[–]fiend9 4 points 1 day ago

Here's the question I keep having: is it bad that they sell your data to advertisers? Assuming, all they do with your data, is sell it for the purpose of sending you personalised ads, does it affect people negatively?

I appreciate the slippery slope argument and I'm not advocating that Facebook should collect your personal information. I'm simply curious.

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[–]JeffersonsSpirit 20 points 1 day ago*

Yes it's bad. It's bad because it is yet another example of a centralized power entity having the ability to determine the direction of people's lives, and it often experiments just how to do so. It's bad because it normalizes people to the idea that they can be raped constantly by corporate and governmental entities in pursuit of profit or power. It's bad because the belligerence of power associated with their success causes more tyrannical behavior in these entities, and that inevitably causes there to be a master/servant class generated.

It's bad because the advertisements are based on selling mood or fantasies as reality inherently using deception to influence human behavior. It's bad because such practices create distorted expectations, distorted understandings of reality, and distorted perceptions of self-worth. It's bad because it creates inferiority complexes, generates social isolation of non-conforming persons, and generally works to homogenize individuals.

It's bad because it generates conformity, self-censorship, destroys privacy, and ultimately destroys free speech by punishing those with minority views socially. It's bad because it fundamentally trains people to go against the first and fourth amendment, and it's bad because it surreptitiously obscures its aims to do so.

Fuck yes Facebook is bad.

EDIT How different are people really when they are all posting variations of their cat acting like an asshole? How different are people really when they all post variations of what Starbucks drink they consumed? How different are people's political views really when political debates can attain no depth by virtue of the platform they use to explore politics? How different are people really when the main objective of most posts is to bloviate on about the value of the life they lead, the things they are doing, etc? It's still based in a socially-generated inferiority complex... and all their "friends" are actually competitors in various ways. How different is difference when difference has no teeth to actually influence or direct the future version of reality? How valuable is uniqueness when it is flaunted only for its existence rather than its efficacy essentially in vain?

Facebook is a ruthless entity that essentially profits off of human insecurity, and that helps its customers (hint: it isnt you) profit off of human insecurity as well.