Articles like this appear pretty much every month. Anything from gay activists to artists to mainstream political parties have been subjected to Facebook's puritan censorship.
I find this argument hilarious, especially in this context.
> you can't just flagrantly break the law in other countries simply because yours believes differently
Facebook, and many American tech companies like it, have no problem breaking the law in other countries when it suits their bottom line. Primary battlefield: privacy rights.
> As much as Americans like to act like it, we can't enforce our ideals around the world
Facebook, and many American tech companies like it, enforce their puritan values around the world by fanatically censoring all kinds of harmless content (mostly, "boobies") on their services.
These companies are clearly willing and able to make both commercial and ideological choices with complete disregard for local laws and values.
What country's privacy laws are being broken again? Because I've not heard of it.
And your argument about enforcing their values around the world is enforcing THEIR values, not American ones. Yes, their values are influenced by their being American no doubt, but it's facetiously cynical to imply the two are related in any way, shape, or form.
> What would the world be like if contract/freelance/part time/short term work were the default?
It appears to be what we are moving towards, and so far it ain't looking pretty. Sure, "our kind of people" profit from it, but mostly workers are being ruthlessly exploited on a massive scale without the protection offered to employees in most civilized countries outside the US.
Repeating jokes without attribution has been the cultural norm for centuries. The whole notion of plagiarism and copyright and such are the recent inventions.
Thank good nobody cares, that just means that the intellectual property mafia hasn't indoctrinated us so much yet as to destroy any notion of a common culture.
I don't know if this was a typo or intentional, but I like it very much as an unobtrusive and religion-neutral substitute for "Thank God". I will probably use it in future (maybe even without attribution :-) ).
Extremely ironic that you post this in response to Google search results, which have become a prime example of choosing what's best for Google over what's best for the user after first decimating the opposition.
And so far still pays off nicely for Google, even though the results are getting shittier and more biased year after year.
The only lesson here seems to be "destroy your opposition first, before you start focusing on ruthless exploitation". Let's just hold off on drawing conclusions about SO until another decade.
I agree. I was a Google cheerleader for years (and still hold some GOOG, though one of these days I'll do some research and find a new company to move it to). But, I have lost a lot of trust in them. I use DDG for search, Firefox for browser, though I still have a lot of data at Google. But, in this case I don't think Google's behavior is misaligned with user interests or with those of SO.
People who've made bad technological choices and then claiming "technology doesn't matter" just because they fucked up are about as annoying as people who always want to use the latest new shiny toys.
You just made the wrong choices at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Period.
That doesn't say fuck all about the next guy who may have perfectly good reasons to either choose the next new bleeding edge shiny or go with tried and proven old tech.
The final sentence is the worst advice possible. Never, ever stop experimenting. Just properly separate experimenting from building.
And please stop lecturing other people because you can't keep that shit apart.
BY your logic I should be experimenting wit a load of NoSQL databases. Except I can see that in my situation they give me precisely zero benefit over a Postgres (except for some buzzwords on my CV). I can see that many of the NoSQL key value stores are not much different from a Perl hash tied to Berkley DB - I tried that 6 or 7 years ago - it can useful but fairly limited.
Especially in recent years I've encountered a growing number of entrepreneurs who proudly called their companies tech start-ups, but who had no affection for technology whatsoever.
But worse, they actively seemed to dislike the kind of people that do love tech, i.e. nerds, hackers, engineers and such. These were young kids, the stereotypical "cool" start-up founders, but the way they talked about engineers and engineering made you think you were talking to 50 year old pointy haired bosses with not an ounce of respect for technology.
And they keep saying completely the opposite, they keep saying "we love tech", and they actually seem to mean it. Except everything else they do or say indicates the opposite. They just like to use tech, but are completely uninterested in the process of developing tech.
These people aren't just greedy cunts who are in it for the money. These are people who have grown up in a world where consuming technology has become so normal and easy that they simply don't get that creating technology is a totally different process.
And I'm not yet sure whether these people should be avoided or educated.
Half of the companies that are routinely called tech startups these days don't have much to do with technology and engineering.
They want to be called tech startups, because tech is cool, and they have an app, because apps are cool, but their core business has nothing to do with tech.
What was called tech in 1995 used 1990s technology, pretty exciting at that time.
Whats called tech in 2015 generally means uses the same 1990s technology with some numerical metric improvements but nothing fundamentally unrecognizable by someone in the 90s, coupled with 2015 business model, 2015 financialization, 2015 art and styling, and 2015 marketing.
Unfortunately both types of companies are called tech. I think the author is basically bored with the 90s and wants 2010s technology jobs.
Wheres the companies doing 2015 tech in a 2015 company? Not, in general, in "tech".
I think my father in 1975 would have been pretty mystified by my 1995 desktop and programming. So you guys aren't running batched punchcards anymore, OK then. Object oriented derivative of C instead of cobol, interesting. WIMP GUI, very interesting despite unproductive. On the other hand imagine how bored someone from 1995 would be when introduced to 2015 desktop, after the initial irrelevant numerical surprises, which wouldn't even be a surprise despite every generation thinking they're the first to ever discover / appreciate Moore's law. Dominant corporate language is still a OO C derivative, although different, whatever. Tired old WIMP GUI still got the start button in the lower left corner, eh?
> we never let one country or group of people dictate what people can share across the world
That's even more hypocritical, given that Facebook itself enforces its own prudish values on the rest of the world by systematically censoring harmless and completely legal content because "omg, boobies!".
Zuckerberg saying "Je suis Charlie" makes me want to throw up. If there is one other force besides reactionary muslims that has a chilling effect on the freedom of expression and liberal values in progressive Western countries, it's the dominance of reactionary American tech companies like Facebook.
The reason why they don't care about whatever you think about the state of journalism is because it allows them to play you directly like a cheap fiddle, without the risk of any pesky journalists getting in the way.
QED.
The state of journalism may suck, but this airheaded attitude suggests it's merely trying to follow it's intended audience and failing.
People this shallow are not going to be reached with quality journalism, so please stop blaming others for your own shallowness and disinterest.
The "political process" isn't the media or the current crop of political parties, it's you. You switch off, it's 100% your problem.
Don't blame others for your own contribution to turning it into shallow entertainment.
It's become a bit of a running joke.