You won't find FSF on Facebook

This article is a joke, it's something I would expect to find on some tech/news gossip website. Is this what FSF has become?<p>&#62; so many sites — including TIME — use Facebook's user-tracking "Like" button, Zuckerberg is able to collect information about people who aren't even users of his site. These are precedents which hurt our ability to freely connect with each other. He has created a network that is first and foremost a gold mine for government surveillance and advertisers.<p>I would think just about any popular web site would be a gold mine for such information. It has nothing to do with Facebook. Doesn't this sentence hold true if we replace Facebook with Google? This seems like a tinfoil/scare everyone into believing Facebook is evil and out to get you.<p>&#62; and then maybe relays it to the intended destination, if it suits him. In some cases he does not — witness the recent reports of Facebook's messaging service blocking messages based on the words and links in them, because those links point to services which Facebook would prefer we not discuss.<p>Comeon, examples/proof please. Is Facebook blocking URLs to competition or child porn sites? There is a pretty big difference here.<p>I would think that the FSF should be on Facebook, trying to spread their message, gaining support, and discovering new users. They have an interesting problem, a lot of support, and some very big challenges ahead of them... and yet they spend time publishing articles like this and making fancy dislike buttons. FSF you should be ashamed.

&#62;"He has created a network that is first and foremost a gold mine for government surveillance and advertisers."<p>It would be nice for more people to realize this. Really, they're lining up like sheep for government monitoring, and Zuckerberg and Co. are happy to comply. FB seems thrilled with the prospect of being the eyes and ears of Big Brother, actually.

Hasn't this been discussed before? The Person of the Year award is supposed to be given to the most influential person of the year, not the nicest or the most ethical one. Zuckerberg did become a widely recognizable person and you can't say he has not become influential too. Joseph Stalin got the award twice, 'nuff said.<p>Disclaimer: I'm not comparing, just pointing out that the FSF's reaction is kind of attacking the straw man here.

Facebook appears to have had a tremendous effect on countries like Tunisia and Egypt. The alternatives that FSF lists may not have been as effective because of the technical difficulty for a large number of people to set up such a service.

I personally think advertisers knowing more about preferences is better than if they know less.<p>Every day we are exposed to crapload of advertisement that are in no way related to me and what those ads do is only annoy me. But there is nothing I can do, I cant turn off all the ads on Time Square, or pay the TV network to turn off all of the ads on my favorite tv channels, same for radio (thanks to adblock I manage to get rid of large portion of ads on the web).<p>If advertisers knew that I am a male ( a no secret, nothing I would hide) it would escape me from being exposed to all of the annoying ads of pads, make up, and other women centric products. that only would be a huge relief. If advertisers knew I am straight ads for gay social networks would not come up on facebook for me. I can state at least 10 more points.<p>The bottom line is, as long as a certain lines are not crossed (like diseases, home address, etc.) letting advertisers know more about us could be good.

"Because so many sites — including TIME — use Facebook's user-tracking "Like" button, Zuckerberg is able to collect information about people who aren't even users of his site"<p>I thought you had to have a facebook account to "like" something, either on facebook itself or sites with the FB "like" link. Anyone know otherwise?<p>edit: Just logged out of FB, opened a random Time article (<a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2049569,00.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2049569,00.htm...</a>) and clicked "like" - and was asked to login to FB. Hmm

Don't look now but Adsense and every other ad network can track your movements online too! In keeping with their Facebook stance, FSF should block the GoogleBot and get off of Google too.

Small quibble, they're using the wrong url for Appleseed. It's actually:<p><a href="http://opensource.appleseedproject.org" rel="nofollow">http://opensource.appleseedproject.org</a>

That's alright, I wasn't planning on friending the FSF anyway.<p>Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that people have the right to their views and their right to licence things and act accordingly, but the zealotry in the FSF is just too much for me to handle.

I believe that with anything the extent that Facebook can do for good equals the extent that it can do for bad. So yes, they have a lot of information that could be used for good, bad, or (more likely) some of both. I certainly don't recall anyone FORCING anyone to click a "like" button nor have a Facebook account. If you are worried about this sort of thing then don't do it. I don't understand why there are so many people attempting to create a rebellion against a service that no one forced them to be a part of.<p>[1] Clarification

<a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Software-Foundation/112270732121738" rel="nofollow">http://www.facebook.com/pages/Free-Software-Foundation/11227...</a>

Until there's a Free Utilities Foundation, or even a Free Infrastructure Foundation, there won't be a 'free' facebook.

The public at large doesn't care and more to the point and the public at large usually aren't affected by loss of privacy - it doesn't inconvenience them enough to bother them.<p>Diaspora and other such projects are a complete joke. People aren't going to run their own server. Make it easy, make it fast and get their friends to use it, that's it. Nothing else matters.

FSF doesn't like a service that doesn't operate exactly how the FSF thinks they should. Shocking.<p>I don't take anything they or their pseudo-communist leader say seriously anymore. Back when Stallman started attacking OpenBSD because of their ports tree I knew he had finally lost it.