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Facebook Abstainers Could Be Labeled Suspicious
bs0d3 writes "According to this article printed in tagesspiegel.de, not having a Facebook account could be the first sign that you are a mass murderer.(German) As examples they use Norwegian shooter Anders Breivik, who used MySpace instead of Facebook and the newer Aurora shooter who used adultfriendfinder instead of Facebook. They already consider those with Facebook accounts, who lack friends to be suspicious, but now they are suggesting that anyone who abstains from Facebook altogether may be even more suspicious."
I submit that this sort of story is overblown.Yes, this is one out of hundreds of characteristics on a list. Just having one or even fifty from the list doesn't mean any individual has crossed the threshold of "suspicious". Everyone on /. should be familiar with this sort of thing from spam filters.
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This line of thinking could sure help Facebook's stock value.
Uhm ... no. The more that Facebook is seen as something that you need to do (institutionalization) instead of something you do because it is cool, the less cool it will be. In fact this line of thinking may even make it cool to 'rebel' against the establishment (Facebook). This is how these social networking sites die. The cool kids leave first, everyone else follows soon after.
Look where all this talking got us, baby.
Oh, and parent should not be modded down. "Fuck You" is pretty much the only valid response to that bullshit.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Right on. This whole thing is very thoughtcrimey--I guess I should expect "lemme see your passport, SSN, and Facebook account while I wand and grope you" real soon.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
Or have principles which prevent you from engaging in such behavior.
Valuing privacy and refusing to participate in information sharing with a company that will only use it in ways you don't approve of hardly makes you suspicious. If some people really do find that suspicious and can't understand the reasons... screw em. You will have as much success changing their minds as changing ultra-religious fanatics minds about their intolerance and bigotry.
The real concern is if businesses or governments start using the lack of social networking presence as grounds for investigations or refusal to be employed.
Profiling people based on their internet usage - for "national security" - is likely to become a reality in some countries before long.
I'm fairly sure the NSA has been doing this for years. And I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out they regard anti-social indicators with similar suspicion. It's not a very novel notion.
That was 1990s online culture, where parents would caution kids not to use their real name or info online, that kind of thing. Today, the parents are using their real name online themselves, and are more likely to demanding legislation against anonymous postings because of "cyberbullying" than to encourage anonymity.
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Or that you don't give a rat's ass about 99% of the stupid shit your "friends" post on FB. Most of those people who instantly tried to friend me were people from high school, many of whom were too cool to talk to my nerdy self back then. I didn't like them then, and they've been out of my life for 15 years. I couldn't care less that their baby did something today. Heck, my aunts, uncles, and grandparents use it all the time, so I don't think age is the delineating factor. It's more that I have way more things in my real life than I can keep up with, and I'd much rather be social over a pint at a pub or a MakerFaire or a reprap get-together than on some website with people that don't matter in my life anymore.
I kept my account for about three months, mostly to see if I could find a couple old girlfriends and see what they were up to after my ex and I split. After that, I removed any content I could (I basically only ever uploaded one bland picture and some trivial details) and then told them to delete it. It was just adding to the noise side of the SNR in my life, so I just decided I was done with it. It does seem to be deactivated, but I suspect the Eagles were right on this one - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Oh, and just for good measure...
GET OFF MY LAWN, YA DAMN KIDS!
and if routine identity control on the street finds an abstainer then a deep cavity search should performed - who knows what such abstainer can hide there...
His/her privacy, for one (the horror!).
A Facebook abstainer could be a future mass murderer. And so could a Facebook participant.
A Facebook abstainer could be a saint and a scholar. And so could a Facebook participant (OK, that's a bit dodgy).
The whole thesis of judging people by whether they are on Facebook or not is ridiculous.
Out of 7 billion persons on this planet, let's say 4 billion are adults but not yet too decrepit to handle a PC or smartphone - i.e. of suitable age for Facebook. There are less than 1 billion Facebook participants (probably quite a bit less, due to fake accounts, etc.). So by a conservative estimate, 3 billion persons on the planet are Facebook abstainers, and therefore are potential mass murderers or something. Such an intellectually vacuous conclusion can only be reached by digesting utterly absurd bullshit.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire