Mozilla: " We’re taking a break from Facebook"

[Paul Boddie]

On Friday 23. March 2018 14.40.58 Max Mehl wrote:
> 
> That said, I think the only purpose the FSFE's FB page currently serves
> is that 1. the name is taken to prevent hoaxers from imitating an
> "official" page, and 2. for people to find us if they – for whatever
> crazy reason – try to search us on this platform. Certainly, deleting
> the page won't educate anyone on this platform therefore.

If the only reason is to hold the name, maybe this policy should be clearly 
stated and absolutely no interaction performed via Facebook.

However, I personally think that by even having a presence the organisation 
legitimises Facebook. One could compare it to a country having an embassy in a 
country it doesn't or shouldn't recognise, although there are things like 
unofficial embassies and cooperation between nations with regards to helping 
out citizens who decided (against all advice) to go to such places.

One thing I also wonder about is how the FSFE can prevent hoaxers when, like 
the domain name system but without even the limited transparency around that, 
people could probably just create presences like "TheRealFSFE", 
"OfficialFSFE", "FSFE_Official" and so on.

Also, what terms and conditions apply to the FSFE when having a presence on 
Facebook? If people "like" FSFE on Facebook, what effect does that have on 
those people's privacy?

> Facebook by no means is used as a primary or official communication
> channel. If you take a look at the FSFE's presence on GnuSocial or
> Diaspora you will see what our preferences are ;)

The FSFE is also present on LinkedIn, as far as I remember, and I regard that 
service in a similarly negative way, in the sense that it is effectively a 
data-mining exercise for some division of Microsoft.

Paul