etc. Current events, not so much.

~~~
rekshaw
I highly recommend the News Feed Eradicator plugin. It substitutes the News
Feed with a quote of the day. That way you can keep up to date with PMs/Events
without getting distracted by other peoples lives.

------
elorant
The biggest problem with Facebook is that it's a walled in garden. Whatever
you write there isn't accessible outside the web. It's not even searchable
inside FB itself. I'm sure this is done on purpose, if people knew that the
crap they write could be searchable they'd be much more reluctant to express
themselves.

------
rrggrr
Black box warnings exist in the drug industry because its understood people do
not understand complex risks and they don't read the fine print. Facebook IS a
threat only because many of its users are sharing information ignorant of the
risks.

HIPAA exists in healthcare because its understood data can be misused to the
great detriment of patients. Facebook IS a threat only because its users have
no recourse over the misuse of their information.

Products liability laws exist for manufactured goods because raising the costs
of failure to protect your customers results in safer products, and because it
decreases government's obligation to support injured consumers. Facebook IS a
threat only because there is no cost associated with injuring users, and
little awareness of how Facebook is injurious.

Its a systemic issue beyond Facebook. Legislative reform is required.

------
hasenj
IMO this is a side product of the "software must be free" mentality.

Frankly, software should not be free. When you let people give you things for
free, you basically let them control you and take away your freedom.

~~~
newbie2017
>IMO this is a side product of the "software must be free" mentality.

"Software must be free" usually means free and in speech not free as in beer.

~~~
hasenj
RMS definition of free still leads to free as in beer because it requires that
the user has the freedom to distribute the sides for free (as in beer).

~~~
newbie2017
But Facebook is not "free as in speech" but is "free as in beer". That's why
it is a "Structural Threat."

------
roflc0ptic
"Facebook understands the emotions expressed in what you type as statuses, and
in messages via Messenger or WhatsApp."

Is this correct? There was a very involved discussion about WhatsApp's
encryption that I thought indicated they don't, in fact, have access to
WhatsApp messages.

~~~
nickbauman
Facebook likely has a watson-like technology that can answer a lot of
interesting questions about a user, but "understanding emotions"... that's
still a ways off. Maybe a long long way off. But it's wrong not to be very,
very concerned.

Suffice it to say: (Paraphrasing Dijkstra) Whether Facebook understands human
emotions from text is as relevant a question as whether a submarine can swim.
I think they can get a helluva lot out of what you're typing and what you're
liking. That should be enough to worry about.

------
chiefofgxbxl
With the average American now spending 40 minutes on Facebook per day [0], it
may be worth checking out this TedX talk: _Distracted? Let 's make technology
that helps us spend our time well | Tristan Harris_ [1] (he speaks of a good
design example at 4:00 in). It's astounding that this average means that
roughly an entire day is wasted each month essentially scrolling through a
newsfeed.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average-
time...](http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-monthly-average-time-
spent-2015-9) [1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT5rRh9AZf4)

~~~
jononor
Has time spent watching TV gone down by more than 40 minutes?

"Wasting" time is not very new...

~~~
throwaway29292
Exactly, I'm confused by all these statistics of 'x minutes of facebook per
day'. We can't measure other unproductive activities that ALL humans indulge
in, it's not as if society will suddenly start producing PhDs by the dozen if
we ban Facebook.

------
cafard
I have recently created an account, having resisted up until now with the
excuse that my son, then a teenager, said that it was "creepy" when persons of
my generation were on Facebook. He informs me, however, that persons his age
are leaving Facebook in favor of SnapChat and Instagram.

(I have so far spent all my Facebook time looking into what would be required
to use its OAuth functions.)

------
vslira
People's disregard for privacy and political mobilization[0] are a threat to
Free Society. Facebook is just a symptom.

[0] I can't blame FB for anything regarding the latter. Quite the opposite.

~~~
owly
True. People still choose to join FB and give their data/privacy away. I don't
know what it would take for a rebellion or if there will ever be an open
decentralized platform to replace it.

~~~
sova
Yes. I think that what must happen is a revolution of the value of one's
private information. An open platform that made certain that information was
only shared with particular "trusted nodes" and also was flushed from storage
after a certain time would be cool. Like an information vault where your info
was held, and you could selectively choose what fb could see and what must be
deleted and re-cached in x many hours or days.

------
chrischen
I don't think Zuckerberg is malicious, nor are people working at or in control
of facebook. However, that doesn't exclude the whole system from being bad for
society, just like the constituents of of viruses or cancers are just
benevolent atoms and electrons.

~~~
xatan_dank
Regardless of whether they are malicious, their actions are causing
significant societal harm. Zuckerberg retains almost complete control of the
company and this is occurring under his guidance. He might not be malicious,
but he is certainly at fault, as are the ridiculous and shameful engineers
picking up paychecks to create a such an authoritarian product.

------
65827
All mega corps area a threat to freedom, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft,
Apple. Google is the one that is really fucking scary, they've started
deciding which parts of the network are tasteful and which are not, regardless
of your feelings on anything that should be highly disturbing to everyone.

------
arca_vorago
Yes, it is, and I'll tell you why:

Freedom and freedom for a society, in a modern information age, relies on the
individuals that make up that society having control of that information. Any
instance where they cede that control en masse is a structural threat to that
freedom. The reasons are mostly irrelevant, because we can argue that people
know what they are doing, or that they were manipulated into that position,
but it doesn't matter, the fact is that they are giving up their informational
control to a third party who then _owns_ it.

People need to start taking control of their information, and hackers like us
need to stop perpetuating the mantra that privacy is dead and it's too late. I
could very easily imagine infrastructures setup to protect peoples control of
their own information, but it tend to not be the most business friendly, or
government friendly.

Since when did hackers become so beholden to business interests? Lopht/codc
warned everyone, but nobody listened, and then all the old schoolers got older
and started chasing money, I mean mudge was working at darpa (it seems he is
trying to do good things, but from inside the system). It's time to find that
counter-business, pro-freedom resistence strain of hacking again and make it
bigger.

Also, there is a reason in-q-tel, the cia's venture capitol arm, invested in
facebook and google at the first stages...

Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start. I'm not hopeles though, I
think people vastly underestimate the weakness of systems like reddit,
facebook, etc. The long arc of the universe tends towards justice, and they
will collapse under their own dystopias.

Freedom is the real sustainable ecosystem. Individual freedom. Under
individual freedom, the intellectual freedom to come up with novel solutions
and apply them in novel ways is exponentially more likely than under some 1984
surveillance security engine. Freedom is therefore the strongest weapon in the
fight against evil and in the fight for survival.

~~~
laughingman2
> The long arc of the universe tends towards justice ?

Is there any philosophical view point which thinks so? But according to
natural science doesn't universe tends to entropy (granted entropy doesn't
translate directly to lack of justice but still..)?

> Decentralized gplv3 software is the place to start

What course do you recommend to promote GPL adoption to tip the balance
towards it? .. should people refuse to release closed source software in
corporations?

Personally I would love to live in utopia where all code is free, cooperation
trumping competition ..

------
type0
This picture reminds me of a scene in a sci-fi flick called "Cypher"
([http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284978/)).
I wonder if some other parallels could be applied to FB...

------
Kenji
Do you know what's a structural threat to free society? Regulating free
enterprise like online communities where people voluntarily intermingle.

------
LoonyBalloony
Facebook? How about the CIA/NSA/ABC intelligence organizations? We're not at
war with a country, why do we need a spy agency (much less several)?

Roll personal and funding into the FBI (Note: this does not make me a fan of
the FBI) so there is at least some public oversight.

~~~
samsonradu
Not that I want to defend any intelligence organisation but war is not a
binary thing. Other countries might be harming your country even without you
knowing it. Agencies try to prevent that from happening.

~~~
fwn
Who knows? They are certainly not going to tell. Secret services are rather
secret about their services.

~~~
samsonradu
Indeed, who knows. But would it benefit the country if they released their ops
reports?

~~~
fwn
Not an expert, but as secret stuff gets leaked it tends to create huge public
discourse and leads to political action.

Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country.
Secret service staff would probably not necessarily evaluate it as a good
effect though.

~~~
samsonradu
> Knowledge about their actions does seem to have an effect on the country.

Can you give me an example?

Take the latest Wikileaks Vault thing for instance. That was a leak that
created public discourse, what was the effect? I still don't trust my iPhone
and pretty much most of the software I use, were any 3 letter agency looking
to get me.

------
partycoder
Well, Facebook is not so much of a threat as WeChat is in China.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAesMQ6VtK8)

Basically all apps converge into WeChat, and there is absolutely no way to
avoid it.

------
__jal
This is close to the platonic ideal-article for HN. Big, grand, non-
falsifiable argument about current tech darling/source of controversy; endless
opportunities to parse phrasing and argue edge cases.

------
shmerl
Facebook is a threat to privacy, and by hoarding too much information about
people, it has power to use it against them (or be used by others against
them). The rest are consequences.

Solution is also obvious - don't use Facebook, and switch to decentralized
social networks. It's not an easy solution though, because of inertia and
network effects.

However it won't solve the human factor. I.e. people willingly trading their
privacy. Once they do it, crooks would find a way to exploit that.

------
charles-salvia
Google essentially has an entire monopoly on how information enters our
brains. They exert complete control over Internet search for almost everyone
on Earth outside of China, Russia and South Korea. Granted, Google is not
exclusively controlled by a single individual in the same way Facebook is, but
the same argument made in this article could be or could have been made about
numerous absurdly influential companies throughout recent history.

~~~
human_error
South Korea?

~~~
charles-salvia
[http://www.naver.com/](http://www.naver.com/)

------
unclebucknasty
Glad to see them mention the virtual reality piece, although I think the
implications are vastly understated.

Look at that photo of a room full of people; voluntarily absent this reality
and immersed in another of one man's creation. Notice how that man is the only
one not in his virtual reality, but instead "overseeing" those who are.

And, we all know how addictive VR will be, once it hits a certain point.

Sends a chill up my spine.

------
golergka
Step one: admit, and put it into a public consciousness, that Facebook is a
monopoly.

I'm a right wing free market advocate, but even I'm not a fanatic - and
believe that when a single company grows to control the whole industry, it
should be regulated. "Facebook is monopoly" needs to become a meme - this will
help people from all the political spectrum on board to regulate it.

------
kordless
> Remember that Facebook feeds are not chronological. Facebook decides what
> posts you see, and who sees your posts.

Not my posts. I don't have a Facebook account.

~~~
dredmorbius
Over 1 billion people do, and the information they're being fed is influencing
elections in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the
Netherlands, at a minimum.

~~~
kordless
At a minimum. Worth repeating.

~~~
dredmorbius
Nearly 2, having read TFA. But yes.

------
jtraffic
Ironic that I visited HN deliberately to avoid working on my dissertation?
I've been off of FB for years. This article seems overblown to me. Though,
yesterday on NPR I heard a prof speaking about a survey where 48% of teenagers
who were asked would rather have a broken BONE than a broken PHONE. But FB
isn't the only reason teens are so attached to phones.

------
jwolfhn
Yes, the lack of ethics review boards for research on FB users is
reprehensible. Hardly any of the internal research would be approved by ethics
boards for publically funded research on human subjects. Many people who use
FB have no idea what freedoms they are giving up, how their information is
being (mis)used, or how they are being manipulated.

What alternatives to FB exist?

------
enknamel
What worries me is when Facebook and Google both decide to insert themselves
into politics. I definitely saw Google trying to influence the last election.
I would constantly get push notifications to my phone with anti Trump news.
These were the very first and only push notifications I received from Google
News.

There's also the question of "Fake News" on Facebook. You could conceivably
abuse their reporting system to bury articles you don't want people to see.
This already happens quite a bit on YouTube where people will mass report
videos for copyright infringement just to get them taken down.

If we rely entirely on these global channels for our world information they
could conceivably shape our world view to their benefit. It's a scary
proposition.

------
dkarapetyan
The human reward function is all jacked up. We keep looking to mesianic liars
as leaders and willingly give up personal power and freedom in exchange for
the feeling of safety and group belonging.

Facebook is not the cause. It is merely the symptom.

------
mcrad
Yes, but the upside of this "tool for political power" is the threat it puts
on established media. Surely, expansion of liberal bias in our newspapers over
the last 50 years is a bigger problem than the social media effect(?)

------
_pmf_
Yes, just as TV and rock music were harbingers of the downfall of Western
civilization.

------
hellbanner
Facebook has an unfathomable amount of data you say?

Well, [https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-
venture...](https://www.corbettreport.com/meet-in-q-tel-the-cias-venture-
capital-firm-preview/)

[http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and-
its-...](http://www.therealnewsonline.com/our-blogs/facebook-and-its-
connections-to-the-cia-and-darpa)

~~~
kevando
Did you even read those links?

------
sushobhan
Have a different view on this,fb is a publicly traded company, its not only
man (Zuckerberg) show. Though Mark got supreme power but I'm sure its not him
behind every single decision. But if we talk about a single company having so
much data, that's a threat for sure. As it's not in our hand we can just
expect fb to understand, with great power comes greater responsibility.

------
EGreg
The same can be said about any centralized service.

The difference is facebook wants to sap your time and make you addicted to
checking your newsfeed.

There are far better ways to make money (as Google does). Why do these authors
automatically assume that the more time you spend on facebook, the more money
they make? I hardly ever click on faceboon ads. The thing lacking is intent to
buy.

------
TruthHawk
Backup here: [http://archive.is/AUZrG](http://archive.is/AUZrG)

------
dredmorbius
Related, a freshly-former US Attorney from Chicago: gun violence spreads over
social media.

[https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Unt...](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3516525-03132017-Untitled-
NOTSET.html#document/p1)

------
WWKong
I get the point of the article but "facebook" could be replaced by "computing"
and we could ask, "Are computers a structural threat to free society?".
Ultimately we could conclude, "Humans are the biggest threat to
Society/Humanity".

~~~
olleromam91
This argument can certainly be made. Would you rather rid the world of humans,
or facebook? =P

------
dwills
Yes.

------
rekshaw
I highly recommend News Feed Eradictor. It substitutes the news feed with an
inspiring quote, that way you can use Facebook only for PMs and Events.

------
slim
We'll make sure there will be laws governing social trade. Facebook will have
to obey. It can't be kept unregulated, Injustice will thrive

------
bogomipz
Wow that pic of Zuckerberg is really messianic looking, even without the
suggestion imposed by the title of the post.

------
known
"If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,
subsidize it." \--Reagan

------
faragon
I can't wait for Facebook, or LinkedIn, selling "backchat protection" or
equivalent...

------
dredmorbius
Apologies for a grab-bag of links and references, but the fundamental question
is one I've been thinking about, and researching, extensively over the past
six months, though it's occupied me long before as well.

The realisation I had shortly before the US election was that _all_ major
changes in media seem to be associated with _profound_ changes in human
societies, often tremendously disruptive. Going back to the development of
speech itself (better communications => better toolmaking => better weapons-
making and military tactics). Writing, ever cheaper and lighter media,
printing, literacy, mass media, broadcast, electronic, and online/mobile
media, now with AI and A/B enhancements, all the more so.

Elizabeth Eisenstein & others on have explicitly realised this. See also: H.L.
Menkin, Walter Lippman, John Dewey, de Bon, Mackay, Bernays, McLuhan, Chomsky,
Jerry Mander, Niel Postman, Michael & Joyce Heusemann, Clay Shirky, Danah
Boyd, Plato, esp. the Sophists

"A Revolution in Media"
[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/gqzszjwf4unuqfupzqff8g)

A friend has come up with an observation I've been calling Woozle's Paradox of
Epistemic Systems: as the size (and power) of a media audience grows, more
parties will be attracted to it for the purposes of influencing that audience.
(And Facebook is the largest single media audience on the planet.)

[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_ep...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5wg0hp/when_epistemic_systems_gain_social_and_political/)

Another set of concepts is that _Data are liability_ and _" Who are you?" is
the most expensive question in inforation technology. No matter how you get it
wrong, you're fucked._

#45's Twitter account is as secure as Google's gmail account security. The
same which failed when John Podesta's account password was phished. security

 _Scale effects and phase transitions_ are also profound. As I've had the
opportunity to note in several recent HN conversations, _both scale and rate
matter._ Just because Y is "the same as X" doesn't mean that Y _is_ X, if the
rate of change is 10x, or 100x, or 1000x, or 1,000,000x greater. A 10x change
gets you from walking speed to a car. 100x is an aircraft. 1,000x is an ICBM.
The Tsar Bomba is Greek Fire ... at scale.

 _Unintended consequences_ are the ultimate "hygiene factor" of technology.
Ted Unungst's post on HN today walks through a set of cases of just these, the
point being that those consequences _cannot_ be known in advance. (Though I'm
working on a framework which suggests how they might be better anticipated in
at least some cases.)

I've covered these and related points in some recent-ish HN comments:

"media and revolution"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13750889#13754972)

"media and revolution"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13736414#13736903)

"journalism"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13678413#13681938)

"data physics"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13635230#13640423)

And there's a bit of a grab-bag post touching on elements here:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_o...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/5rnjg0/state_of_the_lair_2017/)

(I'm working on a more comprehensive post or series on this topic ... there's
a lot to cover, and to discard....)

------
zby
One thing is the influence of Facebook on the USA population and on politics
there. This is dangerous - but I am sure that it will be reined in. It is yet
another thing for non USA residents. With Facebook all the notions of
sovereignty go down the drains.

------
known
Dopamine is the culprit

------
sunny1304
Facebook has become a virus that can destroy a whole generation.

------
adrianlmm
I think Google is more of a threat than Facebook.

------
bordercases
Late to the fuckin' party

------
intrasight
Facebook let's me send and receive messages to friends. In what way is that a
"media company" or any kind of threat?

------
simplehuman
Strongly disagree. Facebook is not the threat. It's individuals who make
decisions to sell their data in search of convenience. Maybe individuals make
this decision out of ignorance but pretty much everyone in Western world is on
Facebook, so I have to think that people consciously trade their data.

Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat.

~~~
jacquesm
> Its not like Facebook is shoving the product down our throat.

No, but network effects are a thing and you can't open a webpage these days
without a Facebook 'like' button on it. (Well, ok, you can but they are
definitely getting rarer and rarer.)

~~~
simplehuman
Sure, but this is what the majority of the population has opted for.

~~~
jacquesm
You wouldn't believe the amount of pressure that people put on each other to
sign up for Facebook. In some of my circles I'm next to invisible because I'm
not 'on facebook'.

That's never going to work on me but I can't fault people for giving in and
going with the flow. Still, in many cases it's not as voluntary as it might
seem to be to you, just like it almost is no longer voluntary not to have a
phone, not to have email and not to have internet access.

Theoretically you should be able to live your life without those, but in
practice it is getting harder all the time and a choice against any or all of
these comes with a social price that not everybody is willing to pay.

~~~
simplehuman
I don't disagree with your comment (in fact, I face the same issues in my
life). My point is that we have to accept we live in a democracy and there is
probably nothing we can do. It turns out that this is just our personal
preference. To give some examples:

* Cars everywhere. Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution.

* Gmail everywhere. Nobody cares that your email gets marked as spam if you pick some other email provider. People will just ask you to switch to gmail.

* Chrome everywhere. Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well.

* Waste and opulence everywhere. Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans.

My point is that this is humanity. All these are individual decisions and not
pushed down by corporations. But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice
at a personal level.

~~~
jacquesm
> Nobody gives a shit about global warming or pollution.

Plenty of people do.

> Nobody cares that your email gets marked as spam if you pick some other
> email provider. People will just ask you to switch to gmail.

Yes, that's one more example of network effects at work.

> Nobody cares that you now use Firefox and their website does not work well.

True, but then they'll lose me as a potential customer. They probably don't
care so point taken.

> Nobody cares about the insane things we dump _every_ day in the oceans.

The worst to me are things that are manufactured _in order to be thrown away_.
Tools that are so bad you can't use them even once, consumer goods whose sole
feature is they are created to be presents that nobody ever uses afterwards,
packaging, mountains of packaging, all kinds of disposable paper goods. It's
incredible.

Have you watched the movie "The age of stupid?"

If you have try to reconcile that with the current head of the EPA being who
he is...

So even if those decisions are all made - in principle - of people's own
volition our views of the world and our actions in it are shaped to a fairly
large extent by governments, corporate entities and media (this comment being
a part of that because of the reference to the movie above).

> But people are not prepared to make any sacrifice at a personal level.

Some people are. Generalizations are hard.

