The creator of Emacs and gcc is a Neo-Luddite and on the same side as unabomber?!! Apparently there is some kind of nth humor level involved here that I can't really comprehend.
No offense but you're implying it and my point anyway is that it's somewhat weird (if not anything worse) to draw parallels with unabomber just because Stallman said what's just obvious to anyone but Facebook addicts.
For better or worse there is a growing danger in FB regarding the tons of personal data that the same users would just never give away if it weren't for FB. He is just trying to make users aware of that. He's certainly not the first to do it and hopefully not the last. Also he said nothing that could be interpreted as innovation stopper.
To be honest I didn't see the video but even if he said that he should be "punched" for the reasons where he bases his opinion and not the opinion itself (unless "innovation" is a divine truth that we must accept no matter what - DDT was innovative at its time but it was no good). Moreover the transcript reads:
“With software patents the US has become a dangerous place for software development, including innovative software development, because when a program is innovative, that means it has some new ideas in it. But it also has lots of well-known ideas in it. A large program combines thousands of ideas. So if you have some new ideas and you want to use them, in order to use them you have to combine them with a lot of other ideas that are well-known. And if you are not allowed to do that because those other ideas are patented, you can’t use your new idea,” not exactly hostile to innovation.
Anyway - he is Stallman and he's known for not being extra diplomatic or even smart at politics. Like you, he speaks the way he feels - point is that IMHO there is a growing problem with all the data that we - FB users - carelessly upload.
(Moreover I'm not convinced that FB has all that much to do with innovation any more but that's an entirely different conversation.)
PS: Sorry if I sounded hostile but the unabomber reference drove me mad. My bad.
PS2: this was supposed to be an answer to a comment that's not there any more - anyway.
I bet that you're quite computer literal yourself (hard to suppose otherwise since we're talking through HN) so as to be quite cautious as to how much of yourself you'll expose on the net. Unfortunately most people aren't plus they are quite good at documenting their lives (photos,videos,writings, etc) and linking in with people they know and share data and the like.
That's "tons of personal data" - it's not an absolutist firework but it's the main reason that gives FB such a high market value. AFAIK FB is considered a gold-mine in terms of highly targeted advertising and marketing that's because it hosts "tons of personal data" of high granularity and of high relevance to the real identities of the people uploading it. Otherwise wordpress for example would be considered of at least equal value with FB.
