Poole To Zuckerberg: You’re Doing It Wrong

An anonymous reader writes "At South by Southwest Interactive 2011 in Austin, Texas this week, 4chan founder Christopher Poole (also known as 'moot') took the stage to talk about various online issues. One of these was how important anonymity is on the Internet and how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't get it."

Comments

Useful info

[gazbo]

Shame he'll not be able to hear how wrong he is through his insulating walls of billions of dollars. In fact it's surprising moot isn't aware of this issue given his similarly vast wealth.

Re:Useful info

[Microlith]

Because, of course, billions make you right.

Re:Useful info

[Wrath0fb0b]

I don't for myself, but you know what? Sometimes you don't want to let a con man take advantage of other people. Yes, it's terrible wanting to impose on somebody else's freedom and liberty, and I'll feel bad about it for about -3 seconds, but hey, it's for the best really.

You can't help those that don't want to be helped. You ought to believe that people are entitled to make mistakes, if only because you want the right to take actions that others believe are mistaken.

Consider the situation if the roles were reversed. You are a consumer that enjoys Facebook and doesn't care much about the privacy implications of having your vacation pictures and some banal details online. Some guy tries to explain to you that its evil and simply will not take "I like Facebook leave me alone" for an answer. What are you supposed to think, other than "this guy ought to mind his own business"?

It's disturbingly common how many intelligent but partisan people get into the rut of believing that everyone who has thought about something must have come to the same conclusion. I feel like I hear it from everywhere these days -- the FSF crowed, the console fanboys, the Tea Party -- everyone seems convinced that no honest person could possibly disagree with them. Again, these are generally intelligent people, so much so that you would imagine they could grok the idea that thoughtful and honest people could legitimately disagree about the purity/utility of FSF, the merit of consoles or PCs or the values and policies in our country.

At least I imagine it sometimes, and then I read these posts and am shaken back into hyper-partisan reality.

Re:Useful info

[Anonymous Coward]

No. 4chan takes $85,000 in ads per year just to break even. Canv.as' $650,000 of investors' money can hardly be counted to his personal wealth either. If he has other money, he hasn't let 4chan know.

Re:Useful info

[smellotron]

Have you ever tried to argue with a photo lab clerk?

OMG you're totally right. They just never let up about those bathtime pictures with the neighbor kids! It's like fighting with a brick wall and then they call the police.

Re:Useful info

[1u3hr]

having a company that has an astronomical value and millions of members who don't seem to give a shit about anonymity, then yes, I'd say that makes Zuckerberg right and this guy wrong.

Yep, let the market decide what's "right" and "wrong".

So, that means McDonald's and Coca Cola's approach to nutrition is "right". Cigarette companies are "right" that their product is safe. Fox's news reporting is "right".

Re:Useful info

[Wrath0fb0b]

Yet here you are telling me what I ought to believe.

I'm telling you what you ought to believe if you want to be consistent with your own expectations. You certainly can persist in saying that you are entitled to judge for others what is best for them concurrently with saying that others are not entitled to judge what is best for you. I, for one, will not take such a transparently non-universal position.

This is really no more than Kant's categorical imperative -- do not presume to substitute your preferences for others' for the same reason (and by the same logic) that you do not want others to substitute their preferences for yours.

And consider it from the view of the Anti-Facebook opponent, with somebody mindlessly doing something that is unwise at best, dangerous at worse. Did you do that?

Dangerous and unwise in your judgment. Do you allow for the fact that perhaps someone else, seeing the same facts, could come to a different conclusion, or do we all have to abide by your estimation of what is dangerous and what is not?

No, you did not, because you're stuck in the mental trap of chasing a false idealization of liberty and freedom, of somehow it being good for folks to be allowed to stick their hands in fires to learn from it instead of saying "Hey that's hot, stop!" .

If an adult wants to stick his hand in the fire, that's his business. If he seems inclined to listen to my advice, I will share my opinion with him. What I'm not going to do is start interjecting myself into what other human beings want to do with their own hands and their own fires against their will.

Otherwise, when I turn around and want to ride my motorcycle or eat some Cheetos, I will have no grounds to complain when the safety sissies or the nutrition naysayers start berating me for my choices that they think are dangerous or harmful.

Quid pro quo -- I'll leave you to make mistakes (that you think are not mistakes) and you'll leave me to make mistakes (that I think are not mistakes). Note the beautiful symmetry of the situation -- it's exactly the same if you swap the identities of the participants. If you want to propose a contrary arrangement that obeys that symmetry -- that operates the same on you with relation to everyone else as it operates on everyone else with relation to you -- be my guest, but such a symmetry is a fundamental requirement.

moot

[psergiu]

moot on /. ? a 1st page article about 4chan ?
How long until /. introduces image attachements for each reply ? :)

Re:moot

[Anonymous Coward]

This illustrates part of Moot's point, I think; before you can begin to receive his idea, let alone process it, you already know who made the statement, and that has colored your perception in some way (you aren't obviously for or against 4chan, but you clearly know what it is). Anonymity is therefore arguably better for the transmission and sharing of ideas, because each idea is forced/allowed to stand on its own. Obviously there is also a place for credited work, such as peer-reviewed submissions, but I think his position is a strong one.

I think he's missing the point of Facebook a little bit, though; it isn't (at least in my experience) an exchange of ideas or the nexus of a creative endeavor. It's a really fancy online address book.

Re:Remind me, which one is the billionare?

[DurendalMac]

Exactly. Sorry Moot, you have a good point, but Zuckerberg didn't hear you over the sound of how much money he made in the time it took you to make that statement. Moot seems to genuinely care about online anonymity, but Zuckerberg cares about making money and doesn't think twice about selling every piece of info he has on you to anyone who wants it.

Facebook is not for people who seek anonymity

[H0p313ss]

How anybody could not understand that, particularly an internet veteran like moot is rather mind boggling.

Facebook isn't "Social"

[rsborg]

Society is a balance between privacy and sharing. When a so-called "social" website decides that everything that goes in the website should be "public by default" that really violates the public/private social balance.

In the absence of strong information/data privacy laws, only a fool would use Facebook to put more than even the basic public details about themselves; you only need take a look at the growing legal, workplace and criminal ramifications to see the end results.

The real tough part is that rabid facebook users can get you listed on Facebook just by "tagging" your photo. So you have to join to even purge the stupid... this is anti-social.

Re:They're both wrong.

[Tigger's Pet]

Are you trying to suggest that we shouldn't have anonymity because the bad side of it outweighs the good? I'd take the assholes, criminals and general wankers all day long as long as it means that people can have the ability to let the world know what is really going on in their various industries, countries, whatever-elses. If we were to have the ability to be anonymous removed then the world would be a far, far worse place. Anonymity is like everything else - what it achieves depends on what you decide to do with it - good or bad.

Anonymity IS cowardice (hence the userid)

[PCM2]

One of my very first bosses said to me, back when I was still a teenager, that if you have something to say, you should be able to stand behind it. Even if all you're doing is dropping a note into the cash register saying "we keep running out of nickels," you should have enough character to sign it and date it. If you feel like you can't do that, maybe you shouldn't bother saying what it is you were planning to say. I still mostly agree with him about that.

Sure, I understand there are many cases where it would be preferable, or even essential, to remain anonymous: when you're acting as a whistleblower, for example, or working against an oppressive government. But for most exchanges that we have on a day-to-day basis -- the kind of thing Facebook is good for -- I think anonymity just spoils it.

Compare MySpace to Facebook, for example. On the former, you're inundated with friend requests from "DarkLordSeth79" and "PowrGrrl," where their photographs are screen grabs from anime or movies. I haven't used MySpace in a long time, but ultimately I found the only meaningful exchanges I had on there were with the dozen or so close friends whom I knew well already. Anybody whom I didn't know came off as a troll cloaked in MMORP wish-fulfillment. (See also the people who post on YouTube videos.)

So I guess in summary, 4chan has its place, and maybe that should remain the place for it. Facebook is a place for something else, and I for one am thankful.

Re:Anonymity IS cowardice (hence the userid)

[MindlessAutomata]

Hah, when you're anonymous it's easier to debate because personal qualities of the people making the arguments are unknown; therefore, the arguments are more likely to stand on their own (although people do speculate).

That "stand behind it" crap is really all just manly-sounding bullshit.

Re:Anonymity IS cowardice (hence the userid)

[guspasho]

Do you know any previously-closeted gays? Or currently-closed ones that haven't come out to everyone yet?

Have you ever lived in a small community?

Have you ever tried asking friends and family members about something personal and embarrassing to you, like erectile dysfunction? In a restaurant, or at a ball game?

Beyond the rare cases where one is actually threatened with death or imprisonment, social ostracization occurs all the time, and stigmas are attached to practically everything, especially in small communities. These make it difficult, even unbearable, to live openly. I recommend you read these Wiki articles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_of_silence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society

One can hope for a perfect world where nobody has anything to fear from sharing everything with anyone, but such a world is unrealistic in the extreme.

I can go on 4chan and find people asking about things like erectile dysfunction, but I can't imagine that many people are willing to join groups about that on Facebook. That's the value of anonymity.

Re:4chan and facebook are both wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think 4chan is worthless.

Vulgar, irreverent, mob mentality... Can you honestly say facebook is none of those things? Wouldn't you say that it is all of those things, if you were honest? Is the veneer of "manners" and censorship really so important for its own sake?

Maybe your mom would feel more comfortable in the lie (see what I did there?), but 4chan's /b/ is just as valid a form of human interaction and expression as facebook -- it merely operates by different rules, with different norms, and a different history. To deny that 4chan is important as a feature of the human condition is to deny that anyone has a mental life: the life that we don't blurt out in public for fear of social repercussions. Nevertheless, this aspect of humans does still exist, and you won't make it disappear just because you get rid of 4chan and other anonymous modes of communication. Repression makes things worse, never better.

You do need both -- and you can't assert that 4chan is "worthless" and be self-consistent. Facebook, in all its corporate data-farm glory, is no more legitimately "good" no matter how much less child porn, no matter how much less gore, no matter how popular it is, and no matter how wealthy its owners.

You're a a soft-skulled, sophomoric, self-righteous hypocrite. It doesn't say anything good about /. that you were modded up (why expect an enlightened, objective moderation response from the anonymous internet, though).

Still. Parent remains profoundly inane.

And Zuckerberg can tell him back ...

[Wrath0fb0b]

That when building a tool for the masses you go by their preferences, not your own valid-but-uncommon ones. And the plain fact of the matter is that most people do not mind the Facebook privacy model as evidenced by their enthusiastic uptake of the system and their lackadaisical attitude towards all these "ZOMG Facebook is the devil" news stories.

I get it, the /. and 4chan crowds have a different set of preferences than the average consumer. This has been beaten to death so many times that there's scarcely anything more to add there except to remind you guys that not everyone must have the same preferences as you. In fact, many prefer the convenience of Facebook over the loss of privacy. We keep hearing the refrain of "if they knew the truth they'd change their minds" and yet they continue to not change their minds not matter how much bleating goes on, probably because they know and don't change their minds. I know this is an odd thing to the partisan/zealot, but really some people understand your position, heard the arguments and just aren't convinced. Try not to take it too personally.

Heck, I've got a Facebook page that shares all sorts of banality. And truth is I wouldn't at all be upset if everything on there was printed out and handed to every person I've ever known (I would feel sorry if they decided to actually peruse through that banality, to be honest). Is is "authentic" as Moot wants it to be? No and I bloody don't want that in the first instance. The fact that he thinks I give a fig about his preferences for the content and tone of my communications is really astounding, roughly equivalent to me thinking that he should consult me on whether he should have jam or cheese on his toast (cheese, with a tiny bit of Marmite).

TL;DR version: Not everyone is like you. This is a good thing, the world would be boring if everyone was the same. Quit projecting your own values onto others, at least in such cases where they have taken clear and unequivocal steps to demonstrate that they do not share those values.

Re:And Zuckerberg can tell him back ...

[sessamoid]

I wish I had mod points for this. Oh well.

One point I want to add though is that you don't lose any privacy by using Facebook. If Facebook jacked into my computer and started posting all kinds of things that I didn't authorize it to, that would be losing privacy. However, for the most part, my Facebook profile gets no more data than I CHOOSE to give it.

What you choose to give it, PLUS what everybody you're linked to chooses to reveal about you or inadvertently reveals about you.

Re:Remind me, which one is the billionare?

[mug funky]

4chan was never good

Is DEMOCRACY a crime?

[mangu]

The value of Anonymity of course depends on the value of what you're doing with it.

Most people who use it do so to commit crimes, from trolling to murder.

Most people vote in democratic elections anonymously. Do you think voting is a crime, or do you consider it trolling?

Re:Remind me, which one is the billionare?

[Purity Of Essence]

Yes. Moot point is moot. /rabbits

Re:Remind me, which one is the billionare?

[sakdoctor]

Neither was facebook