If you fail to see the danger that a tool with the ability to search a network for such things as "Islamic men interested in other men, living in Tehran," a tool that can then display their place of work or other contact details (that they may have willingly ((yet unwittingly)) entered), in the hands of bullies, bigots or oppressive regimes then personally I feel you are similarly limited in your world experience to what the grandparent poster is accusing Zuckerberg of being.
Basically, it's one of two things:
1.) such incredible naiveté that, frankly: you require supervision
2.) such hideous cynicism, so deeply felt, that it represents, to my sensibilities, a form of evil
This thing is dangerous. The people to whom it poses danger are the ones least likely even to comprehend the danger imposed upon them.
I cannot see how you could defend such a thing.
BTW: decrying the state of HN when you feel personally ill at ease with the general feeling of the community is poor form and a very strong indicator of butthurt.
Here's a thought: If you live in a country where people are summarily executed for being gay, don't put "I'm gay" on a public website with your name on it.
YES people should be allowed to be gay in Tehran, and YES Facebook should help them with that - and they do: By not requiring you to enter your sexuality.
I don't live in Tehran, so I am privileged here - but if I put "I did tax fraud, I win!" on my public Facebook profile, and the tax authorities decided to investigate me, anyone suggesting that I didn't bring that upon myself, frankly required supervision. Even if I did it on my closed Facebook profile and a "friend" decided to report me, it's still not Facebook's fault.
> YES people should be allowed to be gay in Tehran, and YES Facebook should help them with that - and they do: By not requiring you to enter your sexuality.
Forget about being gay in Tehran. How about being gay in cyberspace?
It strikes me that you are of the belief that cyberspace ought to mimic life in meatspace directly. That one fixed identity should be all a person is entitled to.
What a waste of so many wonderful possibilities!
Cyberspace and the promise of a digital space in which to express abstract selves is something precious that is to be protected.
I believe this and I believe that exposing innocents to those running at a deficit of scruple for personal enrichment is evil.
> It strikes me that you are of the belief that cyberspace ought to mimic life in meatspace directly.
If it's a problem that Facebook uncovers someone who's gay in Tehran, then that is only because that persons cyberspace identity mimics his meatspace one. If the gay person in Tehran profile doesn't actually link up to a physical person in Tehran, then there's no added danger to anyone.
Maybe we missed each other... In my example I am talking about a man whose identity is necessarily hidden in meatspace due to an oppressive government.
Cyberspace allows him freedom from this oppression.
He is 'outed' in meatspace by his cyberspatial identities trough the irresponsibility of FB and himself, and all of the other none the wiser users enabled through this product to harm themselves.
This reminds me of gun control debate. The more features FB enables to dig deeper in the social graph, the more chances for people to shoot themselves in the foot.
Should we restrict guns so there are less accidents and murders with them, or should we trust personal responsibility, with the cost it goes attached? Is restricting even possible?
That's for you to decide, but a cost certainly exists.
An "Islamic gay man living in Tehran" in 1997 creates a web page and populates it with exactly the same personal information you are describing. Sometime later Google comes of age and indexes his site for the world to easily discover.
Do you feel that Google and Facebook are acting differently in this scenario, and if so, why?
I do. Primarily because Facebook caters to users with low technical ability and includes baked in privacy settings that are notoriously ambiguous and difficult to understand.
Facebook actively promotes an anti-privacy styled online presence.
Those with the skills to build a website in '97, along with the requisite metatags to allow for the type of indexing you describe can reasonably be expected to understand what they are doing.
Not so with Facebook.
Adding content to a webpage is a pro-active move. Vanilla Facebook with no security tweaks or other expert knowledge (by my understanding) leaves users wide open through no action on the part of that user.
Did anyone opt-in to being included in Graph Search results? If they knew what it was, would anyone do this?
It's an interesting question that you pose and I think there is definitely more to it but the answer above is from the top of my head. I will mull on it some more and add should I come up with anything further.
I built a website in or around '97 on geocities. You talk about metatags being required for indexing but I think you forget that the web was young once. Google had a voracious appetite to index and they still do.
The barrier to entry for someone to build a website in '97 wasn't much higher than it is now. Things just look prettier these days.
> such things as "Islamic men interested in other men, living in Tehran,"
Do you know what this search will return? "0 results". Because nobody who is gay in Iran is going to put the fact that they are interested in other men on their facebook.
Sorry, I should have added a final point that I made in another post: "Interested in" is not interpreted by everybody as "sexual attracted in". I'd be willing to bet that in Iranian culture, it's quite common to say you are interested in being friends with men, and it is not viewed as homosexual.
Bullies, zealots, and police are prone to misinterpreting words in the way which is most beneficial to THEIR ends, not yours. The kids denied entry into the US because they said they were going to "destroy" $CITY were a prime example of this, where "destroy" was local slang for "get drunk and party in $town".
Similarly, anyone looking to oppress gays will say, "He likes men. Why didn't he say he likes women? He must be gay." You can't argue what you really meant in a kangaroo court, or when a mob of angry villagers are throwing stones: it's too late by then.
Basically, it's one of two things:
1.) such incredible naiveté that, frankly: you require supervision
2.) such hideous cynicism, so deeply felt, that it represents, to my sensibilities, a form of evil
This thing is dangerous. The people to whom it poses danger are the ones least likely even to comprehend the danger imposed upon them.
I cannot see how you could defend such a thing.
BTW: decrying the state of HN when you feel personally ill at ease with the general feeling of the community is poor form and a very strong indicator of butthurt.