I definitely concede your last point about me being naive in regards to what my personal information gets used for, although perhaps "apathetic" would be an even better description
But I do definitely have some, perhaps unwarranted, faith that the people running websites like facebook would not screw over us, the users. The only reason those websites make money is because so many people use them. If they fuck us then we'll stop using them and they'll lose all their money. Of course it's entirely possible that all the apathetic people like myself wouldn't care enough to leave and they could get away with a lot more than they should.But I guess the other issue is that it's their website and they didn't force anybody to put up any information or even join. They're not running some kind of social service, they're running a business. If Facebook has true value for society then it's really up to governments to create a similar social service - it's not the job or responsibility of Facebook to do that.
Of course I agree that changing the terms and services was not a very ethical move, and perhaps some kind of amnesty allowing for people to remove their profiles or any information before the new terms and services come in would be a good idea.
I may be naive about what Facebook could use my information for, but I also work as a data analyst and I have access to hundreds of thousands of records of personal information, including credit card numbers, some private correspondence, information about wills, and all kinds of other things I probably shouldn't even mention. I'm willing to bet that what facebook use their information for is the same as what I do with the information I have - analyse it and look for trends etc. Looking specifically at one record is a waste of time. Nobody cares about single people are doing. The fact that we have the names of people is really only so we can sound more personable in communications. We use our data for marketing and for developing large marketing strategies. Facebook could do all kinds of things with their data, but they're not going to. I might be naive, but I think you're a little paranoid, or at least overly cautious.
I agree that intellectual property rights, freedom of speech and corporate and media manipulation are some of the most serious issues facing the world at the moment, especially the Western world. At the same time, as I said before, I don't think Facebook is a legitimate tool for society to communicate with. Yes I use it to communicate with all the time, but I also understand that if it were permanently completely shut down tomorrow that would be completely within the rights of Facebook and they are a business, not a social service. This is actually one of my serious concerns with modified being hosted with Modevia as well - if things go badly for them they're well within their rights to just get rid of us and all our information. When you consider the consequences of that happening, it seems like people are worrying about the wrong things entirely when ever moving modified to .org is suggested. Worst case staying with Modevia - we lose the entire forum and everything on it. Worst case moving to .org. We can't edit posts, people have disagreements with Steve and there would be a greater number of noobs. Like with the financial crisis, we should be looking at what could happen, not what are the chances of it happening. Sorry, I got a little sidetracked.
For sure. I'm not saying that because I don't care, facebook should be able to treat everybody as if they feel how I do, although it appears that people thought they had more rights than they actually do. In any event I was expressing my opinion and how I feel, and not attempting to speak for other people, as I assumed you can speak for yourself, and you canAllan wrote:I, I, I. You may not care what they do with your info, but I sure as hell do. I have rights. And I would thank you not to dismiss them so easily.
. Perhaps what this really shows, and I am sure this will be an unpopular suggestion, is the vital need for serious regulation and government oversight of the internet. Even if Facebook really can be trusted in this situation, it's probably inevitable that eventually a corporation will come along that does exploit users in an unethical manner to the extent that Allan is worried will occur with facebook. While certainly the laws of nations apply to the internet just as much as the rest of the world, it's a lot harder to police and things are very self regulated at the moment. While this is largely been ok in the past, the last decade has seen the internet become the primary source of information and communication in the world and I think giving up the freedom of the internet for stability and safety may be a very smart move in the long run. Of course if we did follow that move we'd never know if it were successful because we wouldn't know what happened if we don't. It also means we need to elect governments that we trust and hold our governments to account when they lose our trust. Australia and the US have been very bad at this in recent years.
I appreciate the link you posted and will read through as much of the site as I can. I definitely do see the relevance.
Finally a quick mention of finance
;I don't even know what evil is any more. While I'm a strong believer in personal responsibility, I think most actions I call evil can be understood in a completely rational manner. For example take honour killings. Even though it's one of the most disturbing things you'll ever see, I think watching one of the videos from Afghanistan of a 16 year old girl getting stoned to death for being seen with a person of another religion is something everybody should see. I view those kinds of actions as the most intolerable things occurring in our world and an epitome of the conventional definition of evil. Yet I can also understand that the people carrying out this behaviour are doing so because of the environment they were brought up in and they're sure they're doing a good thing. Although they are wrong in their behaviour, it is understandable and punishing them for it, except in order to promote the prevention of such actions, is like punishing a 3 year old for having bad table manners.Allan wrote:Money is not the root of all evil. I don't know what is, but it's not money. Money is good. People use it for evil things. Abstracting money away as the root of it all is an easy excuse to let human behavior off the hook. "Money made me do it."
Yep, I see the solution as much greater government regulation and interference. Self regulation = no regulation. Democratic governments are accountable to the people, and that keeps them under control much better than anything else. Even in places like the US and Australia under our previous leaders, and Canada now under that fucking Harper Nazi (excuse my exaggeration, but I'm not a fanThat film pretty much sums it up for me. Current laws create people out of corporations; people with all the inherent rights, and NONE of the responsibilities. Limited liability allows people to literally get away with murder, and corporations owning other corporations essentially amounts to slavery. Corporations being legally bound to seek out bottom-line profits without consideration to anything: now THAT is certainly evil.
), we still had much more accountable and transparent governments than many corporations, especially the international operations of many corporations operating in our countries, and we certainly still had much more accountable and transparent governments than all non-democratic governments. That doesn't mean we shouldn't demand a lot more from our governments, but also that trusting them is much better than trusting corporations to behave ethically. Although most can probably be trusted, we shouldn't even give them a choice. Look at things like the melanine scandal. Even if that only happens with one company once a decade, it's a high price to pay for so much self regulation. Government regulation certainly has it's own concerns, but I think history shows the consequences are almost incomparable with the consequences of more individual regulation.
