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Comment by whatamidoingyo | Hacker News Reader

I cannot be the only person who thinks it's hilarious reading articles like this while there's a Facebook share button dangling in my face. I remember an article the EFF published about how these buttons track you. Lo! There's a Facebook share button to the left of the EFF article.

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The only way this wouldn't happen is if the corporate side of the publication is fully in sync (or in control) with the editorial side. I consider the fact that the point of view put forth by the article was not completely in line with their actions speak to the journalistic independence we'd like to see.

That is a fair way of looking at this, but in the present situation, I would consider the decision about whether to include a Facebook share button on one's homepage (or more generally the question which third-party code you allow to run) as a fundamental question of operating a commercial web site. From an economical perspective, you can't blame anyone for doing it, but if you are, don't claim the moral highground either.

I might not be up to date, but a few years ago when I dealt more with this I found ways of creating a facebook share button that mimics the functionality of the real thing without adding facebooks javascript to my site. It was some special URL if I am not mistaken.

Not all facebook share buttons might be created equal.

This is, and always has been, trivial to do. There’s a URL scheme you use to generate a “share this” link to Facebook with the appropriate variable inserted. You can style it however you like.

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