First, let me put some context on this before I get misunderstood. I am a full time computer programmer who specializes in server maintenance, app development, and general cross platform Java programming.
Some days I spend the day having a blast laughing at crazy paranoid conspiracy theorists talking out of their ass about how technology controls people like sheep and at their complete misunderstanding of what is profitable and what is even possible. Just because someone can do something does not mean they will. They must actually have a profitable reason for doing so in the first place.
With that out of the way, I also want to point out that not all of the crazy talk is ACTUALLY that crazy, some of it, sometimes, is actually founded in reality. For instance, I have black tape over the front camera on my phone because I morally object to advertisements physically looking at your reaction to ads, and yes, they actually do that, and no, they didn't ask your permission(well they did, if you read that 1000 page eula you just clicked accept on). It would also be sane to expect anyone to be able to exploit the functionality added for the benefit of those advertisers, so it would be foolish to only expect ads to be accessing your front facing camera without permission.
So to get back around to the reason I made this post, facebook. If you were to look up moral responsibility in the thesaurus, facebook would be listed as an antonym. What is even more twisted is all the ethical violations they do is not even necessarily relevant to 'can this idea make money', since the owner of the company sees facebook as having a 'greater purpose' than simply rolling in the money.
Don't get me wrong, Facebook cares about their money, and they wouldn't have a monopoly on social networking if they didn't, but it is Zuckerberg's purpose behind this ambition that I am referring to. He sees his purpose as being a pioneer into many studies that have not been possible before an entity such as facebook existed.
I would normally praise them for such a thing, however, not when the pursuit to fulfilling this purpose seems to reject all ethical consideration. This is because facebook has been used as a tool for studies in social behavior, a tool stronger than we have ever had. As great as that is, and I would totally be for it if they made sure people knew and agreed to it, but they don't go even close to far enough out of there way to do so.
One such study they did was research on the impact negative news has on someones behavior, if it would make them more negative, more positive, depressed, suicidal or whatever. Does anyone else find this completely and utterly unacceptable? People are not statistics, they are actual people with actual lives, made worse by experiments they didn't even know was being done to them.
They also give advertisers far too much power to target demographics in a far too precise manner. I don't want to get into it, but many people in the know know what that lead to, and how we will be paying for it for quite a number of years. The sheer shock in Zuckerberg's eyes talking about it says it all, but that shock I find insulting, as if he didn't have the moral backbone to think such things out before they backfired.
I am starting to rant now, but my point is that I have no facebook account, and as such, I am also unable to use a large percentage of the internet which requires facebook logins to use. Sometimes I feel like I am one of those creepy conspiracy theorists with how I go out of my way not to use facebook to my own detriment, but I feel I have good reason not to, and I wish there was a way I could express that to people without sounding like a conspiracy loon, because really, I am not. I am actually a social guy, and I had facebook for many years and myspace before that. I would completely use facebook to stay connected with friends and family if not for the way they treat people behind their backs. Maybe one day, someone will swoop in and do facebook better than facebook while respecting their users as human beings, and not lab rats.
