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Comment by mosselman | Hacker News Reader

People have to stop acting like they have 'the right' to use facebook. It is a product; they set out a couple of rules and act a certain way. Don't like it? Just don't use Facebook.

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I agree that people do not have “the right” to use Facebook, neither are people obliged to.

That doesn’t meant that you can’t just not use Facebook. Social networks, in particular Facebook, have become a central part of social interaction. You can’t simply use another network, because they’re not interoperable. Your friends aren’t there, and you’ll be missing out.

Convince your friends that facebook as a platform is poor, and use another one (or, gasp meet face to face, or call each other up, or sms, or use good ol' email and flickr).

Any soccermom-compatible tips as how to convince them?

Or grandparent compatible ones?

Do you support Facebook blocking the developer pages of those who are creating the various AdBlock* browser extensions? Isn't that pretty much the same thing as FB Purity is doing but in a more general sense?

Who said anything about supporting? I am just stating that it is a product and you can choose whether you use it or not, for whatever reasons you deem worthy.

Im not so sure about that, given their virtual monopoly. I also think that changes when you have more users than some nation states have population. It can be quite damaging for some to be barred from using a service like FB and Twitter, given that many other services use these sites to spread possibly vital information. Off the top of my head, how much information from politicians would be missed out on if banned? Could this hurt the democratic process? With out realistic competition this will in time get worse. What if reasonable protest is some how seen as unpatriotic?

I cant help thinking that as some point there needs to be an independent arbitration service that users or ex-users can appeal to in this sort of event, perhaps one a site's user base gets to a certain level. Other wise, how are facebook and co ever held to account in this respect? Can a Syrian protester sue facebook in Syria, or perhaps raise a fortune to sue in the US? How does it work?

Or, people can get angry and say "Hey Facebook that is shitty behavior, I reserve the right to go elsewhere.", and otherwise bitch to everybody and make news about it. In which Facebook can decide to stay with their course, or they can decide to back down. Just because you want to act passive aggressive about the situation, doesn't mean that is the best solution to the problem. A little bit of aggression can keep companies more in line. I cannot imagine a world where people just took whatever they were given silently. I do believe it would look something like slavery.

A. You are right. Of course you can complain, you can do whatever you want. It is not the complaining that I am talking about, it is the way in which people act when they do. "They can't do this, bla bla bla, omg our privacy, bla bla bla". Instead of going at it like "Hey Facebook, that is bullshit, I won't use your site anymore if you do bla bla bla, privacy issue, bla bla."

Also, it is a bit ignorant and misplaced to suggest that slavery existed because people were just 'taking what they were given' and then link this to something as futile as a website.

The only disturbing part is that Facebook feels they have control over your interpretation of data on your own machine, even after they've happily sent it to you. It would be kind of like the beef industry banning you from buying beef because you stir-fried a steak instead of barbecuing it; the latter being the only official way to eat the meat.

That would only be a valid metaphor if Facebook would be the only website in the world.

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