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Richard Stallman On Facebook's Privacy Scandal: We Need a Law. There's No Reason We Should Let Them Exist if the Price is Knowing Everything About Us (nymag.com)
From a wide-ranging interview of Richard Stallman by New York Magazine: New York Magazine: Why do you think these companies feel justified in collecting that data?
Richard Stallman: Oh, well, I think you can trace it to the general plutocratic neoliberal ideology that has controlled the U.S. for more than two decades. A study established that since 1998 or so, the public opinion in general has no influence on political decisions. They're controlled by the desires of the rich and of special interests connected with whatever issue it is. So the companies that wanted to collect data about people could take advantage of this general misguided ideology to get away with whatever they might have wanted to do. Which happened to be collecting data about people. But I think they shouldn't be allowed to collect data about people.
We need a law. Fuck them -- there's no reason we should let them exist if the price is knowing everything about us. Let them disappear. They're not important -- our human rights are important. No company is so important that its existence justifies setting up a police state. And a police state is what we're heading toward. Most non-free software has malicious functionalities. And they include spying on people, restricting people -- that's called digital restrictions management, back doors, censorship.
Empirically, basically, if a program is not free software, it probably has one of these malicious functionalities. So imagine a driverless car, controlled of course by software, and it will probably be proprietary software, meaning not-free software, not controlled by the users but rather by the company that makes the car, or some other company. Well imagine if that has a back door, which enables somebody to send a command saying, "Ignore what the passenger said, and go there." Imagine what that would do. You can be quite sure that China will use that functionality to drive people toward the places they're going to be disappeared or punished. But can you be sure that the U.S. won't?
Richard Stallman: Oh, well, I think you can trace it to the general plutocratic neoliberal ideology that has controlled the U.S. for more than two decades. A study established that since 1998 or so, the public opinion in general has no influence on political decisions. They're controlled by the desires of the rich and of special interests connected with whatever issue it is. So the companies that wanted to collect data about people could take advantage of this general misguided ideology to get away with whatever they might have wanted to do. Which happened to be collecting data about people. But I think they shouldn't be allowed to collect data about people.
We need a law. Fuck them -- there's no reason we should let them exist if the price is knowing everything about us. Let them disappear. They're not important -- our human rights are important. No company is so important that its existence justifies setting up a police state. And a police state is what we're heading toward. Most non-free software has malicious functionalities. And they include spying on people, restricting people -- that's called digital restrictions management, back doors, censorship.
Empirically, basically, if a program is not free software, it probably has one of these malicious functionalities. So imagine a driverless car, controlled of course by software, and it will probably be proprietary software, meaning not-free software, not controlled by the users but rather by the company that makes the car, or some other company. Well imagine if that has a back door, which enables somebody to send a command saying, "Ignore what the passenger said, and go there." Imagine what that would do. You can be quite sure that China will use that functionality to drive people toward the places they're going to be disappeared or punished. But can you be sure that the U.S. won't?
he is 100% correct. I used to make fun of him in the 90s... but as I get older, I perceive him to be a kind of digital profit in the desert.
I think it's insane to say something like Facebook should not exist because they can know everything about us.
The things that they know, ANYONE could know if they did what Facebook did. It's how the web and internet generally works that enables this, not Facebook.
Getting rid of Facebook is treating only the symptom, not the underlying problem... but here's the real issue, do the vast majority of people even want this problem fixed? I do not think they really care. Have you seen Facebook usage graphs recently? There was a dip around all the furor over Facebook but then it went right back up again... what Stallman and other technologists MUST come to grasp is that most people fundamentally do not value privacy much at all, so they are willing to trade it away for nearly anything. You have to start at that point and see how you go about helping people, not playing whack-a-mole with companies that make use of this fundamental aspect of human nature.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
âoeEmpirically, basically, if a program is not free software, it probably has one of these malicious functionalities.â
Yeah citation needed there buddy.
Man those liberals must be awfully tired at this point, you know, being the root cause of all issues in present, past and future world. I mean the tentacles that reach that far into every aspect of human life must get tired.
That.... that or maybe people need to stop giving fuckwit conservative assholes a fucking soapbox to get on to blame it on "them". Nah can't be that, I must be a liberal snowflake.
So,... the privacy scandal was all because of liberal ideology? Well you are welcome conservatives, it was used to put your orange baffoon in power. But sure, keep blaming it on "liberals" and "muslims" and "illegals" and "them" and never once direct that lense inwards.
Have fun with that war with Russia and China, I'm sure that's a liberals fault too.
He isn't mad. Far from it.
He's just right, and that ticks off many people who don't want to "get" it. Watch now all those infantile asshats poking fun at him to detract from what matters.
Telling the truth and standing by it ain't always easy. And he's not... always diplomatic, mind you :-)
If you put your life on the net, the data will be collected.
You could build a FOSS global gossip network and it would still have it's data harvested. For example: I guarantee Github's data is scraped.
Don't put your life on the net, do put disinformation on the net. It is that simple.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Seems like proper labeling requirements would do the trick. Have them state up front in simple, easy-to-understand-for-a-non-technical-person terms what data they collect, who they share it with, and what someone could do with it. Then, if people still want to use the service, they can, and they'll do it with eyes open.
They will continue doing things we hate unless we make the things we hate illegal.
Unfortunately, we no longer have the power to get them created. That power now belongs to the rich, who have purchased the legislators. They create the laws that benefit them, and block the laws that would benefit us. I'm pretty sure the only thing that will change this is revolution - and that is becoming both increasingly less likely, (via bread-and-circuses, propaganda, and various other forms of Kool-Aid), and increasingly less possible, (via mass surveillance and, appropriately enough, Facebook). Not to mention that in a revolution, pretty much everyone loses big time, at least in the short term...
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Yes -- now.
As recently as a few years ago, this was not the case; a majority were against those things.
So, are gay rights and marijuana decriminalization right because the majority wants them -- or were they always right, even when the majority didn't want them?
I don't think so. Legislation doesn't solve societal problems, it just provides a legal framework for people to solve their own, either through the courts or through their representatives ( or via law enforcement). The alternative is individuals solving the problem by going after companies like Facebook with guns. Even boycotts (which are good) won't work because Facebook has designed itself so that its users are not its customers. You serve Facebook whether you choose to or not. The only realistic counterbalance to this type of corporate power is government action.
You're too smart to believe the right-wing nonsense that all government is bad. Government is people, my friend.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Did you read the full interview?
He's not just advocating legislative changes; he's advocating cultural and ideological ones too.
Wow, you packed an awful lot of straw into that man.
Except he's right in this case. This isn't a chasing after the item that caused the issue like what you mean with guns and knives eliminating murder. This is a case where a group/individual/company is acting in a way that's negative on society as a whole. Don't forget it was just a few years ago that media, psychologists, governments and so on were pushing the "if you don't have social media, you're a rapist/pedophile/terrorist/etc." The violation of privacy can be solved by law, by requiring clear and concise requirements. In the US you already see this with health information. Nearly all western countries have a broad privacy protection law of some kind, the US is the odd one out.
Keep in mind that privacy rights have not kept pace with changing technology. The base is already there, fixing the existing law will solve the problem.
Om, nomnomnom...
"Pass a law to solve a problem" is the refrain of the incompetent.
You couldn't be more right, we need to repeal the laws which forbid us from hunting marketing, sales, PR, and generally corrupt people for sport. Deregulate murder and this issue would be gone within a year.
Nobody forces you to use Facebook.
"Force" is a funny word, but a lot of people with Facebook profiles never asked for them. Facebook has unwilling users.
Nobody forces you to put every intimate detail about your personal life on Facebook.
Again, "force" is a funny word. But not everything Facebook collects is consciously volunteered.
How much do you pay to use Facebook?
Just my soul. Market value on souls these days is pretty poor anyway. Used to be you trade one for a chance at a golden fiddle.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Some things facebook collects without my permission:
My name and the name of my family members when someone puts a photo up and labels it with names.
The location and time the photo was taken. Also, it has a collection of people who share the same photo and a list of
the things those people like and don't like , their political interests and where they live.
By making connections between the people and data-mining the photo's with my name, you can certainly find out things like,
locations of been, political events, people I associate with and love.
Everything needed, to stalk, harass or attempt to co-erase me into something you I otherwise might be unwilling to do.
( of coarse that was all Ok, when the think tanks that supported Obama were using it, now everyone is up in a tizzy because a group that helped the republics used it). Works both ways. If you keep and gather the data , someone will get it and use it.
I think a right to be forgotten law is more then overdue in the good old USA. Of coarse one things I've always wondered about that is how much data do you need to keep on someone so that you know you should not collect data on them :)
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.