[napoleoncomplex]

The article author attempted to weasel himself out with that defence as well, but the nonsense of that argument was one of Moglen's main points. It's not just about you, it's about everyone in your network.

To quote it exactly: "You injure other people today also using social media. You’ve informed on them. You’ve created more records about them. You’ve added to the problems not of yourself but of other people. If it were as simple as just you’re only hurting yourself I wouldn’t bother pointing it out to you. See, that’s the difference, okay? The reason that this all works is that even when you know you’re hurting other people, you’re too selfish to stop. And there are hundreds of millions of people like you. That’s why it works."

[chernevik]

As a point of view, fine.

As a qualification for reporting / thinking / writing on the issue -- no.

Moglen is saying that before Betabeat can report, they must agree with him. Which ignores the possibility, remote as it may be, that Eben Moglen could be wrong about something. And, the implications of the example he sets for others.

Respect for freedom of speech is more than insistence on a constitutional norm. It is an attitude of respect for the possibility that you might be wrong even in your strongest beliefs. Such respect is our surest protection against absolutism.

Moblen may think his intransigence adds urgency to his message, and it has gotten him a forum this time. But even so he's deteriorating the culture of free speech and thought, and free-riding on the maintenance of that culture by the maturity of others.

[cookiecaper]

Right, but I disagree. "Everyone in my network" agrees to accept the "information" that I put out as them as a consumer, which is just making known that a relationship between us exists. If I'm not posting any personal information about anyone (including myself) and not tagging anyone in anything, this is the only information one gives to Facebook. I use an alias on Facebook so I am not even directly exposing my identity in their databases and the relationship they record is false, though clearly IP addresses could be used to link the alias to my real identity if a person were interested.

I have long been worried about the implications of friending everyone you know. If you have to go on the run, and everyone you've ever talked to for more than 15 minutes is listed on Facebook, you're not going to have many places to hide. I am "friends" with only a handful of people, mostly close family, which doesn't really expose any new relationships.