paxman

Yeah - back out gracefully Apple, while there is still time. Nobody would mistake the two nor does the pear shape in anyway diminish the value of the Apple logo. Total overkill. 

Facebook's attacks in Apple self serving? Whatever gave you that idea?? 

chasm said:

paxman said:

I actually like FB a lot. The essential idea of connecting people and all the thousands of special interest groups reminiscent of usenet are great. The tracking, the manipulation and selling of user data sucks big time. The former trumps the second for most people and for that reason regulation, oversight, transparency are all essential. FB probably should be turned into a public utility with no advertising and no user mining. A utility of the common good regulated for the common good, by public policy. I see no way a private company can self regulate. That never works.

Agreed with your comments but trying to nationalize FB will never fly in the US. What's ultimately going to need to happen (and I'm sadly doubtful this will ever pass Congress) is nothing short of a full-blown privacy amendment to the US Constitution -- something akin to Europe's GDPR but un-reversible -- before a public right to privacy on the internet (and related civil rights on the same general topic) will ever be recognized by the federal government.

Yeah, I agree nationalizing FB is unlikely to happen . At least not in the foreseeable future. It really ought to be though, like roads, the military, the US postal service and in my view healthcare should be. There are many services that have become almost essential to survival and it makes no sense that these should be controlled by private enterprise. Run by, perhaps, but not controlled by. And the public right to privacy should definitely be written into the constitution. 

I actually like FB a lot. The essential idea of connecting people and all the thousands of special interest groups reminiscent of usenet are great. The tracking, the manipulation and selling of user data sucks big time. The former trumps the second for most people and for that reason regulation, oversight, transparency are all essential. FB probably should be turned into a public utility with no advertising and no user mining. A utility of the common good regulated for the common good, by public policy. I see no way a private company can self regulate. That never works.

I am completely in favour of paying for content. In fact, if FB decided to stop collecting and selling data and instead decided to charge users1 USD per year, how much would they rake in. Plenty, I'm sure.