What a crock. Facebook's design was set long before Thiel invested in it.
There's a lot of mistaken stuff on the web, but this article is interesting because it's an example of the sort of writing people could only get away with before the web: the house journalist who makes a show of having done some research, but doesn't really understand the stuff he's writing about.
"Why do I need a computer to connect with people around me?"
This could have been written about the phone in 1930 (I'm sure one could dig up all kinds of juicy things about the politics of the people "behind" AT&T) or printing in 1500.
"Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations."
Workstations? Who uses a workstation? Does this guy not realize that phones are connected to the Internet?
"On Facebook, you can be free to be who you want to be, as long as you don't mind being bombarded by adverts for the world's biggest brands."
What free web site is this not true of? The site on which this article appeared is running ads.
This article shows why bloggers are gaining readers and print journalists are losing them. A high school kid surveying the world from his bedroom could do better.
He calls Peter Thiel a neoconservative. But Thiel is actively against neoconservatism: he supports Ron Paul.* Apparently, in Guardian-speak, "neoconservative" doesn't mean a follower of Leo Strauss, or a supporter of aggressive war in the Middle East, it just means "American stuff I don't like".
I am not a fan of Facebook or Ron Paul or any form of conservatism. But this article is so infuriatingly wrong I wonder if we're all being trolled.
I agree wholeheartedly with the "what's wrong with the pub" sentiment. I think that this critique falls far short of what doctorow had to say on the topic. My eyes quickly glazed over when the action cut to theil playing the role of neocon libertarian dr. evil teaming up with the singularity institute and thevanguard.org to destroy reality. It seems that a large part of the author's problem with facebook is the political views of its investors.
I was going to support the "What's wrong with the pub?" part as well.
He's incorrect when he says it disconnects us, at least some of the time: I've got in contact with long lost friends through it. But if he arguing geographically close people use it instead of "going down the pub", and if that's true (which I'm undecided), then I agree with him.
To the others, the British sense of neoconservatism means liberal economics policies (less regulation) and conservative social policies.
His rant was interesting at least. I still view my facebook membership as a little worrying. But still, it's the best way to get in contact with long lost friends at the moment (in addition to being hugely annoying which most of humanity seems to like...).
I thought this was going to be another 'What's the point in Facebook? It's crap' article which to a minor extent it is. However its main focus is whether we can trust Facebook with the copious amounts of personal information we 'volunteer' to it.
As a tool I love Facebook, however I am becoming increasingly concerned about having this entity know and record so much about me.
"Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web."
Perhaps that explains MoveOn.org's attack on Facebook and Beacon last year... I always thought it was a little odd they would go after a website that has little to do with politics.
"After 9/11, the US intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of new technology and the innovations being made in the private sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund, In-Q-Tel, which "identifies and partners with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community (IC) to further their missions"."
This fellow's a tool. He calls Facebook 'profoundly uncreative'. Ah yes, a service that's captivated 59 million citizens, of their own free will. Clearly profoundly uncreative. Besides that, one of his other articles is based on his efforts to give up e-mail; this guy is a jive turkey who doesn't comprehend, appreciate, nor utilize to his advantage progresses of modern technology.
As for the privacy concerns with Facebook, my question to any circumspect user is 'why would you post something sensitive on Facebook in the first place!?' I simply have my name and a couple of interests posted on the Facebook network, and use the thing to keep in contact with myriad characters I've met, who I otherwise would probably have never maintained contact with.
He seems to have forgotten to include the final reason he hates facebook.
"Because I didn't think of it."
Or, more broadly, he seems to dislike the poeple (and their personal politics) behind facebook a lot more than he dislikes the website. Here's betting if facebook had a hippie/commie "lets unite the world and sing cume-by-yah" board of directors, he'd be singing its praises as the savior of us all.
He would use too many words to do this as well.
This comes off as a little paranoid-conspiracy-theorist, but I agreed with the title anyway.
Before you start flaming me, yes I have a Facebook account... a relic from college. Currently debating deleting it, since I'm no longer finding value in having it, but for some reason I'm hesitant.
There is resistance to almost every new web application.
That's because very few new technologies make sense. But add in enough users, and enough money for the company to survive, and all of a sudden the benefits become self-evident, the most important of which are user-to-user interaction.
In 2004, facebook was a terrible way to share pictures or communicate with your friends. Nobody had heard of it. Users already had to login to AIM and check one yahoo, hotmail, home ISP, and school e-mail accounts.
But in 2008, with millions of users, Facebook is what everybody uses.
In the early years of the telephone, very few were available. What's the point of inventing new technology if you can only think of a few cases where people will use it? Right?
The author of this article missed a couple of school years apparently, because she doesn't quite know what she's doing. Someone who supports Ron Paul is not a neoconservative by any means. Why shouldn't there be a Republican response to MoveOn.org, and why is that inherently bad? What's wrong with looking into artificial intelligence?
The author obviously has never stepped into a science class, because she says "he calls the real world 'nature'" as if it's not true. Hello, this is nature just as trees are-- it's an eventual result of natural things. There is nothing in the world at this point that is not "natural."
I disagree with the view that facebook users exist to be spoon fed products from advertisers. The quote from the coca cola vice president is absurd:
"With Facebook Ads, our brands can become a part of the way users communicate and interact on Facebook".
Associating coke with the movies is a great idea because it's sold at the theater. Trying to associate the brand with my communication makes no sense at all. At best, the value is a bunch of random impressions.
A medium like facebook is more likely to promote quality products via happy customers ("free ads") than from advertising dollars.
This seriously reads like an op-ed from the DailyKos. His premise is poignant (Facebook knows too much), but then he dilutes his message by talking about neocons destroying reality. Politics aside, writing that sort of stuff just makes you look like a toolbox.
I don't understand or appreciate FaceBook that much, but this article bites. It's not like I like or dislike the web app because of the politics of the owner. And even if I did, perhaps I would let the owner speak for himself instead of listening to some elaborately constructed straw man argument!
Very poor rant. He could have made a much better case against the value of FaceBook to people in general instead of wandering all over heck and Georgia.
There's a lot of mistaken stuff on the web, but this article is interesting because it's an example of the sort of writing people could only get away with before the web: the house journalist who makes a show of having done some research, but doesn't really understand the stuff he's writing about.
"Why do I need a computer to connect with people around me?"
This could have been written about the phone in 1930 (I'm sure one could dig up all kinds of juicy things about the politics of the people "behind" AT&T) or printing in 1500.
"Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations."
Workstations? Who uses a workstation? Does this guy not realize that phones are connected to the Internet?
"On Facebook, you can be free to be who you want to be, as long as you don't mind being bombarded by adverts for the world's biggest brands."
What free web site is this not true of? The site on which this article appeared is running ads.
This article shows why bloggers are gaining readers and print journalists are losing them. A high school kid surveying the world from his bedroom could do better.