<story><title>Facebook Blocks Internet Pioneer “R.U. Sirius”</title><url>http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2015/10/ru-sirius-facebook-ken-goffman.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habith</author><text>Excuse the poor pun but.. are you serious?&lt;p&gt;Facebook excluded several of your friends based on their terrible name policy. They run their walled garden however they want to. Your participation in it makes you (in your own words) a &amp;quot;peasant&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Yet, you&amp;#x27;re not trying to go all RMS about it and you continue to use it daily to give them more money&amp;#x2F;power?&lt;p&gt;Do you see anything wrong with this picture?&lt;p&gt;Say what you want about RMS, but at least he&amp;#x27;s principled and does&amp;#x2F;says what he thinks instead of conforming to social norms.</text></item><item><author>SwellJoe</author><text>Facebook has kinda chosen a path that sets them apart from, and often in active opposition to, the Internet RU Sirius envisioned. Facebook is antithetical to what a lot of folks wanted to see the Internet become, so it shouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprising that the early visionaries of the Internet find themselves being excluded from participation in facebook on their own terms. Participation in facebook is on facebook&amp;#x27;s terms, always, and it&amp;#x27;s not surprising when they&amp;#x27;re dicks who wield that power arbitrarily.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had several transgender friends excluded from participation in facebook based on this name policy, and I&amp;#x27;ve known a wide variety of other people who use odd names for a wide variety of reasons (some silly, some deadly serious like trying to hide from an abusive ex) who&amp;#x27;ve also been excluded from participation. Facebook makes pleasant noises about the policy and its implementation, but the reality is they&amp;#x27;re not doing this for us, for the good of the world, or for the good of the open Internet.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not trying to go all RMS about facebook; I have a facebook account, and I use it daily. But, facebook isn&amp;#x27;t the Internet I envisioned, either. It is just another petty little walled garden where we&amp;#x27;re all peasants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>scrollaway</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not reasonable to expect people to &amp;quot;just not use facebook&amp;quot;. Not that it&amp;#x27;s not possible - it is (and I don&amp;#x27;t use it), but it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean facebook can just do whatever. Reposting an old comment of mine:&lt;p&gt;For a lot of people, Facebook &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; &amp;quot;The Web&amp;quot;. That&amp;#x27;s all or almost all they use. The less tech-literate ones don&amp;#x27;t even know &amp;quot;the web&amp;quot;, they connect to Facebook. They get their news from Facebook. They communicate on Facebook. Everything they do online, they do on Facebook.&lt;p&gt;Like someone mentioned above, when you get big enough you start to have responsibilities. When your actions affect and your voice is heard by billions of people, you&amp;#x27;re no longer &amp;quot;some random privately-owned website&amp;quot;... you&amp;#x27;re a supergiant with the ability to affect the entire world.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook Blocks Internet Pioneer “R.U. Sirius”</title><url>http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2015/10/ru-sirius-facebook-ken-goffman.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>habith</author><text>Excuse the poor pun but.. are you serious?&lt;p&gt;Facebook excluded several of your friends based on their terrible name policy. They run their walled garden however they want to. Your participation in it makes you (in your own words) a &amp;quot;peasant&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Yet, you&amp;#x27;re not trying to go all RMS about it and you continue to use it daily to give them more money&amp;#x2F;power?&lt;p&gt;Do you see anything wrong with this picture?&lt;p&gt;Say what you want about RMS, but at least he&amp;#x27;s principled and does&amp;#x2F;says what he thinks instead of conforming to social norms.</text></item><item><author>SwellJoe</author><text>Facebook has kinda chosen a path that sets them apart from, and often in active opposition to, the Internet RU Sirius envisioned. Facebook is antithetical to what a lot of folks wanted to see the Internet become, so it shouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprising that the early visionaries of the Internet find themselves being excluded from participation in facebook on their own terms. Participation in facebook is on facebook&amp;#x27;s terms, always, and it&amp;#x27;s not surprising when they&amp;#x27;re dicks who wield that power arbitrarily.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve had several transgender friends excluded from participation in facebook based on this name policy, and I&amp;#x27;ve known a wide variety of other people who use odd names for a wide variety of reasons (some silly, some deadly serious like trying to hide from an abusive ex) who&amp;#x27;ve also been excluded from participation. Facebook makes pleasant noises about the policy and its implementation, but the reality is they&amp;#x27;re not doing this for us, for the good of the world, or for the good of the open Internet.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not trying to go all RMS about facebook; I have a facebook account, and I use it daily. But, facebook isn&amp;#x27;t the Internet I envisioned, either. It is just another petty little walled garden where we&amp;#x27;re all peasants.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>SwellJoe</author><text>I am human, and my flaws are many.</text></comment>