Facebook vs. "Pirates" are we being hypocritical?

[xxcloud417xx]

The thought just occurred to me about how people seem to condemn someone for something, yet defend or ignore other people doing the same thing. The comparison that came to mind was with the Social Media giant Facebook, versus torrent downloading sites that facilitate Peer-to-peer downloads of multimedia.

Where I compare the two is in privacy and security. We fault Facebook for the lack of this, saying they basically steal our photos and information, but then most of us will praise The Pirate Bay who essentially facilitates the transfer of different kinds of "stolen" information (be it games, music, movies, etc.)

Now, my stance on the matter is simply that I think we should have a free internet, I hear of legislature and even world leaders trying to censure the web and/or take down organizations like The Pirate Bay and Megauploads for example and it scares me, as it does many of you I'm sure. When we see poorly written legislature that seems to be setting bad precedents for online freedom of information it's a scary thing.

My point though, is shouldn't we be taking the good with the bad? Why try to uphold this "freedom" when we talk about TPB and then turn around and complain about Facebook needing to be taken to justice? Also, let's be completely honest here, if you haven't heard about Facebook's sketchy policies by now, you're one of the very, very few, so by now I'm sure you all know that if you want to avoid your info getting "stolen" by them just don't post any.

What are your thoughts on the matter? Do you guys think I'm completely off comparing Facebook and The Pirate Bay in this manner? Or do you agree that we need to just accept that a truly free internet won't just steal stuff from corporate interests but also from the average joe?

 

[DoPo]

Yeah. The two are different. Like totally different. I wanted to say how different they were but I realised I simply cannot, for the one thing they seem to have in common is "are on the internet". There is absolutely no way to claim a double standard here.

Sorry, I really can't go further than say "You're wrong because you're wrong", since it would take too much time and effort to go into it. Time and effort that would be wasted. I can probably point out the correct parts, if you wish, that would take way less time.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I think you're asking this on the wrong forum. This is one of the most notoriously -- even cartoonishly -- anti-piracy sites on the internet, largely thanks to the piracy rule which is worded so that you effectively can't argue in favor of it without getting the ban hammer.

However, to explain the apparent contradiction you've noted:

It's not hypocrisy, it's two unrelated issues. Facebook is an exercise in data mining. It makes its money from analyzing the habits of its users, and selling the data on it to other companies. The Pirate Bay and Megaupload are both sites you access anonymously. They don't care who's using the site, or what their habits are as long as they're using the site. Basically, it's a privacy issue, not so much a copyright issue.

 

[Esotera]

What pisses me off is how AV software attempts to censor free speech by marking websites as untrusted. I tried to visit torrentfreak (a news blog about copyright issues) on the family PC, and was told by McAfee that I shouldn't continue.

Anyway, when you upload your content to facebook, you transfer ownership of that material to them (I think). Either way, you must have some reasonable expectation that other people will be able to see your content for free when posting a photo/status. That is not always the case with other artists, which is why piracy could be considered wrong.

We do need more of a free culture though, starting with relaxing & reducing the length of copyright, pretty much abolishing patents, and adding a piracy tax to internet access & hardware that allows you to download whatever.

 

[FalloutJack]

SNIP

Very interesting, but since I don't use Facebook and, in fact, hate it...that means I am NOT jaded then, right?