[HN Gopher] Facebook banned me for life because I help people us...
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Facebook banned me for life because I help people use it less
Author : louisbarclay
Score : 479 points
Date : 2021-10-07 16:45 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (slate.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (slate.com)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The TL;DR is that the author created a browser extension that
| sent "unfollow" requests to everything in the user's feed one-by-
| one. He argued that unfollowing everything made Facebook less
| addictive because it made the news feed empty.
|
| The tool also reported some amount of data about the user's feed
| back to him for statistical purposes, but he claims the data was
| minimal and only used to ensure the tool was "working".
|
| I think the missing piece of this puzzle might be that he used
| his personal account to develop Facebook API tools, and Facebook
| has a low tolerance for tools that abuse their API and send user
| data to 3rd parties, regardless of the developer's intentions.
| nnm wrote:
| There are two facts A (my tool can help people use FB less) and B
| (FB banned me), and then tell people A caused B, i.e. A --> B. In
| reality, it could be C --> B and C (I collect user data in a way
| not allowed per FB ToS) is not mentioned at all in the story-
| telling.
| tunesmith wrote:
| I unfollowed everyone (manually) a couple of years ago and it was
| a big benefit - my feed was empty and it was great. However,
| Facebook has changed things over the last few months, my feed is
| now littered with recommendations of weird groups and content
| that I "might like".
| dukeofdoom wrote:
| Consider becoming a cashier at a liquor store.
| yupyup54133 wrote:
| Woops, loos like I was wrong:
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Facebook needs to act as a content neutral public utility
| platform if they want to remain protected by section 230 of the
| Communications Decency Act.
|
| No, they don't. The EFF would be lying if they said this,
| which, however, they do not anywhwere in the piece you link to
| support this assertion.
|
| Not only does Section 230 _explicitly_ protect non-content-
| neutral actions [0], the legislative history and context of
| Section 230 and the Communications Decency Act as a whole--a
| censorship law whose twin functions were to impose public
| censorship and enable private censorship beyond what the state
| could even arguably Constitutionally impose (and every bit of
| which except the enablement of private censorship in Section
| 230 was struck down as exceeding Constitutional limits on
| public censorship)--makes clear that content neutrality was not
| only _not_ the point, but the polar opposite of the point of
| the enactment.
|
| [0] 42 USC SS 230(c)(2): "No provider or user of an interactive
| computer service shall be held liable on account of-- (A) any
| action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or
| availability of material that the provider or user considers to
| be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent,
| harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such
| material is constitutionally protected". If Facebook finds it
| objectionable for any reason, Facebook is explicitly protected
| under 230 for blocking it.
| akersten wrote:
| This is misinformation. There is no such requirement. "Content
| neutral public utility platform" is not a legal concept and no
| similar concept is alluded to in CDA S230.
|
| Stop spreading this confident lie.
| not2b wrote:
| You linked to an article that does not support what you say, as
| the EFF (who you link to) has repeatedly made clear. Nothing in
| section 230 requires a platform to be content neutral. It
| protects publishers who are blatantly biased as well as those
| that are neutral.
|
| For example, suppose you run a site that is dedicated to
| getting Republicans elected to office, must of the site content
| is user comments, and you ban users who criticize Republicans.
| So you are not content neutral. Section 230 still protects you:
| if a comment libels someone, the person that posted it, not the
| site, is legally responsible.
| kylepdm wrote:
| That's quite literally not how 230 works, and completely
| ignores the historical reasons of why 230 was created.
|
| https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
| csk111165 wrote:
| Well I guess this seems to be quite unlawful and it reflects the
| true moto and intension of this evil aimed company, which just
| want to play with its users mentally and psychologically. This
| should not have happened , we have evolved our generation to come
| up to this?? What a petty!!
| wilburTheDog wrote:
| I don't use facebook. I never plan to use facebook. What's
| stopping me from publishing Unfollow Everything myself? What
| standing would Facebook have to sue me for publishing a chrome
| extension?
| ekimekim wrote:
| > What standing would Facebook have to sue me for publishing a
| chrome extension?
|
| The standing of "actually none, but if you go to court to prove
| this you risk bankrupcy". Unless you have a major legal
| organization (like EFF) backing you (or you are a billionare),
| large corporations are essentially above the law when it comes
| to interacting with individuals.
| ssalka wrote:
| I simply don't open Facebook unless I want to check a person's
| profile or view an event/page. But it's awful that Facebook would
| do something like this in response to what I can only imagine was
| (legally) totally acceptable use of their API.
|
| I also wonder if this tool broke any particular rule of FB's
| terms, or if the decision was more along the lines of, "you make
| us lose money, this app bad. Ban"
| mullingitover wrote:
| For what it's worth, there's a plethora of scripts around that
| will assist you with this operation[1].
|
| [1]
| https://www.google.com/search?q=unfollow+everyone+facebook+g...
| EverywhereTrip wrote:
| I did the same thing by hand, that the author wrote an extension
| for. It took me several weeks, but as something popped into my
| feed, I just unfollowed it.
| SavantIdiot wrote:
| Good thing you don't live in a country where Free Basic is the
| only internet: you would be banned from the internet!
|
| I find that a small, but nonzero, percentage of small business
| and organizations ONLY advertise on Facebook. Since I don't use
| it, I cannot access their pages (Facebook throws up a full screen
| blocker that I have to disable from the browser console by
| tweaking the DOM). Good thing Facebook isn't bigger.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| What is Free Basic internet? Nothing's coming up on Google.
| notRobot wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-.
| ..
| dmonitor wrote:
| Is this just the plot of parks and recreation's last
| season?
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| I have seen some very sophisticated bots generating Instagram
| content, it's always similar, but avoids detection, obviously
| (proven by the presence of the profiles).
|
| I wonder what would happen if people sent messages to each other
| on how to delete the fb account, or if a similarly good bot would
| do that. After all, it's just a post.
|
| Today I've seen Zuckerbergs reply to the accusation of posting
| enraging content, he said it doesn't make sense to claim so as
| the advertisers don't want to see their ads on enraging content.
| Typical, total liar. The ads are posted to neutral or non
| enraging content, while the enraging content gets no ads or only
| from the advertisers which don't mind.
|
| Guy is worse than 1000 used cars salesmen and 1000 wall street
| bankers combined.
|
| And all this with the innocent geek persona.
| dymk wrote:
| The author seems to think that Facebook has some obligation to
| let them use their platform.
| [deleted]
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| > The author seems to think [...]
|
| Facebook employees seem to think that people have to uphold
| their illusion that the company has any interest in "making the
| world a better place" or "just connecting the world" (or
| whatever is the internal feel good company slogan of the day).
|
| Nothing wrong with unveiling that this is not the case. Whether
| Facebook has the right to ban anyone or not doesn't really
| matter here.
| kiryin wrote:
| This same old comment seems to show up in these threads like
| clockwork. Surely no one in this world is truly obligated to do
| anything at all, but kicking out users based on vague reasoning
| detriments their value as a social network.
| failuser wrote:
| Their actions are compared against their promises. They don't
| reply to such accusations with "yes, we feed on disinformation
| and suffering", just this week their spokespeople went on TV
| and confirmed their commitment to putting people before profit.
| They try really hard to pretend not to abuse their market
| share.
| mahmoudhossam wrote:
| Facebook seems to aspire to be a utility that everyone relies
| on, public utilities don't boot you out because you criticize
| them.
| hbn wrote:
| I wish there was more consideration these days about certain
| platforms being considered so ubiquitous that censorship on
| their platform is recognized as the free speech issue it is.
|
| So much I hear the classic "they're a private company they
| can do what they want," or "just build your own platform."
| But at every level, alternative platforms get kneecapped,
| whether it be from app stores, or hosts, or the big guys not
| letting you link to them. Some of this is in part to it
| attracting edgelords who were banned from the mainstream
| platforms and being unable to keep up with moderation from a
| sudden influx of them making it "their place."
|
| I'm not a lawyer so I don't exactly know how this would work,
| but I think that someone is undoubtedly at a disadvantage to
| share their message depending on whether or not they have
| access to social media platforms. And the criteria for
| getting banned is only continuing. Look no further than
| YouTube's new vaccine guidelines, which have gotten plenty
| reasonable people (including doctors), who are just trying to
| ask question, banned without recourse.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| Because It's not a free speech issue?
|
| The problem from my perspective is that people do not fully
| understand what free speech means. People conflate the
| issue by believing platforms like facebook or youtube are
| "public" spaces and subsequently assume they're entitled to
| constitutional rights.
|
| I can invite you to my house, I can also kick you out. I
| don't have to give a reason for why I want you to leave.
| Maybe it's something you said, maybe I'm tired, maybe I
| want to leave. The reasoning doesn't matter, I have full
| control over my own private property which is what all
| these social media sites are.
|
| If we take it one step further, you signed a legal binding
| contract acknowledging you have no rights. Where is the
| disconnect?
| hbn wrote:
| You're just re-describing the issue I was pointing out.
| Yes, that's the case that monopolistic platforms aren't
| public spaces. I think they should be treated more like
| it.
|
| Constitutional rights were all drafted up before we knew
| that anything like YouTube would exist. Private companies
| control the majority of information and influence
| elections now. At that point, it's a free speech issue.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If "your house" covers a quarter of the town then it
| starts to be a free speech issue.
|
| Also there are lots of rights you can't sign away in a
| normal contract.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| No it doesn't. You have zero rights to come on my
| property and even if I let you be there, you still play
| by my rules or I can remove you from the property at any
| time for any reason. Your rights stop where mine begin,
| and your rights will be limited on my property. The size
| of my property is meaningless to the equation and there
| is no limitation on my freedoms to own property of
| various sizes.
|
| Social media companies like Facebook and Youtube have
| every right to remove anyone they want from their
| property for nearly any reason just like you have the
| same right to remove people from your property coupled
| with assistance from the government (e.g. police, court
| system).
|
| The only outlier in my mind for a company is the issue of
| discrimination. While the people that are currently being
| removed feel discriminated upon because they're all
| spewing the same nonsense, it doesn't actually meet the
| definition of discrimination (race, age, gender, etc...).
| I think it's pretty clear at this point that these
| companies don't want people spreading misinformation,
| hatred, or engaging in other various activities using
| their platform. If you do those things, you may get the
| boot which again, you agreed to.
|
| It just makes no sense to me that people think that
| social media is going to become the bastion of free
| speech. It also makes me sad that people don't really
| understand what free speech is and what your rights
| protect you from.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| The size of your property is not meaningless. The more
| time other people spend inside your property, and the
| more important that time is, the bigger a problem it
| becomes if you use that power that gives you in certain
| ways.
|
| Notice how this argument doesn't actually depend on
| rights, though I do have rights-based things to say.
| Whatever you think about rights, this kind of thing
| causes problems and can have negative effects on society.
|
| There are lots of bad effects when fake-public spaces
| replace actually public spaces.
|
| And _your house_ is not a fake-public space. The analogy
| doesn 't connect there.
| malka wrote:
| Facebook should be nationalised.
| joeberon wrote:
| Definitely yes, or shut down.
| thieving_magpie wrote:
| This isn't about criticism though. It's about changing their
| product.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It's not doing anything that you can't do yourself, it just
| automates what would normally be thousands of clicks.
|
| The fact that you can't express your intent to facebook to
| do this and have them assist by doing it for you
| automatically you reveals their user-hostility in this
| area.
| shkkmo wrote:
| It isn't changing thier product, it's just empowering their
| users in a way they don't like.
| andagainagain wrote:
| Facebook doesn't want to be a utility as far as I can tell,
| they want to be a functional monopoly. They want to be so big
| that people effectively can't leave the platform even if they
| wanted to.
|
| And then they would use smaller "social media" platforms as a
| legal defense, even if they don't compete on content or
| functionality.
| behringer wrote:
| The authors seems to think that customers of Facebook have some
| obligation to use the platform as they see fit.
| emaro wrote:
| I can really recommend you to look into the fediverse. You won't
| need to fight against your social network platform.
|
| https://joinmastodon.org https://fediverse.party
| pmlnr wrote:
| LOL. That's never that easy.
|
| "A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy" (PDF):
| https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2005-shirky-agroupisit...
| btown wrote:
| Luckily, in the words of Mr. Universe, "you can't stop the
| signal."
|
| https://gist.github.com/renestalder/c5b77635bfbec8f94d28#gis...
| dstroot wrote:
| "Facebook will block this feature for you while you use it,
| depending on how much entities you try to unfollow. It
| automatically unblocks in a couple of hours and you will be
| able to continue."
|
| Never that simple is it...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Awesome, it works. Thanks!
|
| Notes: first go to facebook.com > arrow in
| upper right > Settings & Privacy > News Feed Preferences > and
| scroll the whole list to the bottom open your console
| and run the script, and wait. The script takes 1.5 seconds per
| each "unfollow", so if you have 500 for example, it will take
| more than 8 minutes :)
| gweinberg wrote:
| I think most people here are missing the important takeaway: you
| can improve your facebook experience by unfollowing everything. I
| get the same effect via a slightly different route: my bookmark
| sends me straight to my group, and I never go "home".
| gwilikers wrote:
| The cease and desist, if anyone is interested in reading it:
| https://louisbarclay.notion.site/Unfollow-Everything-cease-a...
|
| The one that sticks out to me is:
|
| > Interfering with or impairing the intended operation of
| Facebook
|
| This seems very broad. I am sure Facebook has some legal standing
| for the takedown based on their terms of use and the extension's
| data collection. I wonder how far you can stretch "impairing the
| intended operation of Facebook", though.
| ufo wrote:
| Does anyone know what is the difference between unfollowing
| everything vs hiding the news feed using CSS?
| sircastor wrote:
| It would be more surprising (to me) if Facebook were monitoring
| hiding things in the news feed - they're a database query away
| from knowing what you've unfollowed. Knowing what's hidden is
| an active request back to the server to report which elements
| now have been hidden.
|
| The other side is that things that are unfollowed aren't ever
| sent to your browser...
| patwillson22 wrote:
| ayy man, you crossed zucc, you get the buck.
| htrp wrote:
| >Pointing to a provision in its terms of service that purports to
| bind even former users of Facebook, Facebook also demanded that I
| never again create a tool that interacts with Facebook or its
| many other services in any way.
|
| I want to know 1) what this ToS clause is and 2) how this is even
| possible?
| Zigurd wrote:
| It is not a crime in the US to fail to delete posts encouraging
| crimes, up to and including genocide, outside the US. In
| practical terms, US law enforcement cannot monitor for this in
| foreign languages. Even if US regulations prohibited this,
| enforcement would be difficult in practice without Facebook's
| willing and diligent cooperation, and some tool smithing on
| Facebook's part.
|
| There are vast areas that are legal, surrounded by areas that are
| unenforceable, further extended to areas where consequences are
| cheaper than compliance. Facebook _can_ allow all that to happen.
| _Should_ they?
| asdff wrote:
| Facebook is a public company. What happens if OP buys a share?
| Facebook bans shareholders now from using the product they
| partially own?
| shrimpx wrote:
| Not defending Facebook but shareholders aren't exempt from
| abiding by ToS.
| 887139234 wrote:
| what does it mean to be banned, really? can't you sign up again
| with another email address?
| cratermoon wrote:
| I wonder how long before Social Fixer is banned?
| https://socialfixer.com/
| rektomatic wrote:
| I wish he would put the code out on github, does tht break laws
| if its not actively doing it?
| rektomatic wrote:
| Just put the code out in open source, I don't see how that could
| be subject to a cease and desist
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Unfollow everything is actually how I have my facebook set up,
| but I did it manually by hiding users any time I saw someone post
| something that I didn't care about (ie baby announcement is fine,
| you selling sunglasses or posting a picture of your feet or your
| political regurgitations is not interesting to me). Now, I have
| zero elements in my feed, and it is great. Occasionally the
| person who posts something big once every 2 years will show up in
| my feed, but that is usually the content I want to see.
|
| I'm curious if the app could have been banned for some other
| reason. For example, what if it would just send 1000 unsubscribe
| requests instantaneously and was considered abuse?
| HappySweeney wrote:
| Does anyone know if you get a shadow profile if you are banned?
| Further, if you have a shadow profile, then create an account
| which is somehow linked to it, will it be deleted if you are then
| subsequently banned?
| javajosh wrote:
| Every human being on Earth has a Facebook profile, living or
| dead, active or inactive on the platform. "Deletion" does not
| apply.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Holy crap, it's downright offensive that Facebook doesn't offer
| this utility as a first-party feature. Beyond the pale that
| they'd ban someone for creating it. Unfollowing everyone and
| everything is how I managed to make Facebook a non-net negative
| in my life, and I recommend it strongly to everyone.
| asdff wrote:
| Do you still get the random sponsored posts though? Honestly
| that's the bulk of my junk. I don't even follow these posts,
| they just appear because I guess other people fitting my
| demographic profile like to watch these and fb shoehorns them
| in. Maybe I can set up a ublock rule to catch these but knowing
| fb they are wise to this arms race already.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I've seen a _massive_ uptick in those lately.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > Pointing to a provision in its terms of service that purports
| to bind even former users of Facebook, Facebook also demanded
| that I never again create a tool that interacts with Facebook or
| its many other services in any way.
|
| The what? How on Earth is that legal in any country?
| thesuitonym wrote:
| If I go to Zuck's Family Grocery Store, and break a bunch of
| stuff, or just cause a ruckus, they can ask me to leave. They
| can even tell me that I am no longer welcome in their store.
|
| If I go to a website, and cause a problem, I can be IP banned
| forever.
|
| Why shouldn't Facebook be able to say, "Don't ever use our
| service again"? It's their service
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| you're describing the "dude got banned" part
|
| the other part is "dude is threatened with a lawsuit if
| anything he ever codes ever touches anything facebook, even
| if he himself never uses it"
|
| the store analogy is bad anyways -- I could try to correct
| it, but it's so non-analogous that the result would be
| contrived and convoluted
|
| the key point is that I, as someone who wants to use his
| browser extension to make my facebook experience healthier,
| no longer can do so because facebook banned me from using the
| tool, too
|
| so I guess a horrible store analogy would be, the store
| disallows me from using a wheelchair to access their store if
| he built the wheelchair, and also if he builds the wheelchair
| he gets sued
|
| it's just like the most recent facebook whistleblower said:
| facebook prioritizes profits over user safety, and will until
| they are forced to prioritize user safety higher -- just like
| OSHA made companies do for employees, the FDA made food and
| drug companies do for users, etc.
| pmlnr wrote:
| FB is not in any way a "Family Grocery Store", at maximum a
| self storage facility with glass walls.
|
| For the rest see sibling comment and the wheelchair analogy.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I think your analogy is incorrect. That would be like a shop-
| owner trying to sue someone who makes a lock-picking set for
| their model of locks.
|
| At the end of the day, it is the owner of the account running
| this tool, and FB is saying "don't tell people how to use JS
| to auto-unfollow people or we'll sue you". It's an extreme
| measure.
| tompainetoday wrote:
| Creating automation tools has been against their rules forever.
| asdff wrote:
| I call B.S. on that one. How do you think large commercial
| accounts make posts on facebook and instagram and other places?
| It's not from writing and posting right then like you and I.
| Social media managers use third party tools where they can
| write a bunch of posts in advance and have them drip fed out at
| peak hours over time. That's automatic tooling too, yet
| facebook tolerates it because advertisers rely on it rather
| than users like the case of the OP extension.
| tompainetoday wrote:
| through the api
| pmlnr wrote:
| you mean _automating_ through the api.
| tompainetoday wrote:
| some parts, but I believe any comments done through
| automation are strictly limited.
|
| the issue in this case seems to be the guy wrote a plugin
| that interacted with the front end, which, again, has
| always been strictly prohibited, and commonly results in
| bans from the platform.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Are you some fb zealot?
|
| The API used to provide all these things, when suddenly
| FB decided people shouldn't have access to their own
| thing. No wonder they make workarounds, because they HAD
| that kind of access in the past.
| menimax wrote:
| And what if that guy don't give a f, what his e-mailbox has
| received? And what if he creates stuff under nickname? Really
| wonder how fb are going in court let's say after extension is
| being created and spread by ltd or on the names of people without
| property? Those "we will sue in court", I wouldn't care less, and
| laugh if it's from fb.
| joelbondurant wrote:
| Impressive people still use Facebook given it only has communist
| dipshits.
| andyxor wrote:
| as long as social media company stays in the news it's alive and
| kicking, no one talks about dying companies.
|
| Time to buy more FB stock.
| cycomanic wrote:
| For all the people defending Facebook here, the point is not that
| they banned his account they threatened to sue him and send a
| ridiculously broad cease and desist.
|
| By your arguments ad networks have the right to sue adblock
| developers (which sometimes also collect anonymous data).
| colpabar wrote:
| As much as I _loathe_ the "facebook is a private company that
| can do whatever they want" argument, I have to admit it applies
| here. If I owned a store, and some guy kept coming and showing
| customers how to not spend any money in my store, I'd kick that
| guy out of my store.
|
| I very strongly dislike facebook and can't wait to watch it die,
| so I know comparing it to a store is a poor comparison. But at
| the end of the day, fb is a business, and if someone is using fb
| to try and hurt their business, they have the right to terminate
| that guy's accounts.
|
| EDIT
|
| My point here is not that we shouldn't point out bad things
| facebook does simply because it's "just business". I agree that
| the "they're a business" argument is just a deflection that
| derails the conversation into some weird business practice
| discussion, instead of all the bad things fb does.
|
| My point is more that we should try to frame these things so that
| the headline isn't "facebook banned me". They ban people all the
| time and not that many people seem to care, and in this case, _of
| course_ they banned this guy.
| tylerhou wrote:
| Facebook certainly has the right to ban this extension, but
| then we can't take their leadership seriously when they claim
| that they care about their users' health and well-being over
| profits.
|
| I.e. the point is the hypocrisy.
| asdvasdi wrote:
| Asking honestly, curious to know what would do you think is a
| good response from the company now? Considering, a few months
| ago, the company took down high profile accounts and content
| on its platform because it deemed something dangerous and lot
| of people were mad that company did that and it was
| censorship. Now the people are mad at the company because
| they didn't do enough moderation to ensure user health and
| well being. The company tried launching a version of the
| product with higher parental controls to let parents take
| more control, and people were mad and made the company stop
| those efforts. At this point in the company, what would you
| think is an acceptable response? Is there even a response
| that makes everyone happy?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| I am not confident that "make everyone happy", either
| equally, or even in varying amounts, should even be the
| primary objective here
|
| a good response would be one that starts with respectable
| principles and values and proceeds according to those, even
| when it costs money
|
| of course, that won't happen voluntarily, because money
| nradov wrote:
| In a company that operates worldwide, which country's or
| culture's principles and values should take precedence?
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| a good start would be for them to pick any that they can
| consistently apply and then seek feedback, but ideally it
| would explicitly describe what the trade-offs are between
| user safety and profits
|
| at the moment, the only principles they consistently
| apply seem to be: protect zuckerberg first, company
| profits second, everything else third, but that's just my
| perception -- they should make clear what their
| principles are so we can judge whether or not they
| consistently stick to them, and whether or not we need
| legislation to nudge those priorities around for the good
| of society
| themitigating wrote:
| You know most people want Facebook to go down. If they are
| on the right it's because of the censorship which prevents
| them from using misinformation to win votes. On the left
| it's the misinformation.
| ectopod wrote:
| > Facebook certainly has the right to ban this extension
|
| Why? It's a Chrome extension. They can ban the user and the
| extension will rot. That seems like more than enough power.
| max-ibel wrote:
| Surely, the extension uses a public API. The extension acts
| on behalf of the end user. So, I think facebook can ban a
| particular API key (tied to a packaged extension), but they
| would have to ban all chrome extensions to get around
| someone taking the extension source and building their own.
|
| So I think facebook _can_ by disabling the API, but _won
| 't_ do that since there are extension that it does like.
|
| Whether FB has legal grounds to go after users using such
| an extension would depend on the user terms, which I don't
| really know. It would be fairly egregious and risky for FB
| to do so.
|
| But I think if someone were to open source such an
| extension, this someone probably does not him/herself
| expose to a legal risk (speaking as a non-lawyer, and not
| giving legal advice)
| matthew_kuiash wrote:
| Why do they have that right? Here's a car analogy - If I buy
| a Ford pick what right do they have to stop me doing donuts
| in it? Or maybe fitting a swimming pool in the back. Maybe I
| want to drive it around my ranch on fire. If an individual
| wants to use this software on their Facebook feed I really
| can't see what legal right FB have to prevent them. OTOH -
| something was probably "signed" in a EULA to prevent this.
| fwip wrote:
| Are you being obtuse on purpose?
|
| Putting a swimming pool in your truck bed doesn't stop
| people from buying Fords.
| [deleted]
| EGreg wrote:
| Don't worry, when cars will download more self-driving
| software, you can bet your butts it will restrict you from
| driving some places or in some manner.
|
| Drone manufacturers already do so, you can't fly drones
| within 50km of an airport or whatever, can't fly them above
| 30 meters depending on where you are, and the software
| enforces this.
|
| Books on Kindle and Movies on iTunes can be yanked away as
| you read or watch them.
|
| Now, when it comes to software that isn't even hosted on
| your computer, what do you expect?
| matthew_kuiash wrote:
| I can't wait. Sadly I agree with you. This level of
| control is irresistible.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > Facebook certainly has the right to ban this extension
|
| Surely they can fight against it by changing how the platform
| works, or ban it if it was hosted somewhere on FB, or ban the
| author because he wrote something that hits their core
| business, but sending a cease and desist for an extension
| that is hosted elsewhere is like a tobacco company sending
| C&D letters to people selling anti smoking patches or telling
| publicly that smoking is bad for health. WTF!, this is
| bullying plain and simple; I already stay away from
| everything related to FB as much as I can (I knew about the
| recent FB outage by the evening news, didn't even turn on the
| tablet with Whatsapp that day), but I will try hard to turn
| that nearly 0.1% use to 0%.
|
| > I.e. the point is the hypocrisy.
|
| Exactly. At least Google removed the "Do no evil" part from
| their mission.
| fencepost wrote:
| It's not entirely clear to me that FB would have any right to
| ban the extension. They could attempt to keep users from
| using it through policies or detection, but it's running by
| user choice on user computers in user browsers.
|
| I suspect in the US this would have been handled differently
| but loser pays against a company that can afford to inflate
| costs by millions per week to make an example....
| [deleted]
| bsedlm wrote:
| hypocrisy (along with taboos I guess) seem to be a necessary
| part of a functioning society.
| EGreg wrote:
| Well, obviously.
|
| People can wax poetic about freedom of speech, the right to
| bear arms etc.
|
| But if there is a large separatist group that has
| historically wanted to destroy your country the first
| chance it gets, and members regularly commit violent acts
| to do it, would you really fight for the right to arm them
| all to the teeth, and then let them organize larger and
| larger rallies and shows of strength?
|
| Freedom ain't free, and sometimes the cost can be a little
| too high:
|
| https://xkcd.com/1499/
| colpabar wrote:
| Oh yeah I agree 100%. I guess I should have also included
| that I have 0 faith in anything fb says, and that I believe
| any and all of their claims of "we care and we're working on
| it" are outright lies.
|
| i.e. I'm so used to the hypocrisy that I don't really think
| about it, because everything they do is bad.
| chrismcb wrote:
| I'm not sure there is hypocrisy. They can and should care
| about both. Without users there is no profit.
| Kranar wrote:
| I think your argument is begging the question as it depends
| on a prior belief that Facebook is actually harmful. Replace
| Facebook with a gym membership, or a charity, or some other
| thing that one does not presume is harmful as the premise of
| their argument.
|
| Would the leadership of a gym be compromised and hypocrites
| if they banned someone who used their gym to tell others that
| working out is harmful and they should stop exercising at the
| gym? Would banning that member indicate that the owners of
| the gym don't care about the health of their users and
| instead put profits over well being?
|
| Your argument only works and sounds credible because most
| people on this site believe Facebook is harmful. If people
| don't share that belief, then it doesn't follow that Facebook
| is being hypocritical because they are banning someone who is
| using their product to defeat the product.
| teawrecks wrote:
| It would beg the question if it were trying to show that
| Facebook is harmful. But it's not, it's trying to show that
| Facebook doesn't care that it is harmful when profits are
| at stake. The fact that it is harmful has already been
| demonstrated by Facebook (re: leaked studies).
| mmarq wrote:
| Would the gym threaten litigation to a former member who
| writes blog against fitness?
|
| I'm fine with Facebook closing this developer's account,
| I'm not fine with the developer being forced to make his
| tool disappear, under the threat of litigation.
| keeglin wrote:
| As long as a computer decides where your time and energy is
| going as conduit for communication, it has become a moral
| arbiter. Facebook is harmful. Computers can't do this; they
| don't breathe.
|
| Unfollowing everything restores a user's agency when using
| the service, which is where it should be.
| jrm4 wrote:
| The _belief_ really doesn 't matter in light of what we
| know now, which is that _Facebook itself_ believed that
| there was harm and proceeded anyway.
|
| A better analogy than those I've seen. Facebook is like a
| wildly popular hookah spot, probably partially due to the
| fact that this hookah spot is knowingly putting crack in
| the hookah (in a world where maybe not everyone knows how
| bad crack is.)
|
| In comes a guy who, yes against all the "rules", hands out
| mouthpieces that filter out the crack. How bad is this guy
| now? How do we feel about him?
| tylerhou wrote:
| I disagree that it depends on such a prior belief -- the
| fact is that users seemed to have very positive feedback to
| the extension. As the extension has been taken down, it's
| not possible to see the reviews, but I've linked some other
| praises [1][2][3].
|
| If Facebook was really acting in their users interests, a
| look at the extension's reviews would have immediately told
| them that this benefited at least some users. And even if
| the extension conflicted with the terms of service, the
| right thing to do would be to have some employee at
| Facebook work with the extension author to make the
| extension comply, or implement such a feature as a first
| party feature.
|
| But what I assume could have happened is some department of
| Facebook trawls through app stores looking for unauthorized
| references to Facebook. There is no oversight as to whether
| an extension benefits users or not -- Facebook just sends a
| cease & desist all the same. That IMO is neglectful -- for
| every app takedown, there should be careful review as to
| whether it actually harms anyone. The fact that that review
| did not happen shows that FB does not care about the user.
|
| The more cynical possibility is that someone at Facebook
| realized that this was hurting their revenue stream.
|
| [1] https://browser-addons.com/unfollow-everything-for-
| facebook/
|
| [2] https://twitter.com/gchaslot/status/1410843427164598275
| ?lang...
|
| [3] https://crxcavator.io/report/ohceakcebcalehmaliegoenkli
| ddajo... (4.3/5 rating)
| munk-a wrote:
| Lets say that a poorly designed gym wants to promote social
| interaction - so they build a cool down room with a small
| cafe that has a machine you need to swipe a card through
| every ten reps to continue using the exercise equipment.
| Some enterprising fellow builds a portable machine that
| will simulate the card swipe action but can be done at the
| actual exercise equipment.
|
| This seems like a fairer analogy to me since this extension
| is dealing with a component facebook put in to drive
| "engagement" that is viewed by a lot of people as an anti-
| feature - some people like it: Miles, who hangs around the
| gym for the conversation, really likes the fact that he
| bumps into people more often in the cool-down room... but
| most people wish that feature had never been added.
|
| Add all of that to the fact that Facebook is the only tool
| Facebook allows on Facebook (so there are no competing
| gyms) and the tool becomes even more justifiable. Is it
| still quite legal for Facebook to C&D this guy - absolutely
| - but they're definitely not acting in their user's best
| interest.
| Kranar wrote:
| Sure if the gym is poorly designed and causing actual
| harm, then you can attack the gym on the basis of being
| poorly designed and causing harm.
|
| Attacking the gym on the basis that its owners do not
| want patrons who are using the very gym as a means of
| compromising it is not a valid argument as to why the
| gym's owners are hypocrites, causing harm, and putting
| profits above the well being of their customers.
| munk-a wrote:
| In my scenario the gym isn't causing actual harm - it's
| just forcing users to use it in a manner that they
| consider inefficient - this is the same as the actual
| extension we're talking about. You can manually unfollow
| everyone through facebook's UI - but it is cumbersome and
| difficult.
|
| I think there are some really strong reasons why facebook
| actually does cause actual harm and I'm not certain why
| you're being so defensive over that point - but my
| argument doesn't even involve facebook "causing harm" -
| it's just involves them having a terrible UX.
| mullingitover wrote:
| >Your argument only works and sounds credible because most
| people on this site believe Facebook is harmful. If people
| don't share that belief, then it doesn't follow that
| Facebook is being hypocritical because they are banning
| someone who is using their product to defeat the product.
|
| I've been seeing this idea a lot on HN, that we're just in
| this echo chamber and the general public doesn't have the
| same opinion. This notion isn't supported by the data[1]:
|
| > 57% believe Facebook is "primarily a harm to society" and
| 71% believe the company "prioritizes profits, even if it
| might cause societal harm."
|
| [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2020/07/23/mark-
| zu...
| jedimastert wrote:
| This smells funny: I feel like those numbers don't jive
| with the portion of the population who use Facebook.
|
| Looking at the poll, there were only a thousand
| "registered voters" that were meant to be a
| representative population of the America, which I'm gonna
| give a hard pass.
| ryandrake wrote:
| It is possible to think a product is terrible and harms
| society and still use it. A lot of commenters on HN make
| that argument: Yea, I know their products are bad, but I
| simply can't stop using them because of [not so great]
| Reasons.
| mullingitover wrote:
| It tracks pretty well with my personal experience. I have
| plenty of non-tech friends who generally aren't following
| Facebook's every move, but there is a strong across-the-
| board sentiment that FB is a malevolent entity.
| mpmpmpmp wrote:
| But not all for the same reason. Part of them think FB is
| evil because they only care about engagement and profits
| regardless of the outcome to society. And the other part
| thinks FB is biased and is censoring conservatives and
| pushing too liberal of an agenda.
| tylerhou wrote:
| 1,000 is more than enough people to make a measurement if
| they are selected sufficiently randomly. You only need to
| poll ~400 people to have a 5% margin of error for a
| binomial variable across all of the US (with 95%
| confidence). 1100 makes that margin 3%.
| jedimastert wrote:
| Sure, but I would argue that 1,000 _registered voters_ is
| going to make that a lot harder, not to mention it 's
| actually "1000 registered voters who self selected to go
| through a 20 minute poll about facebook," which is why
| they said "no estimates of sampling error can be
| calculated."
|
| https://accountabletech.org/wp-
| content/uploads/2020/07/Accou...
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| your rebuttal depends on the premise that people don't
| view facebook as harmful, but you yourself have not yet
| presented any data to that effect -- criticizing the
| study saying that people view it as harmful isn't the
| same as providing your own study saying they don't
|
| tl;dr his evidence, even if we assume the issues you
| bring up are significant, outweighs your lack of any, so
| I am leaning in his favor
| nradov wrote:
| How do those favorability numbers compare to other large
| companies? Do people see Facebook as better or worse
| than, let's say, ExxonMobil or Bank of America?
| DoctorNick wrote:
| >I think your argument is begging the question as it
| depends on a prior belief that Facebook is actually
| harmful.
|
| Considering that genocide has been organized on it? Yes.
| It's absolutely harmful.
| slingnow wrote:
| Knives have been used to murder people. They are
| absolutely harmful.
|
| Your grossly reductionist argument doesn't really add
| much to the discussion.
| mullingitover wrote:
| All the knives in the world aren't under the real-time
| control of a single entity.
| throwaway2048 wrote:
| You are very quick to dismiss a completely valid point,
| people are careful with sharp knives, and for example,
| generally don't let children use them, they aren't
| allowed on airplanes etc.
|
| How many people have a similar view of facebook as
| dangerous?
| themitigating wrote:
| It's the type of use that makes a knife dangerous.
| Everyday people use knives to prepare and eat food but
| don't think what they are doing is dangerous.
| munk-a wrote:
| Everyone respects how dangerous knives at at least - you
| know not to play around with them and you know how sharp
| their edges are. People don't (I really really hope)
| realize how many lives they're endangering by passing on
| misinformation. America is one of the most
| individualistic and tech literate countries in the world
| and it's suffering terribly during this pandemic from
| absolutely atrocious vaccination numbers.
| teawrecks wrote:
| Facebook is harmful, but this is a bad argument for why.
| The knife analogy is a good counter example.
| restingrobot wrote:
| Should we ban all telecoms too? I mean people used phones
| on networks to commit genocide as well. While we're at
| it, we should ban iPhones as well because they used them
| to communicate. What a stupid argument.
| uselesscynicism wrote:
| That's sort of an absurd litmus test. The Rwandan
| genocide was organized via radio; should radio be banned?
| Is radio inherently harmful because it was used for this?
| restingrobot wrote:
| Basically every Fortune 500 company is guilty of this. Most
| corporations loyalties go Shareholders, Employees,
| Government, Customers in that order. It is more shocking to
| me that anyone is surprised Facebook puts profit over people.
| I would be surprised if they *Didn't* do that.
| 2pEXgD0fZ5cF wrote:
| I agree, the whole "facebook has the right to do this" is a
| deflection that quickly derails the discussion.
|
| It's not the point. The point is: Sure Facebook can do that,
| but the fact that they do shows us how dishonest the people
| working there are with all the claims they make.
|
| Facebook has the right to do this, we have the right to call
| them out on it just the same.
| p_j_w wrote:
| >we can't take their leadership seriously when they claim
| that they care about their users' health and well-being over
| profits.
|
| Can we ever take a company that says this seriously? Maybe
| I'm just too cynical, but I never do.
| tombert wrote:
| I don't disagree with you at all, but just to play devil's
| advocate, I suppose the argument could be made that Facebook
| has basically created a near-monopoly in the social media
| space, and if that's the case maybe they should be viewed as a
| "utility" than a regular unregulated business. For example, I
| don't think Con Edison [1] could kick me off my electricity
| (assuming I was paying my bill), even if I handed out pamphlets
| saying how to use less power, since Con Edison is a regulated
| utility.
|
| Obviously this isn't a great comparison, you could make a much
| stronger argument for a "necessity" of electricity than a
| platform to share photos with friends, but that argument could
| be made that because of the ubiquity of Facebook (and
| subsidiaries), maybe they should be a free speech zone.
|
| [1] NYC's biggest power company.
| piggybox wrote:
| Let's turn Google search into a utility first. I think most
| people use it more often than FB.
| thehappypm wrote:
| In what way on Earth is Facebook a near-monopoly?
|
| TikTok and YouTube are also huge social networks.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| If Facebook bans me, I can still use
| Twitter/Reddit/LinkedIn/TikTok/YouTube/WordPress/my own
| website. If Con Edison bans me, there are literally zero
| legal ways for me to make electricity come out of my wall
| sockets.
| tombert wrote:
| That's fair, Con Edison has an actual monopoly (more or
| less, it's weird and you can license third-party power),
| while Facebook just has a plurality of social media
| attention. Hell, I didn't even have a Facebook until last
| week when I bought my Oculus Quest (though I used a fake
| name and a burner email address), so clearly it's not
| _vital_.
|
| As I said before, i agree with the OP, I was just trying to
| entertain a different point of view.
| thomastjeffery wrote:
| When you have literally billions of users, calling yourself a
| private company is disingenuous.
| Jensson wrote:
| I can still find adblockers in Google search. Google blocking
| those sites would rightly cause a lot of people to get angry
| over censorship and look for alternative search engines. I see
| no reason to not get angry when big corporations do things you
| don't agree with, it is what ultimately causes them to fall and
| give us alternatives.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| Being angry about it isn't the same thing as arguing that we
| should make it illegal.
| cycomanic wrote:
| But that's not what happened. Someone standing in front of a
| shop telling people how to avoid buying more than they really
| want. The company would obviously have the right to ban the
| person from their store. Instead they threatened the person to
| sue (with huge financial implications) demand that he never
| talks about the shop again and never comes close. That is not
| something a normal shop can and should be able to do.
| brandonmenc wrote:
| > The company would obviously have the right to ban the
| person from their store.
|
| Really? I don't think this would be legal, at least in the
| United States.
|
| If they were causing a disturbance inside the store, sure.
| themitigating wrote:
| First being outside the store isn't the stores property and
| anyway i don't know how that would translate to the internet.
|
| Second, companies sue individuals for defamation all the
| time. They can also get restraining order, claim harassment,
| etc
| inopinatus wrote:
| The calculus here is moral, not one of contract minutiae.
| naravara wrote:
| > As much as I loathe the "facebook is a private company that
| can do whatever they want" argument, I have to admit it applies
| here. If I owned a store, and some guy kept coming and showing
| customers how to not spend any money in my store, I'd kick that
| guy out of my store.
|
| Saying he "came and showed" implies he was doing this on
| Facebook, but he was publishing a Chrome extension. This is
| more like McDonalds blacklisting you because, in your job as a
| nutritionist, you gave people strategies for reducing their
| fast food intake.
|
| It's a browser extension, not Facebook itself. They banned him
| for showing other people how to do something on their own
| computers.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Sure, they have the right to terminate his account.
|
| But to demand removal of the tool, demand he never makes
| another tool, and to threaten ruinous litigation if he doesn't
| comply, even though they know it's illegal to do so?
|
| That goes well beyond shopkeepers rights.
| shkkmo wrote:
| That's a horrible analogy.
|
| This is like being banned from a store because someone
| publishes a blog that publicizes store discounts and then also
| having that store threaten sue you so you can't even write
| about their discounts.
|
| There is no reason to defend Facebook hete. People should have
| a right to modify their web browsers and help other people
| modify their web browsers.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| That depends on whether you see Facebook more as a small store
| or as a telephony company.
| otachack wrote:
| I get your metaphor but a store doesn't follow you 24/7 and
| keeps nagging you to check it. Unless it's Amazon.
|
| At least with Amazon you're spending tangible things: money +
| time (browsing) so you can feel the dent in your wallet/credit
| card eventually, which signals you to take it easy.
|
| With Facebook most people spend countless hours and there's no
| party telling you to chill out. Everything is enforcing you to
| stay on the platform. Even Netflix has some a screen popping up
| after 2-3 hours of binging to make sure you're still watching,
| giving some friction to the consumer.
|
| There's no noticable friction built into Facebook.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| I can tell people how to avoid sending mail, but the post still
| has to ship my letters. At some point some infrastructure
| becomes a utility and has to be treated as such. A universal
| login for other services and messaging at some point of
| concentration reaches that point. But it is a tough field to
| regulate, as we most likely haven't reached a peak of
| technological development in that space and regulation in
| developing fields is hard.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| The article tries to downplay what I think is the core issue:
| He added some functionality to the plug-in that sent statistics
| back to a server he controlled. He claims the data collection
| was minimal for most users but those who opted in had a lot
| more information collected. It appears everyone who used the
| plug-in had _some_ amount of data collected by the author.
|
| He's trying to spin this as Facebook trying to bury an anti-
| addiction tool, but I think it's a simple case of someone
| getting caught writing a plugging that automates API requests
| and collects data from Facebook users to a 3rd-party server.
|
| I don't think he'd be in trouble if he simply wrote an
| adblocker-style plugin that simply hid the feed. It was the
| automated spamming of the API and the 3rd-party data collection
| that likely got him in trouble.
| munk-a wrote:
| I don't mean to shock you but as someone who worked on a game
| that interacted with facebook data - everyone in the world is
| harvesting _some_ information from facebook when they 're
| making calls to their API. Sometimes it's as "innocent" as
| spamming your friends with requests to play (or enabling the
| user to do that for in-game rewards!) and sometimes it's
| cambridge analytica. No application in the world just wants
| to altruistically be helpful by having a facebook integration
| - I can't even imagine what that'd look like it'd probably,
| honestly, be just not having a facebook integration at all.
| finfinfin wrote:
| There are many applications that only request logged in
| user's name and email address to be populated in the
| registration form. I myself implemented this many times
| without "harvesting" anything else.
| munk-a wrote:
| You mean for SSO functionality? Is that log in optional
| and a method for users to potentially preserve their
| progress across multiple devices?
| ncr100 wrote:
| If what you claim is true:
|
| Users send THEIR FB data to him. That's their choice...FB
| sent data to the Users, they forwarded it to him. He's not
| hacking Facebook's data.
| cutemonster wrote:
| > had some amount of data collected
|
| Ratio of followed people to total connections.
|
| I think it makes no sense to ban an extension for that, and I
| don't think that's why they banned it. Instead, it could have
| threatened their bottom line, that's the problem.
|
| It's reasonable important to get some tiny insight in if
| one's extension works or not.
|
| They could have communicated with him and the University
| about what data to gather, for those who opted in.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| I suspect he did not use the API and rather emulated actions
| in browser. Action was performed on behalf of the user and
| data scope he collected was limited to one user using
| extension, which theoretically equivalent to a user's
| execution of a custom script in js console.
| YeBanKo wrote:
| "facebook is a private company that can do whatever they want"
| - as much as i like the argument, i don't think it applies
| here. In the US being banned by one or few bug tech companies
| is almost similar to being banned by USPS, or by a store chains
| like safeway, walgreens or cvs. This should not be taken
| lightly and there should be legal protection against bans like
| this.
|
| His activity of developing the tool was outside of facebook use
| as a user. Its ok if they ban his dev account, or the app(if it
| was a fb app) or try to block it.
|
| Ideally, such cases should be tested in court, but there is
| such a huge imbalance between opponents, that it seems UK
| system is inadequate in equalizing it.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Fact is the argument works both ways. A person can't stay
| logically consistent while saying "it's a private company they
| can do what they want" in the case of politics but then
| denouncing that same company when it takes an adverse action
| purely out of its own interest.
|
| I, for one, don't hate Facebook. Facebook, Instagram, and all
| of it is a reflection of society. Naturally we're pretty slow
| to react to any problem, so it's taken this long for a larger
| fragment of society to accept that social media is a problem.
| The next step is for all of us to admit that Zuck & co. aren't
| the real bad guys; while they profiteer off the psychological
| warfare (profiteers will _always_ exist), we spent years
| falling for their tactics over and over. Fool us dozens of
| times, shame on us.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| they're being criticized for their hypocrisy, not for doing
| anything they're legally disallowed from doing
|
| thus, they can do whatever they want, including banning
| racists and hiding secret internal research showing they're
| amplifying racists, but only the second one is hypocritical
| given their claimed (almost satirically so, at this point)
| values of safety-before-profit
| el_ravager wrote:
| Facebook is a merely the logical consequence of late-stage
| capitalism--its evil nature is a feature not a bug.
| bsedlm wrote:
| I prefer to argue the same thing by saying that we recognize
| this is a rational expected behavior of any entity developed
| enough that it looks after itself.
|
| Similarly to other lines of reasoning critizizing specifically
| facebook for "knowing they can be harmful but choosing to
| believe they can also be positive-good (useful)". This behavior
| is not exclusive to Facebook; all corporations are the same,
| and some have done humanity far worse, yet they're still around
| (why?). It's unreasonable to single-out facebook in this
| regard.
| scarygliders wrote:
| I'm not totally grokking the "FB is a store" premise.
|
| Mainly because if FB was a store, it'd be a store where the
| patrons are not buying stuff from the store, but are themselves
| the product.
|
| i.e. FB offers a messaging/contact service for "free" - with
| the caveat being that FB gets to glean startling - and valuable
| - amounts of information about its patrons.
| SllX wrote:
| Replace "store" with "mall", "club", or "bar" and you have
| the same result.
|
| Facebook is hosting on their servers that they own and/or
| lease which gives them a right to exclude, much like a store,
| bar, club or mall owner.
| baq wrote:
| Does it? It isn't obvious. Especially if talking about
| legislation around the world.
| SllX wrote:
| Sorry but I flatly don't respect legal systems that don't
| respect property rights. In the Anglo-American tradition
| and countries which are also Anglo-descended or Anglo-
| influenced and some other entirely separate legal systems
| as well, property rights are a big deal.
|
| And a core fundamental principle of property rights is
| the right to exclude.
| heurisko wrote:
| The UK legal system, at least, recognises property
| rights, but offers varying degrees of exclusion.
|
| For example, the right to exclude certain classes of
| people is different renting a room of your house vs.
| renting a whole apartment.
|
| The ability to exclude is again different for service
| providers. It sometimes also depends on their size. e.g.
| larger banks are obliged to provide a free basic bank
| account.
|
| If social media monopolies are seen as excluding people
| without good reason, their monopoly status might attract
| attention for regulation in the same manner.
| SllX wrote:
| You'll find it similar in America but that doesn't
| prevent for-cause exclusion if the tenant or account
| holder damages the property owner or his property.
|
| The damages in this case are more abstract, but Facebook
| arguably has cause to exclude. That said I am much more
| open to debate the merits of this particular exclusion
| rather than whether Facebook can exclude _at all_.
|
| I'm also going to go out in a limb and point out that
| Facebook does not in fact have a social media monopoly,
| certainly not in the United States which would be the
| jurisdiction here because in order for that to be true,
| everything from Twitter, TikTok and iMessage to WeChat
| and YouTube and Snapchat would simply have to not exist.
|
| Social networks tend to have overlapping user bases, with
| people on both Facebook and Twitter, or Facebook and
| Snapchat, or some other combination. Nobody has yet
| convinced me where and how Facebook has any sort of
| monopoly because they're too focused on the large user
| base and that in itself is just not a good argument. Feel
| free to take a stab at it though.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Until you become a monopoly, then it becomes more
| complex.
| SllX wrote:
| You have to make that case first, and as Facebook goes
| and as I've said repeatedly elsewhere in this thread, I'm
| not convinced they're anything of the sort. Prove me
| wrong, and then go tell the FTC because they're having a
| hard time taking Facebook to court over this very issue.
| Aditya_Garg wrote:
| It kinda makes sense to me. Anyone is allowed into bars
| (21+ of course) without any expectation of making a
| purchase. The bar is still allowed to kick people out
| inopinatus wrote:
| These bricks-and-mortar analogies don't work at all,
| because you can still stand outside the cigarette shop,
| protest Philip Morris, and hand out flyers.
|
| Once deplatformed, there's no equivalent line-of-sight.
| thehappypm wrote:
| I think the Mall analogy is downright perfect.
|
| The mall is a beautiful, shiny, clean building where you
| go to hang out with your friends. The shops in the mall
| are there to lure you to go buy stuff. You aren't paying
| the mall, but by being there, you're likely to buy
| something at J. Crew or the food court.
|
| If the mall had an anti-mall lunatic out front, they'd
| surely remove them too.
| jreese wrote:
| I mean, you're seeing their article on Slate. It's not
| like they've been banned from the entire internet or all
| news media.
| inopinatus wrote:
| Actually, no, cigarette advertising has been banned in
| many countries.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| Except that FB is a monopoly platform that has become too
| important to ignore.
|
| I have foregone quite a lot of social things because I
| refuse to use it. That much is fine by _me_ but it is not
| fine for most people. "Most people," by FB's own numbers,
| are a captive audience. They do not get to decide if they
| go shopping in the mall.
|
| This is why Cory Doctorow's point on forcing FB to open up
| is the most useful one. It is the most straightforward way
| to turn FB into a utility.
| themitigating wrote:
| So it's such a powerful monopoly that you don't use it?
| Imagine if some gas station was a monopoly, it would be
| much harder to stop that. I don't use facebook either but
| i simply message people or they message me if they want
| to do something.
| SllX wrote:
| Turning Facebook into a utility effectively turns it into
| something it isn't: a government approved monopoly with
| special rights and privileges. Perversely Facebook then
| becomes another tool for people with actual power to
| abuse in their lawmaking capacity in ways they simply
| couldn't now. If your goal is to defang Facebook, that's
| probably not what you want.
|
| _You_ have a temporary problem socializing in some
| circumstances without Facebook, which is entirely
| solvable by you alone. Facebook is nowhere near a
| monopoly on its core functions, but certain groups,
| scenes or networks of people may choose to use it
| exclusively. You are being screwed over by _their_
| choices and blaming Facebook for it.
|
| Also I don't read Doctorow. No reason in particular, but
| if you want to cite him, cite him properly and bring his
| words _here_ into the discussion.
| restingrobot wrote:
| This is a TERRIBLE idea. Turning Facebook into a
| government entity, (or even making an org to regulate
| it), is as anti-American as it is unconstitutional. Take
| away 230 protection status and if the company survives
| great, otherwise another one will take its place.
|
| I don't care what you say, any person CAN live without
| Facebook. Yes it might be painful for some, but in a free
| market society, some company (most likely many disparate
| companies), will cover those needs.
| smoldesu wrote:
| How is Facebook a monopoly platform? Competitors like
| Twitter, Clubhouse and Signal have flourished under their
| incompetence. If our basis for a monopoly was "a captive
| audience" then Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft need
| to get dragged into this discussion, since they've been
| engaging in that kind of unfair business for decades
| longer than Facebook has.
| ceh123 wrote:
| > Except that FB is a monopoly platform that has become
| too important to ignore.
|
| I haven't had a facebook since 2012 and there are exactly
| 0 things I've noticed missing out on because of it. This
| includes all 4 years of college and moving states
| multiple times during this timeframe.
|
| LinkedIn feels far more essential to me unfortunately.
| dannyr wrote:
| Except in some countries, Facebook is basically the only
| store in town. It's a monopoly. It's like the monopoly
| happened on its own. Facebook spent so much money making
| sure they are the only store in town.
| addicted wrote:
| A lot of what FB is doing here, if the story is as described,
| is clearly illegal. The problem is that FB is too huge for the
| individual to get into a legal battle with.
| restingrobot wrote:
| It is not illegal to ban someone from using your product,
| (assuming they are not being discriminated against as a
| protected class).
| [deleted]
| el_ravager wrote:
| Facebook is essentially a utility as governments use it as
| one of the primary ways to communicate with their citizens.
| Banning someone from Facebook, in the US, is
| unconstitutional.
| restingrobot wrote:
| First of all, Facebook is not a utility. No matter what
| you think, it is literally not classified a utility at
| this time.
|
| Second, just because governments, companies, or people
| choose to use it to communicate, does not mean it is a
| utility. There is a choice and many, many alternatives to
| Facebook. Utility status is reserved for things like
| power water and gas, (even internet in many places), as
| there are physical barriers to choice.
|
| Third, it is not unconstitutional for utilities to ban
| customers in the United States.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| If it represents the sole method of communication by some
| government entity, I can see a case being made that every
| citizen has a right to a "read only" (maybe even read
| only, read once?) minimized level of access, at some
| explicit cost to the government entity using the platform
| (offloading liability from the company and onboarding
| accountability with the backing of law. )
|
| Facebook is obviously not a utility, in the US at least.
| It's also not "just" a private entity. It's a novel thing
| for which we don't have an existing legal framework in
| which to capture all the nuanced uses, rights,
| responsibilities, and liabilities.
|
| Facebook has taken on the role of managing the
| distribution of information to billions of people. It
| handles communications between groups and individuals.
| Given how critical those activities are to a healthy,
| liberal, free society, we should take steps to protect
| the rights and duties of individual users and platforms.
| Maybe we'll coalesce into a roughly cooperative country
| sometime in the future an accomplish that.
| themitigating wrote:
| If governments want to do that then it's their choice.
| They could also make a website, use tv, use twitter, etc
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| yibg wrote:
| What specifically is illegal?
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Do you view Apple as correct when it prevented companies from
| notifying customers about the 30% cut on digital services for
| purchases and subscriptions made through the App Store? If not
| where do you draw the line?
|
| https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/8/28/21405140/app...
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| IMO the thesis of the "Facebook is a private company" argument
| is that moderating or banning people isn't violating some
| fundamental right to freedom of speech. It's not to say that
| they should be immune from criticism for doing so.
| asdff wrote:
| The tool doesn't stop people from using facebook, it just makes
| their usage more productive. Like RES for reddit or other third
| party tooling that makes life easier for users, especially
| power users. Personally I probably wouldn't have stopped using
| facebook if I knew about this approach to cleaning out the
| junk. Plus the tool isn't even going as far as something like
| RES. the tool doesnt' add or remove any utility that isn't
| already there, it just automates an otherwise manual and
| painstaking process.
| grishka wrote:
| The problem isn't that they can do whatever they want, it's
| that governments side with them more often than not. It's the
| existence of laws that protect them instead of protecting their
| users. Without this government support, their threats wouldn't
| have any teeth, and so adversarial interoperability would
| flourish.
| T-28788821 wrote:
| We'll. I wouldn't want to compare Facebook to a store, If
| anything Facebook is an equivalent of a drug store and drugs
| should always be restricted due to the negative effects they
| bring about on their consumers. Facebook by-law must display a
| banner written "Facebook is harmful for your mental health" and
| children should require parental supervision at all time.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| The problem is these social media platforms are so big, they
| represent our only practical public space for societal
| discourse. These are ubiquitous and fundamental services in the
| modern era. They need to be treated as utilities and common
| carriers. We can't just let unfair discrimination and
| censorship hide behind claims of private ownership for this
| kind of platform with that kind of reach.
| dustingetz wrote:
| Facebook is closer to a government or empire than a shop
| brightball wrote:
| I honestly wonder about this exact scenario with the likes of
| business reviews on Google/Yelp.
|
| It's like letting somebody hang their words on the front door
| of your business and as a business owner you have no power at
| all to do anything about it.
|
| One company had to spent 6 months trying to get a review taken
| down that accused one of its female executives of having an
| affair.
| atoav wrote:
| If I owned a telephone company and people complained about
| telephones I would do... nothing. Because it is none of my
| fucking business I guess.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I think the problem with this argument is that Facebook isn't
| "just" a store. For many people, it can't be avoided.
| Businesses rely on facebook for advertisement, creating
| business pages, running promotions, offering support, and
| engaging with customers/users.
|
| People rely on facebook for access to sometimes critical
| resources (think about how many emergency relief efforts
| require you to use facebook). Marketplace, etc. Identity
| management.
|
| Being banned from facebook isn't like being banned from any one
| store, it's increasingly becoming more like losing access to
| your identification, payment information, bank card, or
| passport.
|
| For companies like Amazon, Facebook, and Google which are
| becoming so completely integrated with the fabric of society,
| governments should regulate how and when they can restrict
| access.
| api wrote:
| You're right. The root of this problem isn't Facebook. It's the
| fact that private media companies are in control of what should
| be a peer to peer conversation between people.
|
| There is no way to fix social media. If we moderate it too
| much, it's "censorship." If we don't then the engagement
| algorithms will drive mass indoctrination into crazy ideologies
| that have high virality. If we do try to eliminate
| disinformation, who decides what is and is not correct? There's
| no solution to these problems because media -- _mediation_ --
| is the problem.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| there are solutions more complex than "moderate a lot" and
| "moderate a little"
|
| facebook could, for example, remove racist stuff a lot, and
| anti-racist stuff less, and then ignore the racists who
| complain, because they're racists
| pmlnr wrote:
| Apparently you weren't there when FB had APIs, Farmville et al,
| and got rich on people developing things on their "plarform".
| malka wrote:
| And the answer is "Facebook should NOT have the right to do
| it".
|
| Facebook has made itself a public utility. And public utilities
| should be nationalized.
| kiryin wrote:
| The author, as I see it based entirely on this one article,
| likely wasn't trying to "hurt their business," unless (lol)
| their business is unhealthy addiction. Building on your
| example, imagine your store was of the liquor variety, and
| someone placed a flier for the local AA meeting on the bulletin
| board. I doubt you would remove it.
| travoc wrote:
| Who is claiming Facebook doesn't have a right to remove users?
| Why do you feel the need to argue a point that nobody is
| making?
|
| We all know what Facebook is allowed to do. Here we are
| discussing what Facebook SHOULD be doing, and how they can
| avoid being loathsome hypocrites.
| hikerclimber1 wrote:
| Everything is subjective. Especially laws.
| toss1 wrote:
| Agree, on both loathing FB and that they are within their
| rights to kick this guy off their product.
|
| That said, congress should have him testify about his
| experiences, and the relationship to FB's income stream.
| docflabby wrote:
| Facebook has become MySpace it just doesn't realize it yet...
| SllX wrote:
| MySpace became "MySpace" in your example because there was
| Facebook to compare it to. MySpace was absolutely beloved by
| the people that used it at the time despite all of its faults.
|
| So what's the "Facebook" that makes Facebook look like MySpace
| here? They have PR problems but that's it. MySpace lost in the
| market.
| docflabby wrote:
| Facebook is in the process of "losing the market" My feed has
| slowly died on its own with no intervention as people seem to
| have disengaged with it, none of my friends post anymore or
| if they do Facebook doesn't want to show me. I only use it as
| a Gumtree replacement now to sell stuff because eBay got too
| expensive/annoying...
| SllX wrote:
| You make a very adulterous point. There was too a point
| where MySpace did feel stale.
|
| An anecdote isn't data, but now you have me curious what
| the data looks like.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| I'm not even sure what rule this is supposed to break. I can't
| run an extension in my browser that automates button clicking on
| a website? So Facebook is cool with me manually unfollowing
| everyone and wasting five hours of my life but I can't do it
| automatically?
| sircastor wrote:
| Yes. Facebook wants disengagement to be high-friction. They
| want you to feel the pain of disconnecting because they don't
| want you to do it.
| CoryAlexMartin wrote:
| A few years ago I had decided that I was going to deactivate
| my Facebook account. In the process, there was a page that
| displayed the names and profile pictures of a few of my
| friends, and told me, explicitly, that each of them would
| miss me.
|
| "John will miss you." "Mary will miss you." "Steve will miss
| you." "Greg will miss you." "Suzy will miss you."
|
| It was so transparently evil that I couldn't believe it.
| jdiez17 wrote:
| Jeez, that is the dirtiest dark pattern I have heard of so
| far. Sounds like GLaDOS begging you not to destroy her
| personality cores [1]
|
| [1] https://youtu.be/4CdoufQu1ko
| Barrin92 wrote:
| lol for some reason I picture this like one of the scenes
| out of a horror movie, all of your friends showing up
| wearing a nightgown with a blank stare going "don't go
| cory, we miss you, you can't leave us"
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I don't think he'd be in hot water if he simply developed a
| tool to hide the news feed.
|
| Developing a tool to automate API interactions _and_ sending
| some of the user data to a 3rd party server (he claims to
| verify it was working) is a big no-no on any platform.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Ehh, sending user data to a third party would be bad, but
| from my reading of the article it's not sending user data,
| just anonymous metrics:
|
| > Participants agreed to share limited and anonymous
| information--specifically, the amount of time they spent on
| Facebook, the number of times they visited the site, and the
| number of friends, groups, and pages they were following and
| not following, both in total and broken down by category.
| (For regular Unfollow Everything users, the only Facebook-
| related data shared was the ratio of followed profiles to
| total profiles, a metric that helped me ensure the tool was
| working.)
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I don't think it matters. Writing a plug-in that scrapes
| content, however trivial or anonymized the author thinks it
| might be, is cause for concern for a company like Facebook.
|
| Likewise, automating API requests is a problem for any
| platform.
|
| I don't think it's reasonable to expect these platforms to
| sift through the source code and intentions of every
| automation tool that violates these policies and sort them
| into good and evil categories or decide which 3rd-party
| data collection is allowable.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| >Writing a plug-in that scrapes content, however trivial
| or anonymized the author thinks it might be, is cause for
| concern for a company like Facebook
|
| yes, I think it is this idea of Facebook's which is being
| criticized
|
| a more nuanced approach would be better -- for example,
| if the issue is indeed a data violation, then the policy
| could be more nuanced to allow this sort of data
| collection, and that wouldn't require any additional code
| review of 3rd party apps
|
| but of course, given the recent testimony of Facebook
| putting engagement before user safety, it seems obvious
| that the motivating factor was the disengagement the tool
| helped enable, not any sort of metrics the user agreed to
| send
|
| indeed, TFA even links to this post which lays bare
| facebook's bogus "privacy" pretext for limiting
| interactions that promote social good:
|
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/once-again-
| facebook-us...
| henry700 wrote:
| Automating API requests is what APIs were made for in the
| first place
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Likewise, automating API requests is a problem for any
| platform.
|
| I agree, and it shouldn't be necessary. There should
| simply be a single 'unfollowAll' endpoint you can hit
| once for this operation.
| cycomanic wrote:
| And what grounds the company has for suing I ask you?
| What's next ad networks can sue us for using adblockers
| (or the people writing the ad blockers)? It's not that he
| was banned from Facebook, they demanded he remove his
| extension from the chrome app store and never write a
| Facebook extension again.
| marton_s wrote:
| I've unfollowed everyone on Facebook several years ago using a
| JavaScript for loop on the dev console and my usage dropped to a
| total of few hours yearly (excluding Messenger).
|
| Sad that the extension was taken down but power users should
| still be able to do it eg. using snippets linked in this thread.
| thomaslangston wrote:
| I did this manually a while back. Can confirm it helped me curb
| my Facebook use.
| slackstation wrote:
| All this discussion and I just want the extension.
|
| The clearly banned it because their analytics showed how
| effective it was in actually reducing people's usage of the
| platform.
| hikerclimber1 wrote:
| I agree.
| menimax wrote:
| Can't believe most of you fall for this. How can you care what
| your e-mail box receives? Why not create and publish from
| nickname, and violete the f out of fb, they can't do a sh... And
| what can fb do to a limited company with no capital, when they
| tell them to go in court as much as they want?
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