Is it acceptable to use proprietary software (platforms) to promote software freedom?

[Erik Albers]

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-Spiegel-Online
[2]
http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours

-- 
No one shall ever be forced to use non-free software
Erik Albers | Communication & Community Coordinator | FSFE
OpenPGP Key-ID: 0x8639DC81 on keys.gnupg.net