El Sun, Jul 23, 2017 at 07:03:41AM +0000, Evaggelos Balaskas deia:
Social media are now part of our life (I am not debating if they should or not), but diminish them to cat videos is a strong opinion.
Ok, careful. I remember a company once making me believe they didn't consider me a human being because I didn't use their products, and you could now end up making me believe you think I'm not alive (enough?) because I don't use social media. That could be a stronger opinion than whether facebook is about cats (which I didn't say as an absolute truth, just as a hint that sometimes people are not interested in some arguments, as in go count how many people in facebook is interested in cats, and how many in free software).
Then maybe you don't think part of the message should be not to use centralized proprietary social media. I'm just saying if part of what some organization says amounts to "don't use twitter" then the organization shouldn't use twitter to say it. If the organization is not saying this but something else, I already said my point made no sense.
What I mean is maybe we _should_ debate if social media should or not be part of our life (or which social media or whatever). And once there's a position on that it'll be easier to decide whether to use it.
90% of email is SPAM, should we stop using email? Lots of people have their email to a proprietary platform. Should we stop talk to them? Should we only talk to people who have similar ideas with us?
I think we should not do mass email campaigns to random people. It's not that we must not use email because SPAM exists. It's we should not send SPAM ourselves. And the organization shouldn't use proprietary mail software for their own accounts. If the organization mails get sent to the addresses interested people have provided and that gets forwarded to proprietary software, then so be it. It's not very different to posting original content to the organization's web and some person forwarding it to Facebook. I'm not suggesting to set up referer filters to try to stop accesses from there. I'm just sugggesting not having an account there for the group.
I believe that we should be reaching out to people that have different ideas from us and making arguments, discussions, talks on how free software and the culture that comes with is the only way for our society to be a better place for everyone.
I don't believe my ideas are so much better than other peoples that I must intrude on them to explain them to them. I may do if the conversation brings up the subject but I think in general I'm wasting my time and theirs if I just pick a random stranger and try to convince him/her of one of my ideas. It's better to talk to people who already share part of the principles and can tell me things I haven't thought or listen to things I have thought.
I'm just saying that if the message includes not using X, then going to X to tell people there they shouldn't be there is a bit useless. It's like going to the middle of a square and start shouting nobody should be in this particular square.
If you think "don't use X" is not what we should be saying, then it's perfectly fine to use X. But if part of the subjet is saying "don't use X", then we should say it while showing there are alternative ways of life that don't involve using X.
The fact that there are lots of people using X just means that it's likely that if what you do has any interest at all someone may forward it to X, without the organization ever helping X.
To make a point -plz bare with me for a moment- when everyone inside a group is telling each other that free software is awesome and we have to be a role model, my argument is to whom? To each other? How can we reach people from outside this utopian group?
We can argue Tails yes or Tails not, can't we ? It's still useful to talk between ourselves.
And I think:
1.- the organization not using a social media X does not mean the organizations messages can't reach X (if X management does not care to prevent it, in case it is centralized enough). It just means the organization does not spend time or face in X.
2.- there is people outside social media and not yet into free software who can be interested in free software (and this does not even have to be distinct from the audience before, some people live some time in social media and some time outside of it and you can reach them when outside).
3.- It's not about role models. It's just that when people get together and set up groups for some shared ideas, keeping to the ideas is useful to sustain the group. Otherwise it can end up as a group just for the group itself and nothing behind it and lose its interest. It's not about who is purest, it's about the collective action being coherent with shared ideas and let each member live their lifes as they want and can.
I remember having set up booths in the street for Software Freedom Day or the like. But even then I wasn't interrupting walkers by and telling them my story, I at least waited for someone to approach the booth and show some curiosity. And after some years the conclusion was the results weren't worth the effort even so. It was too random to be effective.
On 24/07/17 11:48, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
What I mean is maybe we _should_ debate if social media should or not be part of our life (or which social media or whatever). And once there's a position on that it'll be easier to decide whether to use it.
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace the words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
E.g.
"What I mean is maybe we _should_ debate if mass surveillance should or not be part of our life (or which mass surveillance or whatever). And once there's a position on that it'll be easier to decide whether to use it."
Do people agree that social media and mass surveillance are the same thing currently?
Hi,
Am 2017-07-24 um 14:14 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace the words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
an interesting point.
Should FSFE, for example, refuse to present itself at locations where surveillance cameras are present?
Reinhard
On 24/07/17 14:18, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Hi,
Am 2017-07-24 um 14:14 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace the words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
an interesting point.
Should FSFE, for example, refuse to present itself at locations where surveillance cameras are present?
A better analogy: locations that serve you free drinks as long as you take off all your clothes and sit in front of the surveillance camera
On July 24, 2017 2:24:31 PM GMT+02:00, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro wrote:
On 24/07/17 14:18, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Hi,
Am 2017-07-24 um 14:14 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace
the
words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
an interesting point.
Should FSFE, for example, refuse to present itself at locations where surveillance cameras are present?
A better analogy: locations that serve you free drinks as long as you take off all your clothes and sit in front of the surveillance camera
And that's why analogies are rarely useful. You get to a conclusion than doesn't make sense if you transfer it back to the initial context.
~nikos
On 24 July 2017 14:33:04 CEST, Nikos Roussos comzeradd@fsfe.org wrote:
On July 24, 2017 2:24:31 PM GMT+02:00, Daniel Pocock daniel@pocock.pro wrote:
On 24/07/17 14:18, Reinhard Müller wrote:
Hi,
Am 2017-07-24 um 14:14 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace
the
words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
an interesting point.
Should FSFE, for example, refuse to present itself at locations
where
surveillance cameras are present?
A better analogy: locations that serve you free drinks as long as you take off all your clothes and sit in front of the surveillance camera
And that's why analogies are rarely useful. You get to a conclusion than doesn't make sense if you transfer it back to the initial context.
But interchanging the words "social media" and "mass surveillance" is not an analogy, it is more like a synonym or a question of narrative.
Indeed.
I also agree with this.
As a subject for another topic, here are other analogies that don't quite work as we'd expect:
- "Non-free software is like slavery". However, it isn't, because the user still has the ultimate choice of not using the non-free software, no matter how much the switch will cost.
- "Software is absolutely equal to cooking recipe". However this doesn't work because who/what "consumes" the software is the computer, and it does so blindly (without questioning). Besides, when "consumed" there is no loss of that particular copy of the software, that is, that particular copy will still exist.
On 24 July 2017 15:05:51 CEST, Adonay Felipe Nogueira adfeno@openmailbox.org wrote:
Indeed.
I also agree with this.
As a subject for another topic, here are other analogies that don't quite work as we'd expect:
- "Non-free software is like slavery". However, it isn't, because the
user still has the ultimate choice of not using the non-free software, no matter how much the switch will cost.
- "Software is absolutely equal to cooking recipe". However this
doesn't work because who/what "consumes" the software is the computer, and it does so blindly (without questioning). Besides, when "consumed" there is no loss of that particular copy of the software, that is, that particular copy will still exist.
I often tell people that Skype is like a sausage, you wouldn't eat it if you knew what was inside.
Sorry, mail got stuck in my drafts but I think it's not send out yet
On 07/24/2017 03:12 PM, Daniel Pocock wrote:
I often tell people that Skype is like a sausage, you wouldn't eat it if you knew what was inside.
That's a nice comparison...
Well I'm still missing an equivalent alternative with a good compatibility between different software tools. Would like to have something with XMPP in the background but support of voice and video is still not working as good as commercial software... OK to be honest, right now I don't use software for video collaboration not even Skype but I know at least one person still booting windows to Skype because the Linux version is to far behind the windows release version...
Any suggestions?
Thanks Thomas
GNU Ring is P2P/distributed chat/text/video/audio/conferencing software, see: [[https://www.gnu.org/software/ring/]].
It might be "not that stable" yet, but at least they (GNU Ring) themselves got the initiative to seek inclusion inside GNU project, and often talk more about free/libre software than open source. :)
On 24.07.2017 14:14, Daniel Pocock wrote:
On 24/07/17 11:48, Xavi Drudis Ferran wrote:
What I mean is maybe we _should_ debate if social media should or not be part of our life (or which social media or whatever). And once there's a position on that it'll be easier to decide whether to use it.
Why don't we go through all the messages in this thread and replace the words "social media" with "mass surveillance"?
E.g.
"What I mean is maybe we _should_ debate if mass surveillance should or not be part of our life (or which mass surveillance or whatever). And once there's a position on that it'll be easier to decide whether to use it."
Do people agree that social media and mass surveillance are the same thing currently?
No and I think it does not help in this discussion. Because oOn one hand, there are social media platforms that are based on Free Software and I expect them to have more privacy-friendly features and design. Are you including them when you write "social media" or do you mean "facebook"?
On the other hand, the more open and accessible the content of a platform is (e.g. not having the need of an account to read it), I am sure, the more third-party data suckers constantly analyse their user data: who is posting what at what time from where to whom etc .... [1]
But still, this is not so special about "social media". It is the internet in general. And it also effects for example your email-exchange. There is a disturbing analysis by Benjamin Mako Hill who runs his own email-server but has to realise that more than 30% of all his emails come from google and more than 50% go to google [2].
So if I would need to agree on something it would be that internet is a tool of mass surveillance and it is not in particular a characteristics only for social media. Ads, cookies, social media, online forms, browsers and basically everything that is connected to the internet is used for surveillance. By states and by marketing companies.
Should we, however, take down our web-page for saving users from being tracked by third-parties (e.g. via their cookies) while they are browsing our web-pages? Or only offer a .onion-page for the savety of our users? I doubt this will help to get our message out.
These thoughts should in no way help whitewashing the manipulative, censoring and tracking behaviour of prominent non-free social media platforms. It should only make a point and hopefully help to avoid the risk of feeling save "as long as I do not use facebook or twitter".
Best regards, Erik
[1] for the German speaking readers, there is an interesting example in that David Kriesel turns this logic around and uses the collected meta-data of three years from a prominent German magazin to analyze which author is posting what at what time from where to whom etc .... https://archive.org/details/33C3-SpiegelMining-Reverse-Engineering-von-Spieg... [2] http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-...
On Tuesday 25. July 2017 14.56.55 Erik Albers wrote:
But still, this is not so special about "social media". It is the internet in general. And it also effects for example your email-exchange. There is a disturbing analysis by Benjamin Mako Hill who runs his own email-server but has to realise that more than 30% of all his emails come from google and more than 50% go to google [2].
It is true that communications are only secure if the endpoints are also secure. (Worth remembering when people talk about "uncrackable" encryption methods in the media, especially when device exploits exist but rarely mentioned in the same article.) So if the mail all ends up at Google in unencrypted form, then using such services obviously undermines privacy and provides a means of surveillance.
What the FSFE should probably be doing is helping people find alternative ways of managing their communications. This should also go beyond advocacy and actually cover the concrete steps people would need to take to adopt such alternatives. And upon realising that it can seem like an intimidating project for people not versed in technology, it should also involve facilitating projects that seek to reduce the complexity involved.
[...]
Should we, however, take down our web-page for saving users from being tracked by third-parties (e.g. via their cookies) while they are browsing our web-pages?
Are the FSFE Web pages serving up tracking cookies?
Paul
# Paul Boddie [2017-07-25 15:15 +0200]:
What the FSFE should probably be doing is helping people find alternative ways of managing their communications.
While we currently don't have a concrete campaign covering that, the FSFE is quite advanced in advertising Free Software social networks. For example, under almost every page on fsfe.org [1] there're privacy-friendly buttons to share this URL *directly* on one's Diaspora and GNU Social pod [2] – something even our North-American sister organisation didn't do yet in such a user-friendly way.
Best, Max
[1] e.g. https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170710-01.html [2] https://git.fsfe.org/max.mehl/share-buttons
On 25.07.2017 15:15, Paul Boddie wrote:
Should we, however, take down our web-page for saving users from being tracked by third-parties (e.g. via their cookies) while they are browsing our web-pages?
Are the FSFE Web pages serving up tracking cookies?
of course not. But many pages nowadays use cookies to scan past browsing history and to track further user-browsing even when users already left their pages. Together with the fact that many people never delete their cookies, these companies know exactly (and better than us), when you are visiting fsfe-pages (as well as any other page in the internet).
Best regards, Erik